OilTracers LLC - SPE Distinguished Lectures

Dr. Mark McCaffrey, President of OilTracers LLC has completed a 16 Country, 31 city tour as a Distinguished Lecturer for the Society of Petroleum Engineers. His presentation, titled "Using Petroleum Geochemistry to Solve Field Development and Production Problems" was given at the locations shown below. The talk abstract is shown at the bottom of this page.

Country	City	Date
Norway	Oslo	October 09, 2001
	Stavanger	October 10, 2001
	Trondheim	October 11, 2001
Australia	Adelaide	November 5, 2001
	Perth	November 6, 2001
	Melbourne	November 7, 2001
New Zealand	New Plymouth	November 8, 2001
Australia	Sydney	November 12, 2001
	Brisbane	November 13, 2001
Papua New Guinea	Port Moresby	November 15, 2001
England	London	November 27 , 2001
Canada	Halifax, Nova Scotia	January 14, 2002
	St. John's, Newfoundland	January 15, 2002
U.S.A.	White Plains, NY	January 16, 2002
	Paintsville, KY	January 17, 2002
	Grayville, IL	January 21, 2002
Algeria	Sahara Section	March 18, 2002
Nigeria	Lagos	March 20, 2002
	Port Harcourt	March 20, 2002
	Benin City	March 21, 2002
	Warri	March 21, 2002
Gabon	Port Gentil	March 26, 2002
Cote d'Ivoire	Abidjian	March 28, 2002
Bahrain	Bahrain	April 13, 2002
Kuwait	Kuwait City	April 14, 2002
Egypt	Cairo	April 15, 2002
Pakistan	Karachi	April 18, 2002
	Islamabad	April 19, 2002
India	Dehra Dun	April 22, 2002
	Mumbai	April 24, 2002
U.S.A.	Dallas, TX	May 15, 2002

Using Petroleum Geochemistry to Solve Field Development and Production Problems

Dr. Mark A. McCaffrey

ABSTRACT: During field development and production, a variety of common problems can be solved through integration of geochemical, geological, and engineering data. For example, such studies can identify reservoir compartmentalization, allocate commingled production, identify completion problems (such as tubing string leaks, or poor cement jobs), predict fluid properties (viscosity, gravity) prior to production tests, characterize induced fracture geometries, monitor the progression of floods, or explain the causes of produced sludges. For each of these applications, geochemical approaches are appealing for three reasons:

1. Geochemistry provides an independent line of evidence that can help resolve ambiguous geological or engineering data. For example, geochemical data can reveal whether small differences in reservoir pressure reflect the presence of a no-flow barrier between the sampling points.
2. Geochemical approaches are commonly far cheaper than engineering alternatives. For example, geochemical allocation of commingled production can be achieved typically for only 1-5% of the cost of production logging.
3. Geochemical approaches have applicability where other approaches do not. For example, geochemical allocation of commingled production can be performed even on highly-deviated or horizontal wells, and even on wells with electrical submersible pumps - well types not amenable to production logging.

This presentation will discuss these applications of geochemistry, and will highlight how geochemistry complements other reservoir management tools. A variety of case studies will illustrate key points. In addition, sampling pitfalls and potential sources of contamination will be addressed.

Biography of instructor:

Dr. McCaffrey received his B. A. (1985) from Harvard University, magna cum laude with highest honors in geological sciences, and his Ph.D. (1990) in geochemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Mark is a California Registered Geologist (License #5903) and an AAPG Certified Petroleum Geologist (#5339). Author of 26 articles, Dr. McCaffrey was the 1995 recipient of the Pieter Schenck Award from the European Association of Organic Geochemists for "outstanding work on biomarkers in relation to paleoenvironmental studies and petroleum exploration." After 10 years at Chevron and Arco, Mark co-founded OilTracers, L.L.C. (www.oiltracers.com), a firm specializing in the integration of geochemistry, geology and engineering data to solve a variety of oil exploration and production problems.

About OilTracers LLC

OilTracers LLC is a petroleum consulting company that specializes in integration of geochemical, geological, and engineering data to solve various petroleum exploration, development, and production problems. In addition, OilTracers LLC owns and operates the two premier petroleum geochemistry web sites (www.oiltracers.com and www.gaschem.com) The databases on these web sites, such as OilRef (a database of >14,000 petroleum geochemistry citations), the Oil Sample Library (a listing of >33,500 oil geological samples owned by various laboratories), and the Petroleum Geochemistry Dictionary provide answers to more than 5,000 inquiries a month. OilTracers LLC is organized very much like a law firm, with our various scientists having complementary areas of expertise. OilTracers LLC is not a laboratory. We do no analyses. We only interpret data. All oil analyses are contracted to one of several laboratories we use around the world. These laboratories then transfer the data electronically to OilTracers for interpretation.