Subsurface noise #9
THE REALITY BEHIND PRESS RELEASES
Talking to people is still the best way to find out what really happened when a well has been completed. “We drilled hundreds of meters of shale,” an exploration geologist recently told me about an attempt to firm up a new play in one of the world’s hotspots. “There was absolutely no resource. Yet, the press release still made note of a sub-commercial discovery, simply because one tiny sand stringer was found.” It just shows how press releases have to be taken with a pinch of salt.
SWITCHING OFF THE MONITORS
I recently spoke to someone who works on the decommissioning project for a major oil field in the North Sea. “Until recently,” he said, “there was a monitor in our office showing how much we were still producing from the asset, but it’s been switched off. Apparently, the whole field now delivers less than what a single well used to do when it was taken into production a few decades ago. Too much to be confronted with that every day.”
THE BENEFIT OF BEING AROUND FOR A WHILE
Being in the industry for a while often brings the ability to reflect on longer-term developments. In that regard, I found it interesting to hear at the recent NAPE Conference in Houston how unconventionals have changed the risk appetite for those who have only worked in this space. “These folks are not used to the high risk that comes with drilling a conventional well,” said someone who has been in the business for a long time. On a similar note, I spoke to a seasoned driller who told me that the new generation in his field only knows PDC bits. “Sometimes,” he said, “it is just as easy to opt for a roller cone bit, even when that may be looked upon as old-fashioned.”
“THE FLARE LOOKS LIKE SO AND SO MUCH A DAY”
When developing an old discovery, operators have to deal with more uncertainty than what an initial data inventory may suggest. The availability of a Drill Stem Test (DST) is usually a great way to assess the deliverability of a reservoir, but in the case of the Victory field on the UK Continental Shelf, the DST was performed without any metering in place. The DST report says that the “flare looks like so many millions of cubic feet a day”. Not a great calibration point when planning the field development so many years later.
