‘Fractured Basement’ Rock Formations: Hurricane Energy Produces First Oil from New Type of Field in UK North Sea

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

Intriguing news.  And great to see new Exploration & Production going on.

Hurricane Energy produces first oil from new type of field

A UK energy company that is hoping to open a new frontier in the North Sea has produced the first oil from one of its fields there.

Hurricane Energy is hoping to be the first company to prove that oil can be commercially produced from "fractured basement" rock formations in UK waters - naturally occurring fissures in the granite that lies below the softer sandstone where most other North Sea oil and gas comes from. 

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(If you hit the Financial Times paywall, copy & paste the first 2 sentences above into Google;  FT allows their paywall to be bypassed if their articles are found via Google search, but *not* when linked via forums.) 

 

@Douglas Buckland  RE: The lack of exploration drilling and what that means.

[BillKidd + 139]

Love reading about geologists still doing old-fashioned exploration but with new thinking. Cheers to them, hope they get rich.

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

3 hours ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Intriguing news.  And great to see new Exploration & Production going on.

Hurricane Energy produces first oil from new type of field

A UK energy company that is hoping to open a new frontier in the North Sea has produced the first oil from one of its fields there.

Hurricane Energy is hoping to be the first company to prove that oil can be commercially produced from "fractured basement" rock formations in UK waters - naturally occurring fissures in the granite that lies below the softer sandstone where most other North Sea oil and gas comes from. 

...

=================================

(If you hit the Financial Times paywall, copy & paste the first 2 sentences above into Google;  FT allows their paywall to be bypassed if their articles are found via Google search, but *not* when linked via forums.) 

 

@Douglas Buckland  RE: The lack of exploration drilling and what that means.

Good Morning Tom,

The concept of finding commercial volumes of oil in fractured basement rock has been proven in Vietnam decades ago. When I was there in 2004 it was still a bit of a 'black art' to locate the fracture nodes in the basement rock and I am sure the tools and techniques have been greatly refined since then.

It is not enough to simply have a fractured basement rock, it needs to have a good source rock to provide oil to the fractures. The way the Vietnam field (Cuulong ?) was explained to me was that essentially an igneous mountain range had subsided/sunk off of the coast which was then buried under sedimentary source rock.

We essentially discovered the same situation of the coast of peninsular Malaysia with the Anding Utara exploration well drilled by Petronas in 2003. I left early in 2004 and do not know if they developed this find.

[ceo_energemsier + 1,818]

4 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Good Morning Tom,

The concept of finding commercial volumes of oil in fractured basement rock has been proven in Vietnam decades ago. When I was there in 2004 it was still a bit of a 'black art' to locate the fracture nodes in the basement rock and I am sure the tools and techniques have been greatly refined since then.

It is not enough to simply have a fractured basement rock, it needs to have a good source rock to provide oil to the fractures. The way the Vietnam field (Cuulong ?) was explained to me was that essentially an igneous mountain range had subsided/sunk off of the coast which was then buried under sedimentary source rock.

We essentially discovered the same situation of the coast of peninsular Malaysia with the Anding Utara exploration well drilled by Petronas in 2003. I left early in 2004 and do not know if they developed this find.

We have been using and improving subsurface fracture mapping techniques  for a long time. We have used it since the 80s across the globe for oil and gas plus others. We have also managed to apply the technique with a combination of other seismic and geological techs for shale. The shale wells that we drilled and completed after using our in house fracmaps have given very low decline rates compared to the traditional shale wells eg some very early shale wells we drilled had IPS of 900-1200bpd and after 5 years they were still producing 800-1000bpd . Since then we have developed many many leases in the US using newer and better fracture mapping techs in shale plays as well as non shale and what I call hybrids. We have also used the techs to mature and marginal fields and wells and have been able to substantially increase the proved reserves and daily production. I am talking about very large new reserve discoveries and very large discoveries in previously drilled and depleted and or abandoned fields onshore and offshore.

 

[BillKidd + 139]

5 hours ago, ceo_energemsier said:

...The shale wells that we drilled and completed after using our in house fracmaps have given very low decline rates compared to the traditional shale wells eg some very early shale wells we drilled had IPS of 900-1200bpd and after 5 years they were still producing 800-1000bpd...

 

Can you share the API of such wells or send me a PM? Bakken wells or what?

[Mike Shellman + 548]

@BillKidd those imaginary wells would then have UR to date of 1.8MM B0, not BOE, and likely be on their way to 4 or 5MM BO UR and no such shale oil in the US has done that and won't, ever. From shaleprofile.com here is a production rate distribution profile, from realized production data filed with state agencies,  for all shale oil wells drilled in the US since 2009 and we can see what the mean UR is across America for the first 24 months of production. Only 1 well in the US shale oil patch has produced 1.2MM BO in the first 24 months of its life. Statistically the cumulative decline across all shale oil basins is 81-83% the first 33 months of production. Once these wells decline to 50-60 BOPD on AL we're seeing "terminal" decline rates of 12-15% annually, upwards of 20% in the DJ Basin. Shaleprofile.com has an amazing array of free tools on its blog that will enable even the most casual of "analysts" to see the difference in reality, and hype.   

I am very proud to say I have worked with Enno Peters over the years on regulatory and reporting matters to the TRRC in Texas and his data is meticulous. I am fortunate enough to have an array of additional analytical portals on shaleprofile.com other than those offered for free to the public and they are amazing. The truth shall set you free ! 

Subsurface mapping using well control is over 85 years old, its integration with 2D seismic data is about 60 years old and with 3D, about 30 years old. Mr. Buckland is correct, IMO, fractured basement is rare but nothing really new, below it there must be a resource kitchen for hydrocarbons to have been cooked.

 

Edited June 6, 2019 by Mike Shellman

[BillKidd + 139]

@Mike Shellman, I haven't seen such wells, either, that is why I asked for API. I have analyzed the production history and decline proflie of thousands of shale wells and do it on a continual basis.

[Mike Shellman + 548]

@BillKiddI guessed you knew few wells like that existed and asking for an API number confirmed that. I hope you get a few of those numbers.

[ceo_energemsier + 1,818]

4 hours ago, BillKidd said:

@Mike Shellman, I haven't seen such wells, either, that is why I asked for API. I have analyzed the production history and decline proflie of thousands of shale wells and do it on a continual basis.

Will release the API and other relevant data very soon.

We have done extensive application of a suite of fracture mapping techs for inhouse use and JV use for drilling wells for conventional resources globally and have some done for shale. I will be able to share the new data for US shale wells soon.

We have JVs that we have been applying these suite of techs in some OPEC countries as well with some amazing results. Cant share those complete details but some basic numbers could be.

In the process of wrapping up a licensing JV for application on a large scale shale mapping project in the US across the Permian, Eagle Ford, Bakken, Marcellus and Utica. Will keep you updated