Petroleum Geology

Petroleum geology is the study of origin, occurrence, movement,

accumulation, and exploration of hydrocarbon fuels.
OR
Petroleum geology is the study of Petroleum System in order to
explore the hydrocarbons
Petroleum System
A petroleum system encompasses a pod of active source rock and
all genetically related oil and gas accumulations. It includes all the
geologic elements and processes that are essential if an oil and gas
accumulation is to exist.

 The essential elements of a petroleum system include the

following:
Source rock
Reservoir rock
Seal rock/Trap

The essential processes includes the following:

Generation
Migration
Accumulation
These essential elements and processes must be correctly placed in
time and space so that organic matter included in a source rock
can be converted into a petroleum accumulation.

Petroleum Geology as Field

Petroleum Geology is an integrated course and vast field, which
includes: geochemistry, structural geology, sedimentology,
mineralogy, fluid mechanics, mapping, volumetric calculations, risk
and uncertainty analysis, and a vast array of industrial technologies.

Basic Vocabulary
1. Petroleum (Rock Oil): naturally occurring complex of
Hydrocarbons widely distributed in the sedimentary rocks
2. Crude Oil: the liquid member of Petroleum
3. Natural gas: the gaseous member of petroleum
4. Asphalt, bitumen or Tar: the solid member of petroleum

5. Reservior: the rock containing petroleum

6. Trap: feature of rock that restrain petroleum from moving out
7. Pool: a single discrete accumulation of oil or gas in a single
reservior with a single trap

8. Field: several pools may lie vertically, side by side or overlap

laterally within a single area, areally continuous.
9. Sedimentary basin: a three dimention geological entity containing
a number of oil or gas fields.
10. Province (may be synonym of basin): several basin sharing clear
similarities but separated by barren or non basinal tracts.
11. District: a geographic concentration of fields within a province or
a basin.
12. Prospect: a small area within a basin, province or district which
may contain oil and gas but no yet has been proved to do so.
13. Play: a larger area within which drilling of prospect has been
established success and pointed the way for further drilling.

14. Conventional oil and gas: the oil and gas within a well discovered
and exploited by drilling boreholes, if other than conventional
would be unconventional.
15. Well: a hole which yield any fluid.
16. Exploratory or wildcat well: a well drilled in search of a new
accumulation of oil and gas.
17. Discovery: if exploratory well is successful then it is discovery.
18. Gushers: earlier well spur oil high into air by a strong flow when
drilled.
19. Completed well: if a discovery well shows promise of being
commercial it compeleted as a producting well.

20. Dry hole: if a well yeilds no recoverable oil or gas.

21. Logging: the processes of recording data of a well.
22. Exploration: the search for new sources of petroleum.
23. Reserves: the sources discovered by successful exploration
becomes reserves, which are portion of total resources that have
been shown to accessible and recoverable under current economic
and technologic condition.
24. Development: the process of recovering the reserves, by drilling
wells within a field and operating them successfully.
25. Operators: organization and individuals seeking or producing oil or
gas.

Basic Statistics
Measurement Units
Quantities of oil are expressed in barrels:
1 barrel = 42 US gallons=159 liters app
=34.9723158 UK (Imperial gallons)
1 Gallon(gal) = 3.7854118 US liter(L)/4.54609 UK (L)
1 cubic meter = 1,000 L= 6.37 barrels
1 metric ton = 6.8 to 7.6 barrels (dep. on sp. gravity, in UK,
USSR and others by weight)
Gas is expressed in millions of cubic feet:
1 MMcf 3.104 m3
Energy-wise, gas can be expressed in oil equivalents:
1 boe 6000 to 6500 cf

Some Numbers
Number of oil and gas wells drilled to date: ~ 7 million
Percentage of wells in the USA: ~50%
Producing wells worldwide: ~ 1 million

Average production of oil wells in USA: 20 bbls/day

Average production of oil wells in Middle East: 7,000 bbls/day
Total number of producing fields: ~40,000
Total number of petroleum geologists: ~ 100,000
Total number of drill rigs worldwide: ~ 5,000

More Numbers
30.0 Gbo

Annual World Oil Consumption 2008

4-8 Gbo

Annual Oil Discovery Rates in 1990s-2000s

1050 Gbo

Total World Oil Consumption 1860-2008

850 Gbo
1372 Gbo
2311 Gbo

Conventional World Oil Reserves (1998)

Conventional World Oil Reserves (BP, 2007)
Conventional World Oil Reserves (USGS, 2000)

1900 Gbo

World Reserves of Heavy Oil, Tar Sands,

and Oil Shales

Oil Companies 2007

Oil Companies BP (2007)

Historical Development
Prior to 1900
No petroleum geology; all oil discovered through
seepages
(Appalachian, California, Baku, Ploesti, Peru, Egypt,
Borneo...)
Anticlinal theory known but not used in practice
Many fields located in so-called geomorphic traps
(where the reservoir rock is truncated by a recent erosion
surface)
Drake well in 1859 first to discover oil (Pennsylvania)

1901-1924
Anticlinal theory put in practice with Spindeltop well in
Texas

Important discoveries in Lake Maracaibo (Venezuela), Masjidy-Suleiman (Iran), Trinidad, Borneo, Mexico, Oklahoma, San
Joaquin Valley, California (all USA)
Petroleum geology is American; foundation of AAPG

Bolivar Coastal field: First in homoclinal trap, first offshore,

first large field with heavy oil, launches
SOC becomes first major oil company
Automobiles! Gas stoves!

1925 - 1945
Important discoveries in La Paz (Venezuela), Kirkuk (Iraq;
carbonate reservoir!), numerous fields in Middle East (most
also carbonates)
Oil is organic, not inorganic; micropaleontology and organic
geochemistry developed as important tools
Technological breakthroughs: Rotary drilling, torsion
balance, gravimeter, reflection seismology, electrical well
logs, perforations; wells to 3000 meters depth (before: to
1000 m)
World Petroleum Congress founded

1945 - 1960
Drilling boom, discovery of major oil fields in Middle East,
USA, Western Canada, Russian platform
Drilling depths reach 6000 meters; gas became important

Important insights into hydrocarbon migration and

accumulation (e.g. by King Hubbert; Levorsen)
Sedimentology becomes important to understand reservoirs
Log-normal distribution of oil fields

1960 - 1980

Offshore drilling technology developed

Discovery of North Sea, Libya, Nigeria, Siberia, eastern

Mexico oil provinces
Subtle traps (e.g. North Dome in Qatar)
Vast improvement of seismic acquisition and processing;
becomes vital exploration tool. Further technological
improvements in drilling, construction, and logging

Since 1980
Passive margins plays discovered (Gulf of Mexico, West
Africa, Brazil). Deep to ultra-deep drilling technology
developed
Huge carbonate fields in intra-cratonic setting discovered
(Peri-Caspian oil province)
3-D and 4-D seismics provide volumetric and dynamic
picture of reservoirs; leads to seismic stratigraphy
Integration of petroleum disciplines; computerized
workflows
Half of the easy oil is produced

Why Petroleum Matters

We depend on energy: In the industrial world every person
uses the energy corresponding to about 200 human powers 24
hours per day
Fossil energy constitutes 85% of our energy consumption
Fossil fuels have a high caloric value per volume
Fossil fuels are finite
The burning of fossil fuels has undesirable climatic
consequences

But: Energy companies are important for the economy