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CARBONATE EVOLUTION
26 Oil&Gas Middle East August 2008
Bernard Montaron,
carbonate theme director,
Schlumberger.
CARBONATE EVOLUTION
August 2008 Oil&Gas Middle East 27 www.arabianbusiness.com/energy
T
he significance of carbonate
reserves cannot be over-
stated. The combined total
of carbonate and sandstone
reservoirs currently stands at around
3000 billion barrels of remaining oil
in place, and more than 3000 trillion
cubic feet of gas. Analysis figures
from Schlumberger estimate that
60% of the worlds remaining oil, and
40% of its gas reserves are held in
carbonate fields.
Indeed, its no exaggeration to
say that these reserves present the
industry with some of the great-
est challenges and opportunities to
develop new technologies and proc-
esses to tackle the need for ever
more energy.
Last years BP Statistical Review
estimated the Middle East plays host
to 62% of the worlds proved conven-
tional oil reserves, of which more
than 70% of these are held in carbon-
ate reservoirs.
To meet rising global energy
demand and consumption, sustain-
ing production from existing fields
and increasing recovery factors will
be critical. To do this, it will be nec-
essary to improve our understanding
of fluid flow mechanisms and reser-
voir systems.
Spearheading Schlumbergers
efforts in this field is Dubai-based
Bernard Montaron, theme director
for carbonates and naturally frac-
tured reservoirs.
Several years ago Schlumberger
decided to assign theme directors
entirely dedicated to work on a small
Carbonate Evolution
number of business themes. Heavy
oil, deep water, and carbonates are
example of such focused themes,
explains Montaron.
My main mission is to facilitate
the integration of Schlumberger
technologies and expertise from all
business segments across the entire
organisation to address specific chal-
lenges and market needs in my busi-
ness themes.
Montarons role is geared around
understanding technical challenges
that oil and gas companies need
to address today and in the future
regarding carbonate reservoirs and
naturally fractured reservoirs. The
role is a world-wide position, but
given that the Middle East is the cen-
tre of gravity for carbonates on the
planet, it makes perfect sense to be
here in Dubai.
CARBONATES IN THE
MIDDLE EAST
The overwhelming majority of Mid-
dle East proven oil reserves are in
carbonate reservoirs, as well as 90%
of its gas. The statistics are slightly
skewed by the sheer size of some of
the fields found here.
The largest gas reservoir on
the planet is here, between Iran and
Qatar (South Pars and North Field
respectively). That single field holds
close to 30% of all gas reserves known
in the world today, says Montaron.
For oil, the reason the figure is
slightly lower is because there are
extremely large sandstone reser-
voirs on the Arabian Peninsula. The
Bernard Montaron, carbonate theme director at Schlumberger reveals
the challenges and opportunities the worlds carbonate reserves hold.
In this part of the world the atmospheric
conditions are ideal for carbonates. The
heat encourages a huge amount of
evaporation, and theres a lot of marine
life and corals that adds carbon matter.
Burgan Field in Kuwait is among the
largest sandstone reservoirs in the
world, as is the Safaniya field in Saudi
Arabia. Ghawar is the worlds largest
onshore field, covering a vast land
area of around 280 x 26 kilometres,
and its a carbonate reservoir.
The concentration of hydrocar-
bons in and around the Gulf coun-
tries is often attributed to geographi-
cal serendipity, but the formation of
carbonate hydrocarbon fields in the
region can be credited to atmos-
pheric conditions, which make the
formation of carbonates a near cer-
tainty.
In this region carbonate hydro-
carbons have been typically formed
by the precipitation of calcium car-
bonate from seawater. To reach a
stage where the calcium carbonates
form, the sea water has to be evapo-
rated, so the high temperatures and
coastal winds create the ideal ele-
ments needed, says Montaron.
As water is removed by the heat
from the sun and by wind, the concen-
tration of minerals increases. As the
carbonates are formed, the remains
of marine life are trapped, such as
shrimps, fish and crabs. These lay-
ers of trapped carbon grow at a rate
of around half a millimetre per year
in regional conditions. This doesnt
sound like much, but over 2 million
years that accumulates to 1 kilome-
tre of carbonates, says Montaron.
The weight of those carbonates force
it deeper and deeper, to hotter parts
of the earths crust, where it gets
cooked, and oil is formed.
Basically, in this part of the world
the atmospheric conditions are ideal
for carbonate formation, the heat
encourages a huge amount of evapo-
ration, and theres a lot of marine life
and corals that adds carbon matter.
