The Role Of Geomechanics In Oil And Gas Reservoir Management
Over the past one decade or so, we have increasingly recognized the role and importance of Geomechanical processes in oil and gas reservoir development and management. These processes impact well integrity, sand production, reservoir permeability, seal and overburden integrity, surface subsidence, and ultimately, reservoir producibility, hydrocarbon recovery and project economics. Generally, the application of Geomechanics technology is rather ‘unstructured’, lacking in standardized approach and methodology. The industry however has come a long way in attacking these issues. The lecture aims to highlight the present geomechanical issues and challenges facing the petroleum engineering community. Many of these are linked to the exploitation of difficult and unconventional resources; the use of enhanced oil recovery and thermal recovery processes; and the attention to geological carbon sequestration. This points to the need for more fundamental understanding; calling for high temperature laboratory development, thermal-geomechanical models, and rock-fluid interaction description that adequately captures chemical effects. The lecture outlines how Geomechanics can be better integrated in the reservoir development and management processes to optimally develop the vast and yet finite hydrocarbon resources. In facing the challenges of unconventional resources exploitation, some recent and perhaps more satisfying approaches based on ‘open-system’ geomechanics for describing these fundamental subsurface processes are described.
Additional Details
Contact Person - Prof Choo Yoo Sang
Contact Number - 6516 2994
Organizer - National University of Singapore