Exploring for deep-water
plays tops the agenda of many E&P companies
because it offers unrivalled potential
for new reserves in under-explored or unexplored
basins. Potentially large field size and
superior sand quality, reservoir connectivity
and well performance are the key factors
that encourage oil companies, both large
and small, to attempt deep-water exploration.
At the same time, deep-water plays also
pose significant technical challenges and
risks that undermine their upside potential.
Key exploration issues are often tied to
the unproven source rocks, prediction of
sand fairways and sand-body connectivity
and continuity. High drilling and development
costs raise the economic threshold to a
point that only the largest prospects can
be drilled. Once a discovery is made, reservoir
delineation, development strategy, choice
of EOR techniques, and the optimum number
and type of wells needed to drain the reservoir
all impact the bottom line of the project
and are critical for smaller marginal discoveries.
C&C Reservoirs has so far completed 110
deep-water reservoir case studies. Each case
study is presented in a comprehensive reservoir
evaluation report that covers exploration
history, basin evolution and petroleum systems,
structure, trap mechanism, stratigraphy,
depositional facies, reservoir architecture,
rock and fluid properties, development strategies,
reserves and production, recovery mechanism,
reservoir management and EOR techniques.
These fields come from more than 30 basins
worldwide, and nearly half are in present-day
deep-water settings. Here, “deep-water” denotes
the environment of deposition of the reservoir
and not the bathymetry of the present-day
field location.
In 2004, C&C Reservoirs
completed its E&P
TREATISE
on Deep-water Reservoirs—Exploration
and Development, which is based on these
deep-water case studies integrated
with public-domain data. Taking a largely
empirical approach, the TREATISE
presents a global analysis of the key
geological and hydrocarbon production
characteristics of deep-water siliciclastic
reservoirs. It is intended as an aid
to decision-makers, explorationists,
development and production geologists,
and reservoir engineers.
The
TREATISE
initially considers the exploration
and development aspects of deep-water
reservoirs from a global perspective.
Then, it focuses on exploration and
reservoir characteristics of deep-water
reservoirs within three principal basin
types—passive margins, transform
margins and intracontinental basins—covering
exploration histories and technologies,
basin development, petroleum systems
and traps, the nature of deep-water
depositional systems, and reservoir
characterization aspects, including
seismic expression, depositional processes
and facies, reservoir architecture and
development implications. Seismic characterization
in the Gulf of Mexico and the North
Sea is given detailed treatment, with
a catalogue of synthetic seismograms
generated from 28 discovery wells. The
TREATISE
concludes with a review of development
and production aspects of conventional oil,
heavy oil and gas/gas-condensate fields,
respectively, concentrating on those
in present-day offshore locations.
The TREATISE
on Deep-water Reservoirs—Exploration
and Development is now available digitally
on CD-ROM and in Web-deliverable format.
[view
outline]
|
