M. Rafiqul Islam
Emertec Research and Development Ltd, Canada
Title: Opportunities in Basement reservoirs and Unconventional Formations
Biography:
Abstract:
Hydrocarbons and their transformations play major roles in
sustaining today’s civilization. Petroleum fluids are essential for
providing chemical and energy sectors with raw materials that are
needed for practically all aspects of modern living ranging from
transportation to health and medicine. After water, crude oil is the
most abundant naturally occurring fluid on earth. However, the
modern era has few direct applications of crude oil and practically
none of the produced petroleum is processed, either through
refining or gas processing, prior to final use. Unfortunately, all
modern techniques for refining are also known to be inherently
damaging to the environment. In the information age,
environmental sustainability has become the most important
concern and there is a growing urge to find either an alternative to
petroleum fluids or any technology that ‘minimizes’ the
environmental impact. While some progress has been made in
developing alternate energy sources, few, if any, present a truly
sustainable option. More importantly, no realistic alternate source,
sustainable or otherwise, for millions of tons of chemical raw
materials for the chemical/medical industries has been suggested.
In this regard, basement reservoirs as well as unconventional
formations offer an unprecedented opportunity. However, the true
benefit of the petroleum fluids produced from these resources
cannot be appreciated without thorough scientific understanding of
their nature. This keynote speech presents a scientific investigation into the nature of basement and unconventional
rocks, the origin of the petroleum that impregnates these rocks and
how to properly characterize the behavior of these rock/fluid
systems. It is shown with clarity that these fluids are amenable to
sustainable petroleum usage and with careful management skills
they can become the hallmark of a sustainable source of both
energy and chemical raw materials. This paper explains the
fundamental features of the hydrocarbons in the basement and
unconventional formations, geological aspects of fractures and
types of fractures, and a novel reservoir characterization technique.
Two dominant theories of the origin of basement fluids are
presented and arguments made in supporting the validity of these
theories within a specific domain. A guideline for scientific
characterization is presented in order to determine the ranking of
petroleum fluids. The characterization gives one a unique tool for
suitable application of the petroleum fluids based on their inherent
qualities. Overall, this paper shows that the petroleum resources
are indeed infinity if used in a sustainable manner