|
|
 |
|||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||
| JOURNAL HOME | HELP | CONTACT PUBLISHER | SUBSCRIBE | ARCHIVE | SEARCH | TABLE OF CONTENTS |
1 BP Amoco Corporation, 200 WestLake Park Boulevard, Houston, Texas 77079-2696; nelsonr5{at}bp.com
2 Geological Consultant, present address Vanco Energy Company, One Greenway Plaza, Houston, Texas 77046; epmoldo{at}yahoo.com
3 BP Amoco Corporation, 200 WestLake Park Boulevard, Houston, Texas 77079-2696; matcekcc{at}bp.com
4 Maraven S.A., Caracas, Venezuela; azpiritxaga{at}pdvsa.com
5 The Andrews Group, Calle 33 No. 145, Cuidad del Carmen, Mexico; emilio_bueno{at}agi_cdc.com.mx
Ron Nelson has worked professionally within the oil and gas industry for 25 years, first with Amoco and now with BP Amoco. He provides technology support and applications in structural geology and fractured reservoir evaluation company-wide. Ron has worked as a specialist and manager in all the major technical organizations within his company, including a four-year period on Amoco's Prospect Quality Team, assigning technical risk to all of Amoco's drilling prospects and acreage capture worldwide. He holds a B.S. degree in geology from Northern Illinois University and an M.S. degree and Ph.D., also in geology, from Texas A&M University. He has been an AAPG Distinguished Lecturer twice, an SPE Distinguished Author, and author of a textbook, Geologic Analysis of Naturally Fractured Reservoirs.Eva Moldovanyi received her B.A. degree in geology from Wellesley College (1977), an M.S. degree in geology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (1982), and a Ph.D. in geology from Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri (1990). In 1977 she joined Lagoven S.A. as an operations and development geologist in the Maracaibo basin. Later she joined the carbonates group at PDVSA's research institute, Intevep S.A. With almost 20 years of industry experience in production geology, Eva has also worked for Amoco and is currently an independent contractor, providing consulting services for the evaluation of producing properties and marginal fields.
Charles Matcek has worked for BP Amoco for 23 years as a reservoir engineer, holding various oil and gas assignments in Texas, North Sea, Argentina, Trinidad, and Venezuela. He is currently working in the Anadarko Asset, developing gas reserves in the Texas panhandle area.
Izaskun Azpiritxaga received her engineering degree from the Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV) in 1979 and an M.S. degree in sedimentology from the University of Texas at Austin in 1991. She formerly worked for Maraven in Caracas and currently works in the Production Technology Department of PDVSA E & P as a stratigraphy-sedimentology specialist focusing on reservoir characterization and modeling technology, including geologic and flow fluid simulation.
Until 1998, Emilo Bueno was a geologist with Maraven, S.A., later PDVSA, Caracas. Emilo is currently a geoconsultant for The Andrews Group, a Core Laboratories Company.
La Paz oil field is one of the most famous, well-documented fractured reservoirs in the world. Since 1945 it has produced more than 830 million bbl of oil from both low porosity Cretaceous limestones and underlying granitic basement. The field is situated on a large inversion structure, partially uplifted in the late Eocene, having the majority of the inversion occurring in the Miocene-Pliocene. Fracture distributions, initial rate and cumulative production distributions, and trends in formation water chemistry all suggest that reservoir quality and reserves are controlled by natural fractures associated with Miocene-Pliocene and younger strike-slip faults and possibly by secondary microporosity related to the geometry of the earlier Eocene block uplift. Production levels within the area of Eocene uplift are anomalously high, with one well producing 59 million bbl of oil. Typical wells in other parts of the field produce 1 million bbl of oil. Analysis of the distributions cited previously suggests that production has occurred from highly elliptical to linear drainage areas surrounding faults. These restricted zones of fault-related fractures allow for communication of hydrocarbons stored in the low porosity rock carbonate matrix to the wellbore. In addition, diagenetic microporosity may be an important component in matrix storage in the carbonates and may be due to local subaerial exposure during the Eocene uplift.
This article shows that analysis of the natural fracture system with respect to the production characteristics in even old fields can give rise to new reservoir models, leading to new infill locations within the field limits or additional exploration opportunities in the area.
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  R. Higgs The vanishing Carib Halite Formation (Neocomian), Colombia-Venezuela-Trinidad prolific petroleum province Geological Society, London, Special Publications, January 1, 2009; 328(1): 659 - 686. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 B. R. Graham Wall, R. Girbacea, A. Mesonjesi, and A. Aydin Evolution of fracture and fault-controlled fluid pathways in carbonates of the Albanides fold-thrust belt AAPG Bulletin, August 1, 2006; 90(8): 1227 - 1249. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
P. Mann, A. Escalona, and M. V. Castillo Regional geologic and tectonic setting of the Maracaibo supergiant basin, western Venezuela AAPG Bulletin, April 1, 2006; 90(4): 445 - 477. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
M. V. Castillo and P. Mann Deeply buried, Early Cretaceous paleokarst terrane, southern Maracaibo Basin, Venezuela AAPG Bulletin, April 1, 2006; 90(4): 567 - 579. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
M. Poppelreiter, M. A. Balzarini, P. De Sousa, S. Engel, M. Galarraga, B. Hansen, X. Marquez, J. Morell, R. Nelson, and F. Rodriguez Structural control on sweet-spot distribution in a carbonate reservoir: Concepts and 3-D models (Cogollo Group, Lower Cretaceous, Venezuela) AAPG Bulletin, December 1, 2005; 89(12): 1651 - 1676. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
J.-M. Florez-Nino, A. Aydin, G. Mavko, M. Antonellini, and A. Ayaviri Fault and fracture systems in a fold and thrust belt: An example from Bolivia AAPG Bulletin, April 1, 2005; 89(4): 471 - 493. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
| JOURNAL HOME | HELP | CONTACT PUBLISHER | SUBSCRIBE | ARCHIVE | SEARCH | TABLE OF CONTENTS |