Whilst the geological birth of the
regions oil may seem an impossibly
distant point in history, the creation
of carbonate deposits is still being
played out in the Gulf before our eyes
today. In Abu Dhabi you can visit
geological sites where carbonates
are being created right now. Carbon-
ates are formed in shallow seawa-
ter by several natural mechanisms,
and there are some excellent fields
where you can see the initial deposits
being created.
www.arabianbusiness.com/energy
CARBONATE EVOLUTION
28 Oil&Gas Middle East August 2008
The other interesting thing about
calcium carbonates is that its natures
own way of removing carbon dioxide
(CO
2
) from the atmosphere. The
CO
2
gets dissolved in the seawater
and is trapped in the carbonates, so
the biggest CO
2
store on the planet is
in the carbonates and carbonate res-
ervoirs.
Carbonate structures tend to
pose more complex problems for the
oil industry because it forms a very
brittle rock that tends to crack under
tectonic pressure. This cracking cre-
ates fractures and corridors that pose
significant challenges to drillers, seis-
mologists and geophysicists, as pin-
pointing their exact location is excep-
tionally difficult.
THE CHALLENGES
One of the major problems with car-
bonate reservoirs is the lack of accu-
rate data on production available in
the public domain. Most of the time
oil and gas companies consider these
statistics very sensitive figures. What
we do know, from reputed sources,
is that the overall average recovery
factor is around 35% overall for sand-
stone and carbonate reservoirs. Its
also fairly certain that the recovery
factor, on average, is lower for car-
bonates.
There are many reasons behind
why recovery is trickier in carbon-
ate reservoirs, but heterogeneity
is the principal problem, explains
Montaron. The rocks tend to be a lot
more heterogeneous than in sand-
stone. Sand that follows a 100km
journey from weathered rock or
mountain, and is then eroded along
wadis or river beds, is then rolled
by the sea, has a very homogenous
character. With carbonates, they
form in a much more irregular pat-
tern along the coast, and so as the
formation gets deeper, there is much
greater deviation.
These deviations can be caused
by a myriad of factors. Crabs may dig
holes in the carbonate in one place,
whereas a couple of hundred metres
away a mangrove might form which
is laying down vegetative matter, but
leaving traces of root networks in the
rocks. Over time these will form very
different structures. Added to this,
when you are three kilometres deep,
some of this translates into vugs,
which are small cavities in a rock or
vein, often with a mineral lining of
different composition from that of
the surrounding rock, which compli-
cates the picture further.
On top of all these factors impact-
ing the carbonate structures is the
issue of tectonic activity. When the
plates beneath us move they tend
to buckle, bend or crack under the
huge pressure. This forms fractures
and these structures can have a
huge impact on the recovery factors.
When seawater is injected to push
the oil towards the production well,
under natural pressure it may go into
these cracks and get directed away
from the matrix or body of oil you are
targeting.
Heterogeneity is the number one
challenge when dealing with carbon-
ate reservoirs. The secret to maxim-
ising production in these fields lies
with accurately mastering the reser-
voir description. Being able to locate
where those big fractures are, know-
ing how the different rock types are
distributing the reservoir, and from
that being able to create a complete
description of the permeability of
the reservoir is making a step in the
right direction.
Ultimately, if this can be achieved,
then placing the wells and pinpoint-
ing where to inject water or gas will
have a potentially massive impact on
the production yield.
FIELD EVALUATION
A reservoir may be 30 km East
West and 50 km North South, and
maybe 1 kilometre deep. When you
are looking at a field on this scale its
vital to understand how the fluids are
going to move within it.
A good analogy is to imagine the
reservoir as a roadmap of a country,
and understanding the vehicular traf-
fic through it, says Montaron. For
example, throughout a country there
will be lots of small roads running all
over, but thats not an efficient means
of getting around. If any significant
distance is going to be covered, then
highways are the quicker routes. Just
like a road map, within the matrix of
the carbonate reservoir are fractures,
which act as highways. Most of the
movement happens along these frac-
ture corridors formed by tectonic
activity. Some of these major arteries
could be 10 metres wide, three kilo-
metres long, and if fracture corridors
can be found and tapped, then you
hit these highway for fluids.
When drilling, if by sheer luck,
the vertical well hits the fracture cor-
ridor then you have an area where
permeability and the flow of oil
from all the surrounding cracks will
migrate - essentially taking advan-
tage of a giant natural feature of
the reservoir to drain all of the oil
towards the well.
