Introduction
This report illustrates a geological review of a play within the South Brae oilfield and determines the potential of reservoirs within this area. It is hard to predict and provide ability for oil companies to license an oilfield before drilling therefore it is dependent upon several core sections available to investigate petrographically the northern North Sea. Cores and petrophysical data extracted from blocks 16/7a-A9, 16/7a-A17 and 16/7a-A21 related to licenses in block 16/07a found in the South Viking Graben area are provided and analysed in order to resolve whether exploration licenses should be purchased and the possible drilling of an exploration well.
Geological setting
The South Brae oilfield is mainly Kimmeridgian to mid-Volgian in age, however on some accounts it may possibly be of Oxfordian (Turner et al, 1987). The oilfield is heavily developed along the western, fault-bounded margin of the South Viking Graben approximately 161 miles NE of Aberdeen flanking Fladen Ground Spur (see Fig.1). The Upper Jurassic rifting of the South Viking Graben encountered, pronounced movement along the western bounding fault as syn-rift extension proceeded (Harris & Fowler, 1987, Gregory et al, 2007). Syn‐tectonic deposition throughout the Jurassic ensued the formation of a distinct sediment wedge thinning eastwards into the basin, outlining the main phase of fault movement down the boundary fault (Roberts, 1991). As a result, the Brae oilfields are a series of
The Slate Belt bioregion is nested within the Great Valley Section of the Valley and Ridge Province that was formed by thrust and fault folding during the Late Ordovician period through and Late Paleozoic era.(Bailey,1992; Geyer, 1979;Van Diver, 1990). During this time Taconian
Many seafood companies prices fluctuate because a whole number of reasons. Have you ever thought why though? They even have to take some foods completely off their menus. A lot of the time this is because of an oil spill that kills so much of the environment that a lot of the sea animals die or even become endangered. The BP Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010 is a great example of this. It spilled 200 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 87 days. The area of the spill alone had over 8,000 species, which already had 39 endangered species and added 14 new species to the endangered list. Not only did we lose animals but “Eleven people died as a result of the accident and 17 others were injured”(BP Staff).
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.
Offshore drilling is defined as” The operation of oil wells on the continental shelf, sometimes in water hundreds of feet deep” according to dictionary.com. This method of drilling is a very common form, being used throughout different locations offshore everywhere in the world, the first being in 1897 according to howstuffworks.com. The locations of oil are found by two main methods. The first one is by finding magnetic occurrences that are in natural in the ground. If readings found a steady amount of magnetism over a general area then suddenly a large decline, they could have found the location of an oil deposit. But to ensure that is in fact a trap, the second method called sparking. “sparking is sending shock waves down through the water and into the ocean floor.” This allows ships above to be able to read the ground below and see at different locations where
One of the major things noticeable from the cross section is that quite a few of the rock layers are over turned, where the older rock layers are above the newer rock layers. This is seen in the contact between the Quartz Monzonite of Papoose Flat and the Campito Formation which is also a disconformity. Next there is some fault zones separating the Camptio, Poleta, and Harkless formations. We then see some more overturned layers with the contacts between Saline Spring Valley Formation (lower and upper members) above the Mule Spring Formation along with some inferred folding. With a normal fault separating the inferred folding event, we see where the overturning occurs. In between the Cambrian layers we see Tertiary Basalt nonconformities also being folded, thus with that we know that the folding event was more recent than the formation of the Basalt. Next there is a large Basalt field with a spot of the Harkless formation. Again we see over tuning as the Basalt field ends there are the Devonian and Mississippian rock Layers on top of the basalt. Separating these overturned layers from the Harkless Formation and the Saline valley Formation (upper member), which are not overturned, is a thrust fault. From this information, there was a major stress event sometime after the Tertiary period causing the rock layers to fold and overturn. And from this stress event and from the folding, normal and thrust faults are formed. Finally we see that there were alluvial and landslide deposits from the Quaternary after the folding, faulting, and over
