April 12

Exercise and Activity of petroleum

geology

2021
Submitted by Waqar Ayub
Roll no.17 Submitted by Waqar
Session 2018-22 Ayub roll no.17
Submitted to Prof. Syed Saqib Razzak
Week 1 Lab Exercises and Activity:
1-1 GEO5203 Petroleum Geology Selly and Sonnenberg Text Review
Questions:
Chapter 01. Introduction

Ans.1) Historically significant turning points in the history of

Petroleum:
(i) According to Herodotus, more than four thousands years ago natural
asphalt was employed in the constructions of the walls and towers of
Babylon.
(ii) The first streets of Baghdad were paved with tar, derived from
petroleum that became accessible from natural fields in the region. In
the 9th century, oil fields were exploited in the area around the modern
Baku, Azerbaijan. These fields were described by the Arab geographer
Abu-al-Hasan in the 10th century.
(iii) In 1745 under the Empress Elizabeth of Russia the first oil well and
refinery were built in Ukhta by Flodor Priadunov. Through the process of
distillation of the “rock oil” (petroleum) he received a kerosene like
substance, which was in oil lamps by Russian churches and monasteries.

Ans.2) Creekolgy:

Creekology is a petroleum prospecting method which appeared in the 19 th

century in US south oil states. It gradually dawned on the early drillers that oil was
more often found by wells located on river bottoms than by those on the hills.

Anticlinal Theory:
Anticlinal theory is related to hydrocarbon accumulation. According to anticlinal
theory; because oil is lighter than water it would seek the highest part of an
underground structural fold. Thus, an anticline is a more favourable place to drill
for oil than syncline.
Ans.4) Necessary Conditions for Commercial Accumulation of
oil in Subsurface:

1- Source Rock
2- Migration Path
3- Reservoir Rock
4- Seal
5- Trap

Ans.5) Petroleum Geology:

Petroleum geology is the application of geology to the exploration for and
production for oil and gas.

Importance of petroleum geology for modern society:

 Today our world is almost dependent on oil industry for energy.
 Our whole transportation system (buses, airplanes, trains, ships) are run by
oil.
 It is also used in industries for power generation purposes.
 Gas is also used in house for cooking.
Ans.6) False.

1-2 GEO5203 Petroleum Geology Video Exercise:

Part 1. Introduction to Petroleum Geology/ Career Overview
Ans.1) Role of Geologist in petroleum industry:
 A petroleum geologist is an earth scientist who works in the field of
petroleum geology, which involves all aspects of oil discovery and
production.
 Petroleum geologists look at the structural and sedimentary aspects of the
stratum to identify possible oil traps.

Role of Geophysicist in Petroleum Industry:

  Geophysicist work for mining, oil, and natural gas companies usually
looks for deposits of petroleum or minerals.
 They locate areas where there is a high probability of finding these
deposits.
For Example, they measure and chart the sound waves created by
explosion.

Ans.2) Primary tool used to extract oil from deep inside the earth:
 On land, oil can be extracted with the help drilling apparatus called
an oil rig or drilling rig.
 Offshore, oil is drilled from an oil platform.

Ans.3) Best Place for oil and gas:

The best place for oil and gas inside the earth is Anticline fold. Oil is less
dense that’s why it move upward and if Anticline fold is sealed by
mudrock, oil stored there and there is a highest possibility of presence
of oil in anticline.

Ans.4) Wildcat:
Exploration wells are drilled in countryside or frontier areas are called wildcat and
are high risk but are a hope of making a large new discoveries.

Ans.5) log and well core provide the primary information about the well and
presence of oil inside the earth.

Ans.6) False, because searching for oil and extraction demands very costly,
there we need billions of dollars to start this project.

Ans.7) Methods used for exploration of petroleum:

There are three primary methodologies used to find hydrocarbons in the
subsurface:
i- Geophysical surveys
ii- Remote Sensing
iii- Wildcatting
1- Geophysical Surveys:
Geophysical techniques used for petroleum exploration utilize equipment to
measure such things as: electrical currents, gravitational and magnetic
anomalies, heat flow, geochemical relationships, and density variations from
deep within the earth. Each technique records a different set of characteristics
which can be used to locate hydrocarbons beneath the surface of the earth.

