Deep Water Clastic Reservoirs
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Deep Water Clastic Reservoirs Course
Introduction:
The objective of this workshop is to explore the petroleum engineering and reservoir modeling aspects of deepwater clastic reservaoirs. The class is presented by a team consisting of a production geologist, a reservoir engineer and a sedimentology involved in deepwater reservoir development. The discussion highlights the linkage from depositional processes to geological architecture and flow heterogeneity in development planning.
Course Objectives:
On completion of this course, and after application of the learning’s from the course in their projects, participants will have attained overall Skilled Application Competency Level in the reservoir modelling/simulation and petroleum engineering aspects of deepwater clastic systems.
At overall participants completing this course will be able to:
- Assess the genetic processes which produce slumps, slides, debrites and high/low-density turbidites, and explain why the concept of confinement underpins the description of heterogeneity in deepwater clastic systems.
- Evaluate the extent to which pay is under/over-estimated in mud-rich/sand-rich systems, respectively, and the resulting errors in STOIIP and PI estimation.
- Organize a detailed sedimentological description into key reservoir elements and build an architectural model using those elements.
- Assess the basic principle of flow in porous media (Darcy) and describe how flow heterogeneity varies in layered and amalgamated clastic systems (Stiles, stable/unstable\ displacement, critical heterogeneity for flow bypassing).
- Appraise the contrasting heterogeneities in the sand- and mud-rich systems and determine how much detail is required in a reservoir description based on a consideration of fluid type and production mechanism.
- Evaluate how kv/kh impacts recovery in typical deepwater clastic architectures; understanding of transmissibility, determination of bottom water vs. edge water sweep and linkage to depositional confinement in order to optimally locate a well to optimize sweep for a range of architectural cases.
- Judge length scale variations for a typical deepwater clastic system on a REV plot, and discuss how this would be handled in a reservoir modelling and simulation context.
Who Should Attend?
The outcrops dictate that the course is of maximum interest to staff dealing with the management of turbidite reservoirs but the intention is that the primary focus is on reservoir management and not sedimentology. The class is designed for and runs best with a multidisciplinary audience including geologists, geophysicists and reservoir engineers.
Course Outlines:
Overview of the Tabernas Basin.
The class begins with overviews, orientation and scale of the Tabernas Basin. Visit to the basin margin to view coarse non-marine and shallow marine clastic which mark the initiation of sedimentation in the basin.
Visits to the deepwater basin-fill succession to see the types of depositional environments in the basin – slumps, slides, debris flows, unconfined and confined turbidites – and a general introduction to deepwater clastic sedimentology and terminology.
Muddy Fan
We visit a series of outcrop sections within a low net: gross submarine fan and typical geometries of those environments – thin-bedded turbidite sheet sands.
We visit a series of outcrop sections within a low net: gross submarine fan and typical geometries of those environments - thin-bedded turbidite sheet sands in confined and unconfined settings.
We discuss thresholds of the net: gross and the particular issue of thin-bed pay. We will use an outcrop-based model example to explore the concept of the effective net from an engineering rather than a purely geological perspective.
Feeder Systems
We visit a series of outcrop sections to analyze the muddy feeder system and the sandy feeder system. Here we will study the individual architectures of the channelized units and discuss the facies, stacking patterns and evidence for their interpretation as feeder systems.
Thin-skin sliding and soft sedimentary tectonics are also viewed in deeper, more distal sediments.
Sandy Fan
We visit a series of outcrop sections within a high net: gross submarine fan; high concentration, amalgamated sands in the lower fan, sheet-like tabular sands in the upper fan and visits to the onlap margin of the body to view the overall geometries.
Here we will conceive an overall sedimentological model for the outcrops and take a reservoir engineering perspective on the observed heterogeneity - does any of it matter? The outcome of this discussion will link through to a well design exercise. Outcrop-based permeability data will be used to support the observations on heterogeneity and to discuss how small scale heterogeneity can be reasonably scaled into a simulation model.
Isolated Channel
We visit a series of outcrop sections to view Tabernas’ famous isolated channel and take the
opportunity to describe and discuss intra-channel architectures and likely morphologies.
Participants will carry out a modelling exercise on the channel based on their observations. A model developed for the class will be used as a basis for discussion of development planning in submarine fan systems. End of week cultural highlight in the evening.
