Unconventional Oil and Gas
The course is similar to our Upstream Oil and Gas course except that we remove offshore topics, reduce discussion of conventional oil and gas issues and increase discussion of unconventional topics such as unconventional geology and horizontal well spacing and unitization.
Course Agenda
Timing: 8:00 AM -4:00 PM with 45 minutes for lunch.
- Oil and gas characteristics and uses (examine oil samples)
- What makes shale and tight rock drilling different from conventional E&P
- Evolution of unconventional activities in the U.S.
- Impact of U.S. unconventional development on world oil markets
- Impact of unconventional development on the North American gas market
- U.S. LNG and its potential to improve the gas market
- Why U.S. unconventional growth has outpaced world growth
- Questions using electronic response cards
- Organic source of oil and gas
- How shale is formed (examine specimens with magnifiers)
- How organic material can become mixed within shale to form source rock
- Formation of oil and gas within source rock
- Impact of burial depth and oil and gas windows
- Released vs. retained oil and gas within source rock
- Why many unconventional development areas contain previously-drilled vertical wells
- Porosity and permeability (physical demonstration)
- Shale vs. tight rock
- How shale and tight rock differ from conventional reservoir rock (physical demonstration)
- Changes over geological time and why organic shale exists in seemingly-improbable locations
- Geological overview of an unconventional development area
- Conventional vs. unconventional development methods
- Geological and geophysical methods/tools used by geoscientists
- Seismic acquisition and review of a seismic permit for an unconventional development area
- Questions using electronic response cards
- Ownership of oil and gas rights in U.S. vs. rest of world
- U.S. land survey systems and relevance to oil and gas
- U.S. ownership distribution (private, federal, state, Indian and private)
- Severance of mineral rights from surface rights
- Ownership of oil and gas production (Rule of Capture)
- State regulatory agencies and conservation laws
- Horizontal well spacing regulations
- Take point gaps, off-lease drilling and stacked laterals
- Review of a recent horizontal well development area (with drilling permits)
- Elements of an oil and gas lease
- Joint ownership
- Pooling and unitization (voluntary and compulsory)
- Brief overview of onshore federal leasing
- Questions using electronic response cards
- Well planning
- Wellsite preparation and rig mobilization
- Video segments (with downhole animations) explaining the structure and functions of a drilling rig and showing the step-by-step drilling of a horizontal well
- Video and animations showing hydraulic fracturing
- Well completion (flowback, tubing, packer and christmas tree)
- Advanced methods (microseismic, batch drilling, rig skidding/walking, and zipper fracs)
- Questions using electronic response cards
- Optional instead of questions: Interactive exercise if group size is between 20-30
- Unconventional development economic example
- Unconventional development considerations
- Well evaluation tools (wireline logs, production tests and well cores)
- Modeling and simulation
- Artificial lift
- Example unconventional production site layout
- Production processing facilities
- Proved developed and undeveloped oil and gas reserves
- Questions using electronic response cards
- Course evaluations: copies of all evaluations provided to company