Oil engineering and education. Part V: Exploring the different ways to get oil

carlos84 (73)in Steem Education • 5 years ago

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Greetings friends of the Steem community and all the lovers of education in its different levels.

In this occasion I want to share with you a post related to the different ways used to find oil, because in spite of the current crisis of the prices of the hydrocarbon, it is never too much to learn even the most basic thing about everything related to the energy industry of the oil.

Introduction

Since the discovery of oil we can deduce through the historical study of the different exploration and search techniques that very important changes have occurred in relation to oil exploration and search activities.

It is important to mention that these gradual changes in the way of discovering and applying new techniques and methods of exploration are based on the need to provide greater safety to the personnel working in the exploration work, it can also be said that the new ways in the search for oil have been aimed at minimizing injuries and negative impact to the environment and in general to our ecosystem, however there is still much to do and much for safety innovating in the field of exploration and search for hydrocarbons. As new advances are known in this type of topics about the search for oil, many of us have realized that we are on the way to new and more efficient ways to find hydrocarbons.

In order for us to have an idea of how the first beginnings in the search for oil were here in Venezuela, it is necessary to remember that the first explorers in the country had to move in areas that were considered prone to get oil on foot or using beasts for their mobilization, a situation that to date and in spite of the technological advances can be considered useful at present.

Petrophysics is the science in charge and willing to enter in constant evolution and to be able to offer the oil industry the possibility of applying its knowledge in the search of the hydrocarbon, that is why it is perhaps convenient to ask ourselves the following questions:

What modern petrophysical methods have been applied in the oil industry?

To focus on the contributions that petrophysics has made in the anxious search for hydrocarbons, it is necessary to focus on the advances that have been made so far. I can cite, for example, the well-profiling technology in which advances have been developed from the practical and operational point of view, whose theoretical concepts always seek to associate technological advances with the contributions we can obtain from physics, chemistry and mathematics.

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In what case does the gamma ray register help in the search for oil?

As can be seen in the previous image there are two curves, one in blue and the other in red, as the blue curve moves to the left it means that we are in a rocky stratum which is sandstone, thus having a high probability of getting oil in a certain interval at the depth indicated by the gamma ray record.

The most modern petrophysical methods do not only depend on the new technological and scientific advances, but the enormous investigative power that can provide the petroleum engineers, geologists and petrophysicists to be able to even get to interpret the characteristics of the petroleum rocks including certain properties like porosity, permeability and saturation of fluids are added to that great constant effort of the delivery that men and women give in that effort to find the zones where possibly this hydrocarbon is.

Why is it necessary to talk about petrophysics in the different existing ways to find hydrocarbons?

As I have explained before in my topics related to oil engineering and education, oil is stored in rock, so there is a need in the oil industry to be able to have a science that provides the necessary attributes to study and analyze rock as that source of oil and natural gas storage and the capabilities to evaluate the production capacity of the rock in the future.

All these needs have led to the emergence of that part of geophysics that in the oil industry has many applications in the exploration, well drilling and production of hydrocarbons called petrophysics. As I mentioned before, because oil is found in the interior of the rock, we need petrophysical studies to describe the physical properties of the rock and to study the effects that originate the production of fluids inside the rock.

If we think exhaustively about the different existing ways to find oil we are sure to get many resources that go beyond the petrophysical studies and the electrical, gamma ray and other sources, for example I can cite the following:

Geochemistry.
Air and space exploration.
Offshore exploration.

What is the path of geochemistry in the search for oil?

As there are small hydrocarbon emanations known as menes, it was always thought that by analysing the soil from a chemical point of view, the presence of hydrocarbons on the surface could be detected, without the need to apply methods for detecting hydrocarbons that would have to apply some technique from the subsoil.

All this suggests that a chemical analysis of samples from the most superficial soil can help to detect the presence of oil in some finished area. It is especially useful to detect oil by applying geochemistry, especially if one has the slight impression that there are hydrocarbon emanations that may not be visible on the surface while at the same time they may be in small concentrations and that although they are very small they are very susceptible to detection by chemical analysis.

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In conclusion for this path that means the geochemistry, this part does not represent a significant method and very applied to the methods of exploration and search of the petroleum, nevertheless the knowledge and techniques referred to the geochemistry can be applied in the cases that a possible zone of menes of petroleum is detected since in many of the cases in which it has been applied sporadically it has given result.

Air and space exploration.

One of the advantages we have by means of aerial exploration is that by means of the airplanes we can cover large extensions of territory and thus select smaller areas for more detailed studies.

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The technological advances that have been achieved to date through science and technology have facilitated the annexation of other space elements that have also contributed to the search for oil. For example, satellites can photograph areas with very clear pictures that help us to select smaller areas that can be studied under other forms of detection.

Offshore exploration.

It is pertinent to mention in this part that oil and natural gas also exist in places that are marine, fortunately for the search of the hydrocarbon offshore most of the techniques used in land are applied, nevertheless in spite of the fact that in their majority they are similar techniques of detection the offshore operations are of greater danger since the operations are subject to changes in the time and different types of climate.

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Conclusions and contribution

No method of exploration in the different possible routes guarantees absolute success in the search for oil, the search for oil represents a latent risk, since any investment to undertake a project in the search for oil means that there is no guarantee that the method employed will be accurate, and any additional activity undertaken requires costs that cannot necessarily be returned with the oil that is supposed to be extracted in that area.

Moreover, it can be deduced that if the process of exploring and searching for oil were infallible under the various roads and techniques employed then there would be no record of wells that have been drilled and have turned out to be dry, so perhaps the finding of oil deposits would be quite easy.

As a final conclusion I can say that in our country basically almost all the methods of geophysical prospecting not to say all have been applied throughout Venezuelan oil history from geochemical analysis to diagnose menes to the most modern techniques such as profiling of wells to obtain records as the gamma ray, therefore we hope that this crisis in oil prices passes so that in this way we can see the continuous technological advances regarding the different forms of detection of hydrocarbons, of course always respecting the environmental mechanisms in favor of always taking care of our ecosystem.