Dr. Mark McCaffrey, President of OilTracers LLC, will be making
the following conference presentations over the next 6 weeks in the
United Arab Emirates, South Africa, and the USA. If you will not be
able to attend, but are interested in receiving any of the
presentation materials, please contact OilTracers LLC at info@oiltracers.com.
Bur Juman Rotana, Dubai, UAE
Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 at 14:30
SPE Applied Technology Workshop: Tracer Technology for Improved
Recovery, 12-15 October 2008.
Talk Title: Using Biomarkers in Oils as Natural Tracers to Solve
Field Development and Production Problems
During field development and production, a variety of common
problems can be solved through the use of biomarkers as natural
tracers for assessing fluid origin. For example, biomarkers can be
used to 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, these natural tracers provide solutions that are
appealing for three reasons:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 the natural
geochemistry of oils, and will highlight how geochemistry
complements other reservoir management tools. A variety of case
studies will illustrate key points.
Cape Town, South Africa
Tuesday, October 28, 2008 at 11:20 AM
AAPG International
Conference and Exhibition
Talk Title: Allocation of Commingled Production using a
Geochemical
Technique: An Inexpensive Tool for Production
Monitoring
Because geochemical techniques allow allocation data to be
collected at low cost, such geochemical data can be collected far
more frequently than can data collected from production logging.
For example, using a geochemical technique, an operator can
determine the individual contributions of multiple reservoirs to
the commingled production from a given well on more than 20
separate dates for a combined cost which is less than the cost of
one production log run on one date. The greater frequency of data
collection using the geochemical approach allows an operator to
more easily identify production problems from a given reservoir
using geochemical allocation data than using production logging
data.
The geochemical approach to production allocation is also
preferable to production logging because the geochemical technique
can be used even in cases where production logging is not possible
or is difficult (e.g., in wells with electrical submersible pumps,
or in highly deviated wells, or in multi-lateral wells). The
geochemical technique also does not interrupt production and
eliminates the risk of sticking a logging tool.
Geochemical techniques for quantitatively allocating the
contribution of multiple zones to a commingled oil stream, or a
commingled water stream, or a commingled gas stream (or any
combination thereof) is readily achieved by identifying natural
chemical differences between "end-member" samples (i.e., samples of
the produced material from each of the zones being commingled).
Parameters reflecting these compositional differences are measured
in the end-member samples and in the commingled samples. These data
are used to mathematically express the composition of the
commingled samples in terms of contributions from the respective
end-member samples.
Production splits are calculated from the geochemical data using
a linear algebra approach in which the concentrations of 30-120
components are used to simultaneously calculate the contribution of
several discrete pay intervals (typically 2 to 6) to a commingled
production stream. Iterative calculations are used to (1) "look
for" and "delete" contamination in the samples, and (2) "test" the
validity of the allocation results. These calculations are enabled
by a commercially available software package, which is currently in
use in numerous fields.
Ellison Miles Institute, Brookhaven College, Dallas , Texas,
USA
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 at 11:45 AM
SPE Dallas
Section Monthly Seminar
Talk Title: Allocation of Commingled Production using a
Geochemical
Technique: An Inexpensive Tool for Production
Monitoring
Because geochemical techniques allow allocation data to be
collected at low cost, such geochemical data can be collected far
more frequently than can data collected from production logging.
For example, using a geochemical technique, an operator can
determine the individual contributions of multiple reservoirs to
the commingled production from a given well on more than 20
separate dates for a combined cost which is less than the cost of
one production log run on one date. The greater frequency of data
collection using the geochemical approach allows an operator to
more easily identify production problems from a given reservoir
using geochemical allocation data than using production logging
data.
The geochemical approach to production allocation is also
preferable to production logging because the geochemical technique
can be used even in cases where production logging is not possible
or is difficult (e.g., in wells with electrical submersible pumps,
or in highly deviated wells, or in multi-lateral wells). The
geochemical technique also does not interrupt production and
eliminates the risk of sticking a logging tool.
Geochemical techniques for quantitatively allocating the
contribution of multiple zones to a commingled oil stream, or a
commingled water stream, or a commingled gas stream (or any
combination thereof) is readily achieved by identifying natural
chemical differences between "end-member" samples (i.e., samples of
the produced material from each of the zones being commingled).
Parameters reflecting these compositional differences are measured
in the end-member samples and in the commingled samples. These data
are used to mathematically express the composition of the
commingled samples in terms of contributions from the respective
end-member samples.
Production splits are calculated from the geochemical data using
a linear algebra approach in which the concentrations of 30-120
components are used to simultaneously calculate the contribution of
several discrete pay intervals (typically 2 to 6) to a commingled
production stream. Iterative calculations are used to (1) "look
for" and "delete" contamination in the samples, and (2) "test" the
validity of the allocation results. These calculations are enabled
by a commercially available software package, which is currently in
use in numerous fields.
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.