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Well Test Manual 1

Section 2

About Petroleum
Table of Contents
Introduction 2-1
Objectives.. 2-2
What is petroleum. 2-3
History of Oil 2-3
Where will you find Oil 2-7
Oil and Gas Migration 2-8
Reservoir Rocks 2-8
Oil Traps.. 2 - 11
Porosity and Permeability 2 -12
How to find Oil 2 -13
Reservoir Technology 2 -15

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Introduction
The section contains information on the History and origin of oil and gas

Objectives
After completing this section, you should be able to

Know about the formation of oil.

Know where you will possibly find it.
Know how companies use technology to find oil.
Know the types of reservoirs.
Know a little of how they drill for oil.
Know different methods of bringing oil to the surface.

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ABOUT PETROLEUM

What is Petroleum
There are many theories as to the origin or of petroleum, but the most widely
accepted is the Organic Theory.

Petroleum is a fossil fuel. It is called a fossil fuel because it was formed from the
remains of tiny sea plants and animals that died millions of years ago. When the
plants and animals died, they sank to the bottom of the oceans. They were buried
by thousands of feet of sand and silt.

Over time, this organic mixture was subjected to enormous pressure and heat as the
layers increased. The mixture changes chemically, breaking down into compounds
made of hydrogen and carbon atoms hydrocarbons. Finally, an oil-saturated rock -
much like a wet household sponge was formed.
All organic material does not turn into oil. Certain geological conditions must exist
within the oil-rich rocks. First, there must be a trap of non-porous rock that prevents
the oil from seeping out, and a seal (such as salt or clay) that keeps the oil from
rising to the surface. Even under these conditions, only about 2% of the organic
material is transformed into oil.
A typical petroleum reservoir is mostly sandstone or limestone in which oil is trapped.
Oil in it may be as thin as gasoline or as thick as tar. It may be almost clear or black.
Petroleum is called a nonrenewable energy source because it takes millions of years
to form. We cannot make more petroleum in a short time.

History of Oil
People have used naturally available petroleum since ancient times, though they
didnt know how to find it. The ancient Chinese and Egyptians burned oil for lighting.
Before the 1850s, Americans often used whale oil for light. When whale oil became
scarce, people began looking for other oil sources. In some places, oil seeped
naturally to the surface of ponds and streams. People skimmed this oil and made it
into kerosene. Kerosene was commonly used to light Americas homes before the
arrival of the electric light bulb.

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As demand for kerosene grew, a group of businessmen hire Edwin Drake to drill for
oil in Titusville, Pennsylvania. After much hard work and slow progress, he
discovered oil in 1859. Drakes well was 69.5 feet deep, very shallow compared to
todays wells.
Drake refined the oil from his well into kerosene for lighting. Gasoline and other
products made during refining were simply thrown away because people had no use
for them.

In 1892, the horseless carriage, or automobile, solved this problem, since it required
gasoline. By 1920, there were nine million motor vehicles in America alone, and gas
stations were opening everywhere. This of course meant that oil wells sprung up
everywhere to ease the demand for gasoline.

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Brief History of the UK North Sea Oil and Gas Industry

Long dismissed by many as a potential source of oil or gas, the North Sea has, over
the last four decades, become the centre of one of the worlds most productive
energy industries. Gas was first found in quantity in the Groningen area of The
Netherlands in 1959. This was followed by the first British discovery of gas in the
West Sole field, off the coast of East Anglia, by the BP jack-up drilling rig Sea Gem,
late in 1965.

The excitement of the first British North Sea gas was overshadowed almost
immediately when, only days later, on Boxing Day, the Sea Gem capsized with the
loss of thirteen lives. This was an early reminder of the danger of the North Sea as
an environment to work in.

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The British industry in the Southern North Sea grew rapidly in the early years. The
deepening economic crisis in the UK meant that there was enormous pressure on
the industry to get gas, and later, oil flowing. For the oil and gas producers, there
were great profits to be made. British self-sufficiency in oil and gas, hitherto an
impossible dream, was becoming a possibility.

Indeed, as exploration and investment moved further north, it became clear that
there was oil to be found in great quantities. However, it was not until 1975 that a
small entrepreneurial American company, Hamilton Brothers working in the Argyle
field, brought the first British oil ashore, to followed very soon after by BP in the
massive Forties field.

Discoveries of oil grew in number as more companies, British, European and

American, took out leases on sectors of the North Sea. By the mid-1980s there were
over one hundred installations. Through extraordinary technological innovation and
human effort and sacrifice millions of barrels were being produced every day. An
oil and gas bonanza had occurred.