2- Remote Sensing:
Remote Sensing (RS) is the use of aerial photographs to locate and map
surface features. Increasing use of satellite imagery is being made because it
shows large areas on the surface of the earth. Once a area is selected and the
satellite imagery is obtained, the exploration geologist utilizes mapping
techniques to produce a geologic map for the area. The series of lines and
arrows indicate the type of structure that exists at the surface.
Another type of remote sensing techniques uses imagery that was
created from a radar looking at the ground called Side Looking Airborne Radar
(SLAR). Some of this imagery is flown with an aircraft while some of it is
onboard satellites or the US Space Shuttle. It produces an image much like a
photograph that also shows earth structure at the surface.
These types of maps allow geologist to determine where hydrocarbons
might be located.

3- Wildcat:
A wildcat well is one that is drilled in a new area where no other wells exist
and generally with scant information. It is drilled in an effort to locate
undiscovered accumulation of hydrocarbons. About 1 in 10 wildcat wells strike
oil or gas, but only one in perhaps 50 locate economically significant amounts.
But the basic tool needed for the search for hydrocarbons still remains a
knowledge of the earth and earth processes of formation, lithology, and
structure.

Ans.9) Prospect:
Underground structures and features that appeared large enough to hold
economic quantities of oil and gas are called prospect.

Ans.10) Types of Scientists and team members involved in

search of hydrocarbon exploration:
Scientists:
1- Geologists
2- Geophysicists
3- Petroleum Geologists
4- Petroleum Engineer
5- Geochemists

Team Members:
1) Geotechnicians
2) Drilling crews

Ans.11) Difference Between Geologists and Geophysicists:

Geologists Geophysicists
1) Geologist focus on geological 1) geophysicist focus more on computer
Studies, mapping and well monitoring. Based modeling and geophysical
analysis.
2) But now their field of study are overlapping, a geologist must also expert in
computer models and geophysicist must know the surface geology.
3) They both study geology, geophysics, math, chemistry and physics but
geophysicists can into deeper into math and physics and geologists study
more about rock formation and characteristics.

Part 2. Overview of Petroleum Geology

Ans.1) The first organic matter that forms hydrocarbons are planktons,
which when buried a make hydrocarbons.
Ans.2) False, because marine animals are most associated with the
production of oil and gas. Deposition occur in high number in marine
environment.

Ans.3) True.
Ans.4) Hydrocarbon formation process:
Over the years, layers of silt, sand and other sediments settled over the buried
organic matter. The increase of temperature and pressure slowly transformed
the organic matter into hydrocarbon ( kerogen, oil, gas).
Organic matter buried deposition increase
temperature and pressure hydrocarbon formation.

Ans.5) Simplest Hydrocarbon Molecule:

Methane is the simplest hydrocarbon molecule, consist of a central carbon
atom bounded to four hydrogen atom.
H
H C H
H Methane molecule

Ans.6) Relationship between depth and rock temperature:

Ans.7) On Earth we have the idea of constant ground temperature. Builders
in North America think of it as 55 degrees at 5 feet. The deeper you go, the
more is lags behind until you get to 30 feet where it is constant.

Ans.8) True.
Ans.9) Anticlinal Trap Structure:
Cap rock
Oil gas

Migration path

Ans.10) Highest Permeability and Infiltration Rate:

Sandstone and limestone have high permeability rate than shale
and siltstone.
Ans.11) Faulting Associated with Stretching of Earth Crust:
Normal faulting will occur. Hanging wall will move downward
relative to footwall.

Ans.12) False, because salt domes are aseismic that’s why they can’t be
deformable. That’s the reason earthquake can’t effect salt structures.

Ans.13) Primary Subsurface Elements Required for the economic

Accumulation of Hydrocarbons:
Seven critical elements are necessary for subsurface hydrocarbon
accumulations to occur:
1- Reservoir rock
2- Source rock
3- Seal
4- Thermal history
5- Migration and trapping of hydrocarbons
6- Geologic history of the basin
7- Structural history and style

Ans.14) Probability of Successful oil production well:

There is 60% chance of loss money on the well. But there is a 40% chance to
make a substantial profit well.