The western Cordilleran orogenic belt had been depicted as a passive margin after Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian rifting. Afterwards, the passive margin converted to an active margin most probably about Late Devonian to Late Cretaceous through the subduction of the exotic allochthons beneath the North American plate. The late Jurassic to Cretaceous subduction of (Sevier and Laramide Orogeny) representing as a period of the back thrust, intraplate thrusting, behind a magmatic arc on the upper plate near or on its westernmost margin from the latest
Oil and Gas exploration has been an ongoing project in the Raton Basin, but a quite unsuccessful one at best. The Raton Basin is primarily a flood plain paludal deposit which is not ordinarily an ideal unit to recover oil or gas from (Speer, 1976). The sandstones within the Raton are predominantly coarse grained, poorly sorted, fluvial sandstones which have been shown
These Paleozoic rocks are steeply plunging sandstones and siltstones, with a little event of limestone at Lilydale - the Early Devonian Lilydale Limestone. The Silurian rocks were stored in profound water, while the Devonian rocks, which are exceptionally fossiliferous, appear to have been stored in shallower water. These Silurian and Devonian rocks were folded into a progression of anticlines
Another rifting phase started in the early Jurassic around Pliensbachian or Toarcian (Chongzhi et al., 2013; Geoscience, 2014; Tindale, Newell, Keall, & Smith, 1998). Exmouth, Barrow, Dampier and Beagle Sub-basins were created until Middle Jurassic (He, 2002; Tortopoglu, 2015) and oceanic crust was laid down to form the Argo Abyssal Plain in Late Jurassic around 164-160 Ma during the Callovian to Oxfordian then followed by the Gascoyne and Cuvier Abyssal Plain in Early Cretaceous around 125 Ma (Fullerton, Sager, & Handschumacher, 1989; Müller, Mihut, & Baldwin, 1998). Passive margin was established in North West Shelf. Rifting phase of the basin transformed into sagging phase post breakup thermal subsidence when Gondwana breakup took place during Valanginian early Cretaceous around 134Ma. During the Campanian late Cretaceous, rifting along the Australian southern margin triggered the basin inversions and wrench reactivation of basin structures on NW Shelf. These movements arose the Barrow Island above sea level and formed Novara, Resolution and Exmouth Plateau Arch in Barrow, Dampier Sub-Basins and Investigator Sub-Basin (Figure 1) (Longley et al., 2002; Sinhabaedya,
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.
The central idea of this article is the study of the Storr Lochs Monster and how its study can be applied to more fossils being found and studied in Scotland and in the Middle Jurassic Period. The author states that very few fossils can hunted down and studied in Scotland, and in the rest of the world fossils from the Middle Jurassic Period, when this creature lived, are very rare. Steve Brusatte, the Paleontologist from Scotland, said "We know that quite a lot was happening during the Middle Jurassic Period" he also said "It's frustrating because it seems like an active period in evolution but one with very few fossils" and also inputted that he hopes after the study of the Storr Lochs monster that an increase in Scottish paleontology can
The Wasco oil field produces mainly from the Oligocene Vedder Formation and Eocene sandstones within the Kreyenhagen Formation in the San Joaquin basin, California. The Vedder and Kreyenhagen sandstones in the Wasco oil field consist of fine-to coarse-grain, very poor to well sorted, angular to sub round, arkosic arenites. Porosity development in these deeply buried sandstones was significantly affected by compaction, dissolution of framework grains, and precipitation of authigenic minerals. These diagenetic processes controlled the quality of the Vedder and Kreyenhagen sandstone reservoirs.
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
Development of Penobscot Filed Offshore Nova Scotia Sankaranarayanan Sai Darshan B00613681 Supervisor: Dr. Adam Donaldson Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Meng in Petroleum Engineering Department of Process Engineering and Applied Science Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia August 2015 CONTENTS Page No Introduction 1 History of Nova Scotia Offshore 2 Part I – Field Development 3 • Water Saturation 3 • Permeability 4 • Porosity 5 • Volume calculation 6 • Fluid Modelling 7 Part II – Reservoir Modelling 9 • Rock Physics 9 1.
The purpose is to focus on the issues regarding the onshore and offshore petroleum resource of Australia and the role, which they play regarding the future energy of Australia. The report would discuss all the issue around onshore gas and how onshore gas activity affects the future of energy resource in Australia. Furthermore, the paper would shows the fact and legal issues surrounding the interest which compare with the petroleum activity and how the activity effect the landlord and the environment and significances of the activity on landlord and the environment. Lastly the paper would also discuss the regulatory reform, which should be implemented, on the onshore and offshore petroleum and their function and the reason for