Published by the DTI Oil & Gas Directorate for the reservoir
engineering and IOR community in the UK.
Send comments on this issue and contributions for next issue to iornewsletter@senergyltd.com
by 15 August 2002.
Research projects on Biodegradation, Caprocks and Reservoir Wettability
http://nrg.ncl.ac.uk/research/research.html
Three major research areas central to both exploration and production
activities on the UKCS are currently underway or about to begin at Newcastle.
Fresh from a Grade 5 success in the recent Research Assessment Exercise,
three large, industrial consortium projects are underway or about to begin.
Steve Larter
BACCHUS is a consortium research project aimed at defining the factors
affecting petroleum biodegradation in the deep subsurface with the intention
of providing more effective strategies for pre-drilling prediction of
level of degradation. This is of special interest in deepwater provinces,
where exploration targets tend to be relatively shallow and cool.
Recent work at Newcastle, funded by Norsk Hydro, has resulted in the first direct determination of biodegradation rates and the discovery that the rates of field charging and biodegradation are very similar. Charge history is thus one of the key elements in successfully predicting the occurrence of biodegraded petroleum. The work also indicated that shallow reservoirs in uplifted basins may not be biodegraded if the reservoir was heated above 80C prior to receiving its final oil charge. This work has been published in the journal Nature (Wilhelms et al, Nature, 411, 1034-1037, 2001). Contact Steve Larter, steve.larter@ncl.ac.uk, for more details or go to web pages at:
http://nrg.ncl.ac.uk/research/publications/2001/2001abs10.html
and http://nrg.ncl.ac.uk/research/resareas/reservoir/phoenix.html
Andy Aplin
The CAPROCKS consortium is a joint industry /academia (Newcastle, Heriot-Watt,
Cardiff, Durham) research project into oil and gas caprocks. It begins
this summer and will investigate the large and small scale stratigraphic,
rock mechanical and geochemical aspects of seals and leaks. The study
continues a long line of mudstone research at Newcastle and will combine
fundamental physics and chemistry with applied geoscience to define the
large- and small-scale architecture, pore network and fluid flow properties
of caprocks. Some early work in this area suggests that caprocks may well
become oil wet after initial leakage. Capillary seals may not be seals
after all! Contact Andy Aplin, a.c.aplin@ncl.ac.uk,
for more details or go to:
http://nrg.ncl.ac.uk/research/resareas/mudstones.html
Barry Bennett
Finally, the PEGASUS consortium is a joint industry/EPSRC/DTI supported
academic consortium researching the way in which the adsorption of petroleum
compounds to mineral surfaces alters the petrophysical and production
properties of reservoirs. This work is being carried out by Universities
(Heriot-Watt, Newcastle, Reading and Imperial College) together with service
and oil companies. Contact Barry Bennett, Barry.Bennett@ncl.ac.uk,
for more details on Newcastle's work.
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