E&P Notes (September 2016)
Authors: Jacobs Trent , Rassenfoss Stephen , Whitfield Stephen 
Published: January 2017

E&P Notes

3D Printing Reservoir Rocks May Drive New Insights

Trent Jacobs, JPT Senior Technology Writer

Researchers at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, are building replica core samples using 3D printers and installing sensors inside them as they go. Their goal is to directly monitor pore-scale flow behavior from the inside of these so-called “smart rocks.”

The project was intriguing enough to be awarded a 5-year, EUR 3-million grant by the EU’s research and innovation program. Out of 1,900 applicants this year, only 16 proposals were given the funding.

Mercedes Maroto-Valer, a professor and director of the university’s Energy Academy, is leading the project, which began by looking for new techniques that could push the boundaries of what scientists know about how fluids flow through reservoir rocks. She said that to her knowledge, no one has ever tried this approach before.

 

Better, Less Tedious, Fault Interpretation

Stephen Rassenfoss, JPT Emerging Technology Senior Editor

The tedium of identifying small faults in often murky seismic images pushed Dustin Dewett, an associate geophysicist for BHP Billiton, to develop a better way to use the tools at hand. The method, which he calls spectral similarity, combines software used by large oil companies in a novel way to create clearer, more accurate images of faults.

The result makes a “time-consuming and tedious task that is punctuated by moments of complexity and difficulty” easier and more useful, according to a technical paper describing the method published in Interpretation (February 2016), a journal jointly published by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and the Society of Exploration Geophysicists.

The motivation came from a 3-month assignment, working with a geologist to describe hundreds of faults from a sample of an unconventional formation where the company was planning a pilot project. As a geophysicist, Dewett was familiar with what others had done to improve fault imaging, and thought he could adapt those tools to automate this manual process.

 

Saudi Aramco Initiative Simplifies Real-Time Data Processing

Stephen Whitfield, Staff Writer

As the drilling industry improves its efforts to capture drilling operation activities in real time, it has generated a significant amount of data that drilling engineers cannot process on their own. With this in mind, companies are now seeking to utilize real-time data through new databases and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms that can help them process data points and make better decisions, an expert said.

In a webinar, “Drilling Real Time Prediction Environment in Saudi Aramco,” hosted by the SPE Drilling Uncertainty Prediction Technical Section, Salem Gharbi discussed the challenges Saudi Aramco faced while designing and building the infrastructure for its “Drilling Ahead of Bit” initiative. Gharbi is a petroleum engineering systems analyst with the company.

The initiative was established to develop an advanced engineering system that monitors, analyzes, and interprets real-time drilling data that may be useful in mitigating potential drilling issues such as borehole instability, stuck pipe, or a low rate of penetration. The architecture for each model centers on a processor that contains a quality control/quality assurance (QA/QC) function and components that help convert the data into a model-compatible format. The processor then sends the reformatted data to the relevant model.

 

Boosting Shale Fracability With Positive Ions

Trent Jacobs, JPT Senior Technology Writer

A long-time energy industry executive and chemical engineer has built a new water treatment system that he says can increase recovery rates from shale wells without using chemicals and will recycle all the water used in the process.

“The trick is to use a high concentration of positive ions—it changes the characteristics of the shale,” said Joe Munisteri, founder and president of MBL Industries.

He explained that his electromagnetic technology will flood fracturing water with an excess of positively charged particles and selectively trigger a reaction with the shale’s calcite minerals—transforming them into a much more brittle mineral called aragonite. Munisteri believes this altered state will open up calcite-sealed natural fractures and other pathways to allow oil and gas to flow freely.