Non-conventional oil resources

The petroleum geologist is largely concerned with exploring for crude oil and
natural gas. Vast amounts of energy, however, are also locked up in what may
loosely be described as nonconventional petroleum resources. These include gas
hydrates, tar sands, oil shales, tight oil reservoirs, shale gas, and coal bed
methane. These reserves have been hard to unlock because the relatively low
cost of producing petroleum from conventional sources has inhibited
technological research into their extraction. An increase in the cost of producing
conventional petroleum provides an incentive to develop methods of producing
these nonconventional petroleum resources.

Coalbed Methane
The occurrence of methane gas in coal measures is only too well known
because as “fire damp” it is a widespread safety hazard to coal miners. Extensive
ventilation systems are required to extract methane from working coal mines.
Unlike shale gas, most coals only produce dry gas, methane. The coalbed gases
thus have a lower calorific value than shale gas. Coalbeds normally have higher
permeabilities than shales, because they more easily fracture, either naturally or
artificially. Thus coalbed methane wells normally have higher flow rates and
may therefore justify surface pressuring and pipeline transportation. The
parameters that control the methane-generating potential of a coal include its
rank, ash content, maceral type, matrix porosity, fracture porosity, pressure, and
water content.
Coalbed methane occurs in water-saturated underground coal seams. Coal
acts as both a source rock and reservoir rock for the gas. Gas is retained in
coalbeds as sorbed gas and as free gas in fractures (cleats). Water must be drawn
off to lower the pressure so methane will desorb from the coal and flow to the
wellbore. Reservoirs can be normally or abnormally pressured and the gas can
be of both thermal and biogenic origin.

Tight Gas Reservoirs

Tight unconventional gas reservoirs can be subdivided into two types based
on porosity low porosity (LP). and low permeability. These types are referred to
as high porosity (HP). The reservoirs are at shallow burial depths and consist of
chalks, siltstones, and very fine-grained sandstones. Although these reservoirs
have HP (10-40%), they have low in situ permeability (<0.1 md) because of
small pores and pore throats and small grain size. The gas accumulations are
structural and the gas produced is thought to be biogenic.
The second type of tight gas reservoirs are referred to as low porosity (LP)
type. Such reservoirs have LP (3-12%) and low in situ permeability. Diagenetic
alteration has resulted in the reservoirs having small microvug porosity. Pores
are interconnected by sheet or cracklike capillaries (sometimes referred to as slot
pores). The gas accumulations are often referred to as continuous, basin-
centered, or deep basin. The gas is of thermogenic origin.
Unconventional LP reservoirs are generally located in the deep central part
of basins and have the following characteristics: pervasive gas saturation;
commonly lack downdip water; have an updip contact with regional water
saturation; have low in situ permeability (<0.1 md) and low matrix porosity
(3e12%); are abnormally pressured (either over- or underpressured with respect
to hydrostatic pressure); reservoirs may be single or vertically stacked; natural
fracturing enhances production in local areas; gas is of thermal origin; and thus
the accumulations are associated with mature source rocks that are either
actively generating or have recently ceased generation.

Shale Gas
Gas in shales is seldom trapped in well-defined fields; instead it occurs in
siltstone bands and irregular fracture systems. The gas is of high calorific value
(c. 1200 BTU), and commonly wet, with more than 10% ethane. After an initial
high-pressure “blow” well head pressures stabilize at 300e500 psi with flow
rates of 50,000e100,000 cubic feet of gas per day. Depletion rates, however, are
of the order of 10% per annum, with individual wells producing for 40e50 years.
Wells are seldom more than 700 m deep, and thus cheap to drill. Shale gas
exploitation is not profitable for major international oil companies. The reserves
are too small and the payout time too long.
Natural fractures also enhance permeabilities. Fracture systems may be best
developed where strata are stretched over the crests of anticlines, but they also
occur along regional fault and basin hingeline trends. These can be located by
remote sensing and seismic surveys. Conventional seismic surveys are
inappropriate to locate low-velocity gas-charged shale zones. Specific methods
of shooting and processing seismic data have now been developed.
Conventional drilling with a mud-filled hole will seldom locate shale gas. The
weight of the mud forces the gas away from the well bore. Such gas as may
escape into the drilling mud is recorded as “background gas,’’ with little thought
that it may be commercial. Shale gas are self-sourced reservoirs. The shales are
organic-rich, fine-grained sedimentary rocks. The shales may be thermally
marginally mature to postmature and contain biogenic to thermogenic gas. Shale
has low matrix permeability and generally requires fracturing to provide
permeability. Gas is stored in shale in three different manners: adsorbed gas,
free gas in fractures and intergranular porosity, and as gas dissolved in kerogen
and bitumen. Gas adsorbed on organic material is released as the formation
pressure declines with production. Gas in fractures is produced immediately.