By the early 1980s Britain had become a net exporter of oil, and by the mid-1990s of
gas.

Two of the key centres of the industry have been the Great Yarmouth/Lowestoft
area, centre of operations for the Southern North Sea gas industry, and
subsequently, Aberdeen, now regarded as the oil capital of Europe. Among other
centres to have been central to the success of the industry have been the northern
isles of Orkney and Shetland. The development of the Flotta and Sullom Voe
terminals was critical to the success of the northern fields.

Concerns that safety was not a high enough priority in the race for oil and gas, was
apparently confirmed by the Piper Alpha disaster of 1988. In this, the worst disaster
in the North Sea, 167 men died.

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The destruction of the largest and most prolific platform on the North Sea led to a
major public enquiry under Lord Cullen and to a major review of safety procedures
and standards.

During the 1990s, like the rest of the world, the North Sea was vulnerable to the
fluctuation of world oil prices. Nevertheless production grew and peaked around
2000/1. Now, the North Sea is regarded as a mature province on a slow decline.
However, thanks to ever more sophisticated technology, important amounts of oil
and gas could be drawn for anything up to 50 years. New discoveries are still being
made and the industry is now well established west of Shetland in the Atlantic.

WHERE WILL YOU FIND OIL

When tiny organisms die, they sink to the bottom of the sea and are mixed with mud
and silt. Over time, hundreds of feet of mud containing the organisms accumulate.
Bacteria removes most of the oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur, leaving
mainly hydrogen and carbon. Lack of oxygen keeps the animals and plants from
decaying completely.
The partially decomposed organisms create a slimy mass, which is then covered
with layers of sediments. Many sediments are tiny particles that come from the
breakdown of larger rocks, usually by weathering. Over millions of years, many
layers of sediment pile on top of the once-living organisms. The weight of the
sediment compresses the mud into a fraction of its original thickness.
When the depth of burial reaches about 10,000 feet, heat, time and pressure turn the
organisms into different types of petroleum.
Higher temperatures usually produce lighter petroleum. Lower temperatures create a
thick material, like asphalt. As the heat continues to alter the substances, gas is
often produced. Depending on how much gas is present, sometimes it will stay
mixed with the oil and sometimes it will separate. At temperatures above 500
degrees Fahrenheit, the organic matter is destroyed and neither oil nor gas is
formed.

The mud and silt become more and more compressed and turn into a rock known as
shale. As the mud is being compressed into shale, the oil, gas and saltwater are
squeezed out. The fluids move from the original rock, known as the source rock, to a
new rock, called a reservoir rock.
It is economically unfeasible for humans to extract oil and gas unless worthwhile
amounts are trapped in reservoirs. Many people assume petroleum is contained in
underground hollow cavities, or lakes. In truth, an oil reservoir is a rock with many
pores which hold petroleum, much like a sponge holds water.

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OIL AND GAS MIGRATION

Oil and gas moves away or migrates from the source rock. Migration is triggered
both by natural compaction of the source rock and by the processes of oil and gas
formation. As hydrocarbon chains separate from the kerogen during oil and gas
generation, they take up more space and create higher pressures in the source rock.
The oil and gas move through the minute pores and cracks in the source rock and
then into rocks where the pressure is lower. Migration is a slow process with oil and
gas traveling perhaps only a few kilometers over a million years.

RESERVIOR ROCKS
Igneous Rocks
Igneous Rocks are formed when molten rock (magma) cools and solidifies, either
below the surface as intrusive or on the surface as extrusive. Igneous rocks make
up approximately ninety five percent of the upper part of the Earths crust, but their
great abundance is hidden on the Earths surface by a relatively thin but widespread
layer of sedimentary and metamorphic rocks. These rocks form the barrier to trap
hydrocarbons below the ground. Igneous rocks can be of many types common to
these are Granite and Basalt.

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Sedimentary Rocks.
These rocks are formed in three main ways, by the deposition of the weathered
remains of other rocks (known as clastic sedimentary rocks), by the depositions of
the results of biogenic activity and by precipitation from solution. Sedimentary rocks
include common types such as limestone and sandstone. Sedimentary rocks often
form porous and permeable reservoirs in sedimentary basins in which petroleum and
other hydrocarbons can be found.

