Application of Sturctural Geology to Petroleum Engineering

Offshore drilling has become an essential part of today’s oil production and demand for energy. With the growth of population comes the increasing demand for oil. The oil industry today, is one of the most used providers of energy. Today in the 20th century the majority of the population in America has a car and cars needs gas to run. The oil reserves in the earth that are easily accessible via land are starting to run dry and are becoming harder to find. This is why we have begun to see more and more offshore oil drills. Although there are benefits of offshore drilling such as profit, lower gas prices, and becoming less dependent on foreign oil. There are also many drawbacks in which if something were to go wrong, the mistake would be catastrophic impacting the environment, the nature, and have trickling effects all around the world.

The age demographic segment of oil and gas industry is normally people in their late 40s and early 50s. There is also a group of neophytes but there are very few people with ages between the two groups. Also, most of the people in this industry are highly specialty engineers with experience and skills to make important decision about drilling. There are also other specialty people in the business sides to vision and plan the competitive strategies to compete with other companies.

Cross, L. (2014, March 9). Trends and Challenges for the Oil and Gas Industry | Stout Risius Ross. Retrieved November 10, 2014, from http://www.srr.com/article/trends-and-challenges-oil-and-gas-industry.

After scientists have tested the oil and the rocks, oil companies will begin drilling in the wells and rock samples will be brought to the surface. After the scientists have studied the rock samples from above ground and are convinced that they have found the right type of rock, companies begin drilling production wells. “When the wells first hit the reservoir, some of the oil begins coming to the surface immediately” (“Fossil Energy: How Fossil Fuels Were Formed,” n.d.). However, with today’s technology, oil companies are able to install special equipment to help the oil from spurting hundreds and hundreds of feet from the ground.

September 5, 1927 marked a turning point in the history of oil exploration. Before then, to assess the composition of subsurface rocks to find oil pay-zones, scientists had to rely on core samples brought up from boreholes. These were highly unreliable and drilling companies frequently missed oil zones. Conrad Schlumberger had the idea of running an electrical probe into the drilled borehole to measure resistivity through the formation. This first log taken in the Alsace region of France was a simple hand-plotted graph, but it effectively aided engineers to “view” what was inside the

“Rockefeller built an empire in a world without automobiles, finding profit by selling kerosene and lamp oil. By the turn of the century, the internal-combustion engine was generating demand for a new product: gasoline.”4 In comes the Lone Star State, to solve the worlds energy problem “Jan. 10, 1901, the modern American oil industry began on Spindletop Hill, south of Beaumont, Texas.”4 The big hill, located 4 miles south of Beaumont, Texas was formed millions of years ago with a giant underground dome made of salt. A man named Anthony Lucas from Austria, a former salt miner, was baffled at this big hill, which was actually only 12 feet high in elevation over the prairie lands. Lucas contacted some Pennsylvania oilmen for some help. The Pennsylvanian’s travel to Texas, surveyed a nice spot on the hill, and on October 27, 1900 the gusher was spudded. Spindletop had been drilled before, but never by a rotary drilling rig. Drilling is difficult at first. “There is little in the way of rock at the surface in that part of the world. Instead, oil wildcatters had to drill through several hundred feet of sand,”5 Due to the high sand content the well continually caved in, and one of the Pennsylvanians decided to try mud instead of water to help. This advancement changed the game for drilling, and is still used to drill wells today. The “Lucas Gusher” will erupt more than 150 feet into the air. It begins flowing at an astounding 100,000 barrels per day from a depth of 1,010

Since the beginning of the oilfield in the United States, Texas has been one of the leading states in this industry. In 1866, Lyne T. Barret drilled the first producing oil well at Melrose in Nacogdoches County [7]. From here, more wells were brought in, but the big Texas oil revolution began at a well-called Lucas No. 1. It was here, In Spindle top, Beaumont, where Capt. Anthony F. Lucas drilled the well that would produce 94 percent of the state’s production at the time and produce more than 17 million barrels of oil [7]. Now, 114 years later, Texas has given up another oil field play that will revolutionize the industry. This play is named Eagle Ford Shale. Figure 1 shows where the shale outcrops

Presuming that a country has a coast it can use for drilling, excavating oil from depths of up to a mile is nowhere near effortless. In addition to common oilrig accidents, fires and spills, there are a plethora of problems that oil riggers can encounter including severe weather storms (like hurricanes) and inexperience in the remote oceans depths. Oilrigs are being used even deeper in the ocean creating new environmental and engineering problems. Dr. Joseph A. Pratt of the University of Houston, highlights the problems riggers encountered when drilling for oil in the Canadian sector of the Beaufort Sea; conditions were

I am very intrigued by the oil drilling industry. I really hadn’t put much thought into the industry until around three years ago. Since then I have seen many arguments on the pros and cons of drilling for oil either offshore or inland. Some of which I completely understand and believe changes should be put into place soon so that we do not cause more damage than necessary. . Numerous arguments though are just people looking to place blame and are not seeing the bigger picture. In order to appreciate the benefits of oil drilling we need to understand the process that happens, our daily consumption and finally how we can be more dependent with our own sources.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the depositional environment, petrology, mineralogy, structure, exploration, technology, methods of extraction and processing, as well as the applications and economics of oil in the Greater Green River Basin. This paper will mainly focus on the oil shale within the basin but will also touch on some of the more conventional oil and gas plays as well. According to Crawford and Killen (2010), Oil Shale is defined as being “a sedimentary rock embedded with organic material called kerogen… and has not been under the necessary heat, pressure, and/or depth for the right length of time to form crude oil”. Oil shale is typically found in silica and carbonate based rocks that are usually no greater than 900

The issue of whether offshore oil drilling is a safe operation or not has been arguing for a long time in the United States. ( SPE International, N.D.) Drilling on water started in early 1930s in Louisiana by shallow-draft barges. Nevertheless, the first oil well on water was drilled in 9th of September, 1947 by Kerr-McGee’s unit Tender Assist Drilling (TAD) in the Gulf of Mexico (SPE International, N.D.). A year after year, oil companies used more and more sophisticated equipment to drill on water, but the number of spilled accidents has been rising since 1964 (Ivanovich, and Hays, 2008). After all, while

take care to protect their own health and safety and to avoid adversely affecting the health and safety of any other worker.

The company employs numerous petroleum engineers who examine geological samples to determine if there are oil & gas properties to be developed and produced around the world. They concentrate their efforts in areas that are known hot spots and actively search for new areas around the world as they try to gain a first mover advantage in a new oil region. They strive to operate successfully through strong leadership, talented employees, and cutting edge technology, as well as working collaboratively with their stakeholders (Nexen).

The momentous step of venturing into the Graduate Program is towards the desired career in research and innovation. I chose Texas A & M University because of its meticulous research work, excellent academic faculty, and diverse student base. The research works by Dr. A Daniel Hill, Dr. Ding Zhu, and Dr. Hisham Nasr-El-Din have inspired and influenced my thinking processes. My research interest pertains to production engineering from scale formation evaluation, stimulation, to unconventional resources. I am also encouraged by Dr. Hascakir’s work in areas of asphaltene study and enhance oil

Gas and oil development plans are branded by huge capital investments. Exploration and production operations incorporate numerous activities, reaching from undertaking geological surveys, finding hydrocarbon resources, and commercially exploiting them. Projects in this area are of a high risk nature in physical trading, and political sense as it is hard to know in advance the presence, degree and value of hydrocarbon resources, as well as production costs and the price oil of oil in the global world market Kaiser, Mark .J (2007)