Petroleum Exploration- Upstream

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 Petroleum Exploration- Upstream

The role of exploration is to provide the information required to exploit the best opportunities presented in the choice of areas and to manage research operations on the acquired blocks.

An oil company may work for several years on a prospective area before an exploration well is spudded and during this period the geological history of the area is studied and the likelihood of hydrocarbons being present quantified.

                                                            Stages of a typical exploration program

Indeed, exploration is a risk activity and the management of exploration assets and associated operations is a major task for oil companies.

The risk cannot be eliminated entirely but can be controlled and reduced adopting appropriate workflow, conceptual and technological innovations.

Technological development has provided oil companies with Basin Modeling – which is a numerical simulation that allows the temporal reconstruction of the history of a sedimentary basin and the associated evolution of the processes related to the formation of petroleum accumulations.

                                                    Basin modeling – Petroleum system

On the basis of data and evidences collected from the preliminary studies, the company management, in the light of the possibilities and the probabilities of a discovery based on G&G data, aside from considerations of an economic nature, may decide to move to the following stage, which is the acquisition (through direct negotiations or by taking part in bids, etc.) of the legal right to perform prospecting in the selected area/block.

The owner of the mining right is normally the State, with which the oil company stipulates a contract establishing the contracting parties’ rights.

Production Sharing Contracts and service contracts are frequently adopted nowadays.

The sequence of activities covered by an exploration permit is fairly uniform, and include

• the creation of a database
• the analysis of available data
• the programming of mapping and geological and photo-geological surveys
• seismic surveys and interpretation of seismic data
• the choice of well locations, drilling
• the analysis of results and the decision as to whether or not to proceed with the application for a lease or to release the area after fulfilling obligations

                                            The main petroleum exploration techniques

The goal of exploration is to identify and locate a prospect, to quantify the volume of hydrocarbon which might be contained in the potential reservoirs and to evaluate the risk inherent the project itself.

A prospect is a viable target evidenced by geological and geophysical indications that are recommended for drilling an exploration well.

Credits: Oil and Gas portal