However, if you drill just a hun-
dred metres away you could be in
a very tight matrix of the reservoir,
and the productivity of the well could
be 50 times less that the one that
struck a fracture corridor. Of course,
it could still produce 2000 bpd, but
if you found the natural highway for
the oil, it would be more like 20 000
bpd.
In carbonate reservoirs it can be
quite common that out of 25 wells
drilled, just one of those may pro-
duce 60% of the total yield, and this is
an illustration of the difference strik-
Qatars vast North Field and Irans South Pars hold 30% of the worlds known natural gas reserves.
30 Oil&Gas Middle East August 2008 www.arabianbusiness.com/energy
CARBONATE EVOLUTION
ing a corridor could make.
Of course, on the other hand, it
could also happen that the fracture
corridor is connected to water, in
which case your well will produce
and recycle a lot of water, which is far
from ideal, so understanding which
fluids these structures will bring to
your wells is essential.
Knowing that the fracture corri-
dors act as conduits for oil or water
is just the first step. The major prob-
lem is that in the scheme of an oilfield
seismic report, these fractures are
very difficult, almost invisible to see
on seismic images.
Understanding the big structures
and taking advantage of high-resolu-
tion seismic imaging, and new work-
flows to characterise the reservoir is
a fundamental step towards improv-
ing recovery yields.
Its only very recently with seis-
mic weve been able to see these
fracture corridors. The seismic sig-
nature is very small, and they are
easily confused with noise. To get a
picture of these structures you cant
filter anything out of the pictures; you
want all the noise and a very smart
way of pinpointing these hard to see
structures.
Fracture corridors are impos-
sible to see with the naked eye and
even the best seismologists will only
be able to see the folds above, but the
corridors remain near invisible.
Smart processing of high resolu-
tion seismic a new workflow called
FCM for fracture cluster mapping -
will show you these structures, but
you need to understand each rock
layer within the reservoir. Compre-
hensive, detailed reservoir charac-
terisation is the answer. Having a
complete picture of what youre deal-
ing with is absolutely crucial.
This is achieved through full
data integration. Seismic will give
you an image of the big and interest-
ing structural features, but then you
have several other tools such as wire-
line data logging.
Precision monitoring of the
downhole conditions is the best way
of understanding the rock types and
the drilling environment.
An example of this data inte-
gration is available through West-
ernGecos Q-Technology surveys.
Each survey is a unique combina-
tion of acquisition, processing, and
inversion technologies required to
produce solutions to reservoir prob-
lems, whether defining reservoir
geometry, characterising reservoir
properties, or monitoring fluid move-
ments. Acquiring the right survey
the first time increases its value as a
reservoir-management tool at every
subsequent stage in the fields life.
These technologies are rather
more advanced than standard seis-
mic surveillance methods because
they record the data from individual
seismic detectors without summa-
tion. The seismic wavelet is control-
led through source signature moni-
toring. Together, this results in the
highest quality seismic fidelity and
the maximum suppression of noise.
Hence, subsequent Well-Driven
Seismic processes such as well cali-
bration, inversion, and classification
techniques all produce more accu-
rate results.
Using this sort of technology
enables incredibly powerful data
analysis which in turn generates res-
olution that could not be generated
by more traditional bundled seismic
systems, says Montaron.
A new workflow has been devel-
oped by Schlumberger to improve
fracture characterization and to effec-
tively model carbonate reservoirs.
The FCM Fracture Cluster Mapping
workflow integrates Q-Technology
services, borehole measurements
and Petrel seismic-to-simulation soft-
ware with expert interpretation and
flexible work processes, resulting in
improved production performance
The workflow helps production
engineers make better decisions for
the location of injectors and produc-
ers, plan well trajectories, improve
production predictions and form a
comprehensive Discrete Fracture
Network (DFN) model. It makes
a clear distinction between diffuse
fractures that can be modeled using
geo-statistical techniques, and frac-
ture corridor highways that must be
detected and placed in the reservoir
model at their exact field location.
This year Schlumberger intro-
duced Carbonate Advisor petrophys-
ics and productivity analysis serv-
ice. Carbonate Advisor offers a sys-
tematic analytical framework to effi-
Bernard Montaron is based in Dubai, UAE.
Global Experts, Local Solutions
Setting Performance Standards by
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Tel: 971 4 320 4342 Fax: 971 4 320 4401 P.O.Box 126274 Dubai United Arab Emirates email: info@ncs-me.net website: www.ncs-me.net
32 Oil&Gas Middle East August 2008 www.arabianbusiness.com/energy
CARBONATE EVOLUTION
ciently deliver a timely, comprehen-
sive petrophysical evaluation of car-
bonate rocks. This integrates infor-
mation from magnetic resonance
and elemental capture spectroscopy,
as well as other logs and core data, to
produce a single, complete formation
evaluation of carbonate reservoirs.