Ans.15) Big Horn Basin:

The Bighorn are located in North-central Wyoming and South-central
Montana, centered on the high mountains of the Bighorns and adjacent Pryor
Ranges, and extends to include the foothills of these ranges.

Dimensions of Bighorn Basin:

The Bighorn Basin is a plateau region and intermontane basin, approximately
100 miles (160 km) wide, on north-central Wyoming in the United States.

Surface Elevation: 3500 feet above sea level.

Ans.16) Ages of oil producing horizons in the Big Horn
Basin:
There are more than 143 oil fields produce from 60 reservoirs and co-mingled
reservoirs ranging in age from Cambrian to Paleocene.

Ans.17) Rock Structure in Big Horn Basin:

Bighorn Basin is an asymmetric heart-shaped intermontane basin of the Rocky
Mountain.

Ans.18) Biostratigraphy:
Biostratigraphy is the branch of stratigraphy that uses fossils to establish
relative ages of rock and correlate successions of sedimentary rocks within and
between depositional basins. A biozone is an interval of geologic strata
characterized by certain fossil taxa.

Importance of Biostratigraphy:
1) Biostratigraphy plays a big role as one of the techniques in the subsurface
interpretation of the sequences most especially at the point of drilling.
2) The use of seismic method with its advancement up to the 4-D is an
important tool in predicting the subsurface geology.
3) Coccolithophores evolved rapidly over a relatively short period of geological
time, making them useful for geological dating.

Ans.19) Examples of Remote Sensing Techniques used In

Petroleum Exploration:
1) Remote Sensing (RS) data and Geographical Information System (GIS) under
the supervision of Geo scientists guiding petroleum explorers to a new
horizon where technology and economics meet the new limits.
2) Landsat8 (OLI) satellite offers the most appropriate RS System for the
delineation of surface features of Petroleum research.
3) Principal Component Analysis (PCA) provides us to find the most reliable PC
having maximum spatial geological information.
4) Digital Elevation Model (DEM), Thermal band, Infra-red band, and visible
bands of landsat8 (OLI) provide the necessary result for the research of
Petroleum lead.
5) Land Surface Temperature (LST) profile, Vegetation trends through NDVI,
drainage network development and surface soil profile provide indicators in
the demarcation of hot spot areas for the petroleum exploration.

Ans.20) Difference Between P-waves and S-waves:

p-waves
 S-waves

Ans.21) Seismic Exploration:

Seismic exploration is the use of seismic energy to probe beneath the surface
of the earth, usually as an aid in searching for economic deposits of oil, gas or
minerals, but also for engineering, archeological, and scientific studies.
In exploration seismology, the seismic method is applied at or near the
earth’s surface to measure the elastic properties of the subsurface and to
detect variations in those properties. Variations and discontinuities in
subsurface elastic properties are usually indicative of changes in lithology or
pore fluids.

» Introduction of seismic method

. →As the name indicate that it work by seismic wave to find any seismic waves
● Seismic waves : → Seismic waves are waves of energy that travel through
Earth's layers, and are a result of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, magma
movement, large landslides and large man-made explosions that give out low-
frequency acoustic energy.

● Using Seismic technique in oil gas exploration:

→ In oil and gas exploration, seismic waves are sent deep into the Earth and

allowed to bounce back. Geophysicists record the waves to learn about oil and
gas reservoirs located beneath Earth's surface.

● In Oil and gas exploration:

→ Waves are sent to the deep earth and allow bouncing back
→ Geologist learned about oil and gas reservoirs located beneath the earth
surface.

● Seismic technology used in finds oil and gas:

● Reflection seismology:
→We use in exploring Earth’s energy’ resources are called reflection seismology
→when we use seismic waves in study of earth quake, the earth quack are the

source of energy ‘that is the source of waves.

→ But using reflection seismology for oil and gas exploration ,so we deploy some
kind of acceptable energy source on the surface of earth and then distribute an
appropriate number of seismic sensors across the earth surface that will record
the wave that are reflected back.
1-3 GEO5203 Petroleum Geology
Introduction to Quantitative Problem Solving:
Ans.1)

Ans.2) Volume of Sphere:

Ans.3) Increase in Crustal Thickness:

Ans.5)
Ans.6)
Ans.7) Slope:
The End!