Seabed mapping, which is required prior to carrying out engineering work on infield production infrastructure and for the laying of export pipelines. Surveys provide information on seabed bathymetry, seafloor features, near-seabed stratigraphy and geology, which aids engineering design of the infrastructure needed to bring developments into production
A subsurface, porous, permeable or naturally fractured rock body in which oil or gas are stored. Most reservoir rocks are limestones, dolomites, sandstones, or a combination of these. An oil reservoir generally contains three fluids – gas, oil, and water – with oil the dominant product. In the typical oil reservoir, these fluids become vertically segregated because of their different densities. Gas, the lightest, occupies the upper part of the reservoir rocks; water, the lower part; and oil, the intermediate section. In addition to its occurrence as a cap or in solution, gas may accumulate independently of the oil; if so, the reservoir is called a gas reservoir. In the typical dry gas reservoir natural gas exists only as a gas and production is only gas plus fresh water
Prices of oil have been rising due to several reasons: Supply issues with production declines in certain oil producing countries such as Mexico, an unstable oil industry in Venezuela and Nigeria and possible shrinking production capacity in the Middle East; a weak dollar and political instability in some oil-producing countries; a tight market due to increasing demand in developing countries such as China and India, speculative traders bidding up the price as a hedge against inflation and as protection from the sinking U.S. dollar; the fact that it is becoming harder and more expensive for oil companies to find and tap new petroleum reserves; forecasts that the world’s energy needs will escalate by more than 50 percent in the next two decades, etc. Several other factors contributed to the run-up in oil prices. World oil production decreased slightly between 2005 and 2007. Declining production from mature oil fields in the North Sea and Mexico played a role, as did political instability in Nigeria. Saudi Arabian production, which many analysts had expected to increase to meet rising demand, fell by 850,000 bbl a day between 2005 and 2007. These declines were enough to offset production gains in places such as Angola and Central Asia, with the result that total global oil production dropped slightly. Meanwhile, demand continued to grow, with world petroleum consumption increasing by 5 million b/d during 2004 and 2005 driven largely by a 9.4% increase in global gross domestic product. Over the next two years, 2006 and 2007, world GDP grew an additional 10.1% which, in the absence of an increase in the price of oil, would have produced further big increases in quantities consumed. Even with price increases, Chinese oil consumption increased by 870,000 b/d between 2005 and 2007. With no more oil being produced, that meant that residents of the US, Europe, and Japan had to reduce consumption by a comparable amount. The price of oil needed to rise by whatever it took for these western consumers to do so. Consumers finally began to respond when gasoline’s US average price was more than $4/gal > >
Any estimation of resource quantities is subject to uncertainty and should thus be expressed as a potential range. The function of the three primary categories of reserves (proved, probable, possible) is to illustrate the range of uncertainty in the estimate of the potentially recoverable volume of petroleum from a known accumulation. Such estimates, which are done for each well or reservoir, may be made according to the deterministic or the probabilistic methods and are then aggregated for the whole accumulation/project. The estimate of uncertainty for each accumulation can be tracked over time from exploration through discovery, development and production. This approach provides an extremely effective basis for evaluating the validity of the methodologies used.
The UK’s main natural gas storage facility on the Rough Field in the North Sea. It is an offshore storage that originally belonged to BG which set it up as a storage facility about 20 years ago as a strategic storage to support the grid if it failed or if one of their major gas fields fell over. It can supply about 1.5 bcf of gas per day for approximately 100 days. The gas is received from the national transmission system and it is mainly used today as a trading pool, namely to buy gas and store it when it is cheaper and sell it off on days when the gas is more expensive.
The reserve flow project of Katza is a unique system that allows the bi-directional flow of crude oil from the Med to the Red Sea. The assumption is that the increase in consumption of crude oil produced in Russia or Eastern Asia can represent a reliable source of energy supply to the growing demand for energy in the Far East.
The continuing process of integrating and interpreting geological, geophysical, petrophysical, fluid and performance data to form a unified, consistent description of a reservoir.
Used to describe oil and gas that may be present even though there is no specific data supporting the estimate, such as when conditions appear to be geologically favorable. Not to be confused with “reserves” (see reserves)
Europe’s largest oil company. In 2004 Shell was gripped by a scandal when it admitted it had overstated their proven reserves and had to revise them down by 20%, which lead to regulatory probes and law suites as well as fines of $150 million.