CARBONATES AND
ENHANCED OIL RECOVERY
Most of the data available from pilot
tests worldwide, stretching back
over the last three decades reveals
very few EOR pilot studies have
been in carbonates. The established
methods of EOR, such as polymer or
surfactant injection work very well
with sandstone reservoirs because
these chemicals are employed very
efficiently when pushing the oil out
because the oil mobility is higher.
Porosity and permeability are higher,
but in carbonates, surfactant chemi-
cals are needed because the oil sticks
to the rock so by definition you will
have to inject thousands of tonnes of
these chemicals which will stick on
the rock surface, which raises the
problem of profitability and economi-
cal production.
However, Montaron says in the
next five years the industry will
undertake a great many more pilots
for EOR in carbonate fields.
Already we are seeing some
interesting results from CO
2
injection
in carbonates. People are increas-
ingly experimental with surfactants,
CO
2
, and some very clever tech-
niques to find the best, which may be
a combination of several methods.
Pilots in carbonate reservoirs can
be expensive. Each can last a course
of several years. In that time you
have to inject thousdands of tonnes
of chemicals, at a cost of hundreds
of millions of dollars, which is affect-
ing your bottom line. The outcome is
uncertain, so theres a financial risk
element.
What we are aiming to do is to
bring down the cost of running pilots.
Imagine if the cost could be capped
and some tangible answers obtained
in less than six months, then the
whole venture looks a lot more
appealing. Within a timeframe of just
one year, three different processes
could be investigated and a realistic
picture of where you want to invest in
the future can be established.
These mini-pilot schemes aim to
have enough scope to capture the
heterogeneity of the reservoir, and
enable enough data capture to ana-
lyse everything that is happening in
the downhole environment, so that
recovery factors can be accurately
gauged.
The possibilities for pilot stud-
ies are exciting, says Montaron. If
ultimately CO
2
works best this could
really change the landscape of car-
bon capture in the Gulf countries.
LOOKING AHEAD
A casual analysis of worldwide oil
reserves and yearly production
reveals some quite staggering fig-
ures. Currently we are producing
roughly 87 million bpd 32 billion
barrels per year. This means, every
year the industry has to find twice
the remaining volume of oil in the
North Sea just to meet reserve-
replace targets.
Out of this 32 billion barrels pro-
duced each year almost 22 billion
barrels are coming out of sandstone
reservoirs. We are emptying the
sandstone reserves much faster than
the carbonate fields. The reserves
and production ration in sandstone
fields have around 20 years produc-
tion time left. The proven and proba-
ble reserves in carbonate fields have
around 80 years production left, so
around four times more.
This means that as time goes
by the market share of carbonate
reserves is increasing.
Because we are emptying the
sandstone reservoirs so fast it is pos-
sible that in 30 years we could be in
a situation where 75% of the global
reserves are in carbonates.
Traditionally we had been replac-
ing reserves with more discoveries
in sandstone than in carbonates. But
something happened in 2007 that
changed all of that, says Montaron.
An oil and gas company discov-
ered a field 300 kilometres offshore
of Rio de Janeiro in the Santos Basin,
which was a truly huge carbonate
field below a thick salt layer.
The hydrocarbons in the Tupi
and Carioca Field are an ultra-deep
water environment buried beneath
2000 metres of water, 1000 metres of
rock, and 2000 metres of salt.
We dont know exactly how much
is there, but its a huge amount of oil.
This field is particularly interesting
because it is below a huge deposit of
salt, which is a perfect seal.
That means the entire hydrocar-
bon reserve that was there before
is still held in place. There are
no leaks.
There are plenty of areas world-
wide where there are large salt
deposits that fit a similar profile.
Offshore Angola and the Mediter-
ranean spring to mind. Six million
years ago the Mediterranean region
was almost isolated from the Atlan-
tic, and it evaporated leaving a mas-
sive layer of salt. Its not impossible
that we could discover a vast amount
of oil underneath these subsea
salt deposits. This sort of well was
not economical five years ago, but
with the price where it is now, they
are very viable. These sub-salt car-
bonate territories may well be the
next exploration boom.
It is possible that in just 30 years we
could be in a situation where 75% of
the global reserves are in carbonates.
S
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KSA has mix of sandstone and carbonate reserves, but the sandstone elds are being depleted faster.