Experiences with Gravel Packing in the South Tapti Gas Field - an Unconsolidated, High Permeability Sandstone Reservoir

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Subhas C. Das ◽  
Michael A. Garred ◽  
Kak Suhail
1991 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 527-541 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. A. Stuart ◽  
G. Cowan

AbstractThe South Morecambe Gas Field has been developed as a seasonal supply field to boost supplies to the National Transmission System at times of peak demand. This mode of operation has led to a requirement for exceptionally high reliability in all aspects of the development. This requirement has prompted the generation of an accurate and comprehensive geological model so that reservoir performance can be predicted as reliably as possible, and that wells can be drilled in optimum locations. The exceptional shallowness of the structure (crest at -2400 ft TVSS, GWC -3750 ft TVSS), coupled with the need to drain the reservoir cost-effectively and to minimize the risk of well interference has led to the use of slant drilling techniques for the first time in European waters. The field is located in the East Irish Sea Basin. The Triassic Sherwood Sandstone Gp forms the reservoir, and the Mercia Mudstone Gp provides the seal. The reservoir sands were laid down in a rapidly subsiding basin under continental semi-arid conditions, and comprise a complex interplay of major channel-fill sandstones, secondary channel-fill sandstones associated with non-channelized sheetflood sandstones, and localized, very high permeability (> 1000 md) aeolian and reworked aeolian sandstones. A vertical organization of these facies has been observed, with some intervals dominated by channel deposition, others by non-channelized deposits, due to periodic adjustments of the whole basin, and this has permitted the establishment of a reservoir zonation. A complex diagenetic history is recognized, with several phases of dolomite and quartz cementation. Differential compaction is also a major control on the disposition of reservoir properties. The greatest control on permeability (but not porosity) is platy illite which formed beneath a palaeo-GWC at an early stage in the growth of the structure, and which gives rise to a diagenetic layering of the reservoir into a high permeability Illite-Free Layer and a deeper, low permeability Illite-Affected Layer. The data presented herein is based upon the results of development drilling on South Morecambe.


2016 ◽  
Vol 90 (1) ◽  
pp. 209-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
OU Chenghua ◽  
WANG Xiaolu ◽  
LI Chaochun ◽  
HE Yan

Clay Minerals ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 459-477 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. W. Goodchild ◽  
J. H. McD. Whitaker

AbstractThe diagenetic history of the Rotliegendes Sandstone reservoir in the Rough Gas Field was studied using thin-sections, XRD analyses and SEM. The Rotliegendes comprises a sequence of fine-grained fluvial sheet-flood sandstones and coarse, gravelly, low-sinuosity channel sandstones, with thin aeolian interbeds, overlain by a sequence of aeolian dune and interdune sandstones. Early, environmentally-related diagnesis (eogenesis) shows a marked variability with sedimentary facies. Within aeolian sandstones, poikilotopic anhydrite and fine, rhombic dolomite are preserved. Fluvially-derived sandstones typically contain infiltrated detrital clays and early authigenic mixed-layer clays, together with coarse, framework-displacive dolomite. Feldspars show varying degrees of alteration within all facies. These eogenetic features reflect patterns of groundwater movement during the Rotliegendes and early Zechstein. Mineral dissolution and precipitation were controlled by the chemistry of the groundwaters. Burial diagenetic (mesogenetic) features are superimposed on eogenetic cements. Authigenic clays have been converted to illitic clays. In addition, mesogenetic chlorite has formed and quartz and strongly ferroan dolomite cements are recognized. These minerals may be related to clay diagenesis within the underlying Carboniferous Coal Measures. Early, framework-supporting anyhdrite, and both phases of dolomite, have been partially dissolved, creating secondary porosity. This is attributed to the action of acidic porewaters, generated by the maturation of organic material within the Carboniferous. Post-dissolution kaolinite, gypsum and minor pyrite infill secondary pores. Gas emplacement from the Late Cretaceous onwards effectively halted further diagenetic reactions.


The Aquitaine Basin, situated in southwest France, with an area of about 60 000 km 2 , has the form of a triangle which opens towards the Atlantic (Bay of Biscay) and is limited to the north by the Hercynian basement of Brittany and the Massif Central, and to the south by the Pyrenean Tertiary orogenic belt. Beneath the Tertiary sequence (2 km thick, and which outcrops over much of the basin) a Mesozoic series, up to 10 km thick, rests generally on a tectonized Hercynian basement but locally it covers narrow (NW-SE-trending) post-orogenic trenches of Stephano-Permian age. The Mesozoic history can be subdivided into four major structural-sedimentary episodes: (1) during a Triassic taphrogenic phase a continental-evaporitic complex developed with associated basic magmatism; (2) throughout the Jurassic, a vast lagoonal platform developed, initially (Lower Lias) as a thick evaporitic sequence followed by a uniform shale-carbonate unit, indicating a relative structural stability; (3) the end of the Jurassic and the Lower Cretaceous saw a fragmentation of this platform, due to an interplay between the Iberian and European tectonic plates, resulting in an ensemble of strongly subsident sub-basins; (4) during the Upper Cretaceous and until the end of the Neogene, the evolution of the Aquitaine Basin was influenced by the Pyrenean orogenic phase, with the development, towards the south, of a trench infilled by flysch which, from the Upper Eocene, is succeeded by a thick post-orogenic molasse complex. The main hydrocarbon objectives in the basin are situated in the Jurassic platform (e.g. the Lacq giant gas field) and the Cretaceous sub-basins (e.g. the Cazaux and Parentis oil fields). To date, production has been about 4 x 10 7 m 3 of oil, and about 15 x 10 10 m 3 of gas since the first gas discovery (St Marcet) in 1939.


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