Applications

The DIGITAL ANALOGS Knowledge System allows users to acquire critical knowledge, information and data for their E&P decisions in exploration, development and production. Its interactive knowledge platform allows users to retrieve the field and reservoir analog reports that they need, through the powerful and easy-to-use menu-driven, multi-criteria search engine and graphic searching capability. Application of the DIGITAL ANALOGS Knowledge System means risk reduction in exploration and production. The following summarizes some of the key applications:

Generating New Exploration Ideas

“We usually find oil in new places with old ideas. Sometimes, also, we find oil in an old place with a new idea, but we seldom find much oil in an old place with an old idea” (Dickey, P.A., 1958, Tulsa Geological Society Digest, v. 26, p. 84).

Using subsurface geological analogs is a simple yet powerful and cost-effective technique for generating new exploration ideas in both frontier and mature basins. Even though no two traps are ever identical, their key elements are comparable within and between basins, and may be assessed from knowledge obtained in successful or failed exploration ventures worldwide. The DIGITAL ANALOGS Knowledge System provides the most efficient platform and diverse field and reservoir analogs for users to develop new ideas and apply established ideas in new places.

Reservoir and field analogs from the DIGITAL ANALOGS Knowledge System can be used to develop and calibrate ideas before acquiring expensive data in a new exploration area. By using the DIGITAL ANALOGS Knowledge System, a comprehensive understanding of the regional geology, petroleum system, trapping mechanisms, reservoir characteristics, and key production and engineering issues can be obtained instantly for the new area. Having rapidly attained an overall understanding of the new area’s petroleum system, a user can quickly cast a global net to find field/reservoir analogs that share a similar geologic context and represent exploration ideas/plays that have not yet been applied to the area of interest. By using the DIGITAL ANALOGS Knowledge System, a range of analogous play concepts, trap types, reservoir targets, key controlling parameters and potential risk factors become immediately available. Such information and knowledge can be applied to generate new exploration ideas.

In areas where ideas have been exhausted, the DIGITAL ANALOGS Knowledge System can be used to search for prospects and play ideas that have not been tested. The application of successful play analogs can guide explorationists in revitalizing old areas by applying new thinking.

Mature basins may contain horizons previously ignored because of high exploration risks or prohibitive costs. Through use of the DIGITAL ANALOGS Knowledge System, a quick comparison with analogs in similar geologic settings can help convert these bypassed zones into exploration opportunities.

Reserve Estimate for Exploration Prospects

Geoscientists need a confident basis for various parameters required for reserve estimate of exploration prospects. In areas where data are sparse, such reserve estimation becomes challenging. However, by interrogating the DIGITAL ANALOGS Knowledge System, a user can quickly acquire a range of parameters for specific types of prospects around the world. Through comparing and searching the wide range of reservoir parameters in the DIGITAL ANALOGS Knowledge System, a user can quickly obtain the distribution of those parameters that are commonly used for reserve estimate:

• Trap type, vertical closure, field area and associated hydrocarbon column height
• Reservoir depositional environment and associated lithology, reservoir thickness, net/gross ratio, porosity and permeability, and water saturation
• Fluid type, gas/oil ratio, formation volume factor and recovery factors
• Typical reserve size distribution

These parameters can help explorationists reduce risk in reserve estimation and calibrate their prospects against global reality. Any anomaly in reserve estimation can be easily identified and highlighted for further analysis and justification.

Exploration Risk Reduction

The DIGITAL ANALOGS Knowledge System provides a large number of examples with extensive coverage of geologic and engineering parameters that can be applied in the assessment of risks. These parameters can be compared and contrasted with respect to particular types of basins, source rocks, fluids, traps, seals and reservoirs. The distribution of those parameters gives users an insight into the implied risk of specific aspects of a prospect. Distribution of geologic and engineering parameters can be easily obtained using the interactive Histogram and Cross-plot tools of the DIGITAL ANALOGS Knowledge System.

Exploration Portfolio Calibration and Normalization

The extensive coverage of subsurface analogs in the DIGITAL ANALOGS Knowledge System allows users to compare successful cases against prospects in their exploration portfolio. This comparison enables users to recognize and reduce potential interpretation bias on a number of prospect parameters, such as play type in certain geological settings, hydrocarbon column for certain trap types, net/gross ratio for specific types of depositional environment, recoverable reserves and recovery factors for certain types of reservoir and fluid properties, and the risks associated with source rock, trap, sealing and reservoir. DIGITAL ANALOGS Knowledge System provides an internally consistent classification system and real analog cases that users can access to standardize and optimize their prospect evaluation and exploration portfolio management.

Field Development Planning and Optimization

During the process of field development planning, there are many uncertainties regarding the potential performance of a field, particularly in the early stages where few wells have been drilled due to high drilling costs ( in the deep-water environment, for example). Various scenarios produced by reservoir simulation provide concepts from which these uncertainties can be reduced. An alternative and supporting approach is to use the DIGITAL ANALOGS Knowledge System to compare analog fields having similar reservoir and fluid types, pressure, water depth, drive mechanism and other technological challenges. Critical field/reservoir analogs provide not only ideas but also quantitative analysis to help in development planning and production optimization. This can help E&P companies reduce the risks of over- or under-estimating production rates and recoverable reserves. Many potential production problems can also be recognized early in the development phase through use of analogs, thus allowing appropriate data gathering and mitigation scenarios to be planned for and initiated.

Reservoir Performance Benchmarking

For any major investment decision (e.g., new field development plan, infill drilling or EOR process), subsurface staff routinely predict key performance outcomes, such as recovery factor, reserves per well, initial stabilized well flow rates. Reservoir performance benchmarking provides an independent assessment of the reasonableness of such predictions by comparing and sense-checking the field's performance or performance promises with performance of mature producing fields within or outside a company. Any apparent anomalies that are revealed must be explained and accounted for before any investment decision is made. The pace and appraisal costs for future deepwater development require analogs to provide the necessary assurance. To avoid unpleasant surprises it is essential to benchmark the performance predictions for these new reservoirs again what has been achieved in the past from similar reservoirs.

Production Enhancement

Improving hydrocarbon recovery is a global challenge for today’s E&P companies. A key element in this endeavor is the improvement of recovery factors through the correct choice of EOR techniques. The DIGITAL ANALOGS Knowledge System can help managers and engineers refine their choice of secondary or tertiary recovery methods by quickly finding the most appropriate reservoir management or production enhancement strategy for their field of interest. A typical application of the DIGITAL ANALOGS Knowledge System consists of finding all fields that share a similar set of geological and engineering parameters and that have gone through secondary and tertiary recovery production stages. The performance of production enhancement cases can be readily retrieved and reviewed. With lessons learned from these analog fields, engineers can quickly discover the most effective production enhancement methods and estimated performance for their candidate fields.

Field Redevelopment Screening

The DIGITAL ANALOGS Knowledge System can also be used for screening candidate investment opportunities in mature or even abandoned fields with a low recovery. Specific technologies, such as horizontal and multilateral drilling, underbalanced drilling or gravity-assisted thermal recovery, may be applied to reservoirs with matching geological and engineering parameters obtained from analog fields. Furthermore, the DIGITAL ANALOGS Knowledge System can help develop field rejuvenation ideas from lessons learned from field redevelopment worldwide.

Please contact us if you need our assistance in your E&P efforts using analogs in general or our DIGITAL ANALOGS Knowledge System in particular. We appreciate your sharing with us your experiences with subsurface analogs in your E&P workflow. Please send your comments to support@ccreservoirs.com.

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