Metamorphic Rocks
Metamorphic rocks are formed from other sedimentary deposits by alteration under
great heat and/or pressure. Examples of metamorphic rocks are;
Marble - metamorphosized limestone.
Hornfeld - converted from shale or tuff.
Gneiss - similar to granite but metamorphically consolidated.
Oil and gas are not usually found in igneous or metamorphic rocks as both are so
non-porous that hydrocarbons can not accumulate or be extracted from them. The
few exceptions are when hydrocarbons have seeped from near-by sedimentary
formations through cracks and fractures.

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A reservoir rock must be able to contain oil, gas and water, which are the reservoir
fluids. Pores in the reservoir rock are first filled with saltwater from the sea. When oil
and gas flow into the rock, some of the water is displaced. However, not all of the
water is forced out. Therefore, oil drillers usually find water with high concentrations
of oil and gas.
Oil and gas travel through pores of the reservoir rock, with the help of water, until
they reach an impermeable layer of rock through which they cannot pass. Shales are
the most common impermeable rock.

Gas

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OIL TRAPS
Oil traps usually form because of rock movements deep within the Earths surface.
Over many years, rock formations break and slide, causing spaces where petroleum
is trapped. The most common type of trap is an anticline, where rocks are pushed up
to form a dome. Oil and gas might lie in reservoir rock just under the top of the dome,
which is capped by an impermeable layer of rock.

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Another common type of trap is the fault trap, which is formed by a fault, or fracture,
of the layers of rock. The rock on one side of the fault sometimes slips down so that
a porous reservoir rock is next to a nonporous rock formation. This creates a seal,
and the petroleum is trapped.
When salt or other form of intrusion forces up through the strata to form various
types of plug and dome etc.
The formation of unconformity formations relies on the erosion of inclined formation
which has more recently been covered up with a impenetrable overlying layer.
Lenticular reservoirs, where the permeability of an oil bearing formation changes
from average value to zero. This can take the form of many different occurrences,
Shale deposits in the formation and pinch-outs.
Now that the oil has been cooked, moved and trapped, it will stay there until rock
formation movement causes a change in its surroundings, or until humans decide to
drill a well in that spot.

POROSITY/PERMEABILITY
A pore is a small, open space in a rock. A rocks porosity is the ratio of pore
volume to total volume and is expressed as a percentage.

The shapes of sediments affect the porosity of a rock. Generally, sediments are not
perfectly round, but occur in many shapes. Sediment size and how closely
sediments are packed also are variables. The third factor that determines a rocks
porosity is the amount of material that precipitated from seawater and accumulated
in the pores. A porosity of 5 to 20 percent is usually considered average for
sedimentary rocks.

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If the pores are connected, the rock is said to be permeable.

Permeability is the ease with which a fluid can move through a porous rock.
Sandstone is the most porous and permeable of the sedimentary rocks. Thats why
much of the worlds oil and gas occurs in sandstone. Carbonate rocks such as
limestone and dolomite are also good reservoirs for oil and gas.

HOW TO FIND THE OIL

Most of the money spent by the petroleum industry in exploring for oil is used for
geophysics (the physics of the earth, including seismology, gravity and magnetics,
among others). Geophysics provides techniques for imaging the subsurface (seeing
below the ground) before drilling, and this can be key in avoiding dry holes.

Gravity Survey

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Magnetic Survey

Not realized by the general public is that most of the holes drilled are dry and do not
yield commercial oil or gas. Locating an oil and gas reservoir (a place where a great
amount of oil and gas has collected) and drilling oil and gas wells is very expensive
(offshore wells can cost $15 million or more; in fact, some offshore platforms cost
more than $4 billion). Thats why it is so important to utilize state-of-the art
exploration and production technologies to keep costs as low as possible.

ConocoPhillips, for example, deploys one of the worlds largest and fastest
supercomputers, a Cray T3D/1350 system, to process seismic data and to produce
accurate images that identify the best location and trajectory for drilling wells.

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In complex regions like the North Sea and Gulf of Mexico, advanced 3-D seismic
imaging (producing an image in three dimensionswidth, length and depthof an
area beneath the earths surface or ocean floor) has played a key role in locating
wells and in reducing finding and development costs. With the aid of its
supercomputer, ConocoPhillips has overcome some of the worlds most difficult
seismic and engineering challenges in hostile environments.

GEOSERVICE AND RESERVOIR TECHNOLOGY

Oil companies realize the importance of research and development, commonly

referred to as R&D. A significant part of a Companies Corporate Technology/R&D
Division, for example, is the Geoscience and Reservoir Technology Group, an
organization that includes expertise in geophysical, geological and petrophysical
areas and drilling engineering, reservoir engineering, improved oil recovery
technology (IOR) and production engineering.

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