Reservoir performance of the South Cowden Grayburg field suggests that only 21 percent of the original oil in place has been recovered. The purpose of this study is to construct a realistic reservoir model to be used to predict the location of the remaining mobile oil. Construction of reservoir models for fluid-flow simulation of carbonate reservoirs is difficult because they typically have complicated and unpredictable permeability patterns. Much of the difficulty results from the degree to which diagenetic overprinting masks depositional textures and patterns. For example, the task of constructing a reservoir model of a limestone reservoir that has undergone only cementation and compaction is easier than constructing a model of a karsted reservoir that has undergone cavern formation and collapse as well as cementation and compaction. The Permian-age carbonate-ramp reservoirs in the Permian Basin, West Texas and New Mexico, are typically anhydritic dolomitized limestone. Because the dolomitization occurred soon after deposition, depositional fabrics and patterns are often retained, and a reservoir model can be constructed using depositional concepts. Recent studies of the San Andres outcrop in the Guadalupe Mountains and the Seminole San Andres reservoir in the Permian Basin illustrate how depositional fabrics and patterns can be used to construct a reservoir model when depositional features are retained.

This second volume on carbonate reservoirs completes the two-volume treatise on this important topic for petroleum engineers and geologists. Together, the volumes form a complete, modern reference to the properties and production behaviour of carbonate petroleum reservoirs.The book contains valuable glossaries to geologic and petroleum engineering terms providing exact definitions for writers and speakers. Lecturers will find a useful appendix devoted to questions and problems that can be used for teaching assignments as well as a guide for lecture development. In addition, there is a chapter devoted to core analysis of carbonate rocks which is ideal for laboratory instruction.Managers and production engineers will find a review of the latest laboratory technology for carbonate formation evaluation in the chapter on core analysis. The modern classification of carbonate rocks is presented with petroleum production performance and overall characterization using seismic and well test analyses. Separate chapters are devoted to the important naturally fractured and chalk reservoirs.Throughout the book, the emphasis is on formation evaluation and performance.This two-volume work brings together the wide variety of approaches to the study of carbonate reservoirs and will therefore be of value to managers, engineers, geologists and lecturers.

This book integrates those critical geologic aspects of reservoir formation and occurrence with engineering aspects of reservoirs, and presents a comprehensive treatment of the geometry, porosity and permeability evolution, and producing characteristics of carbonate reservoirs. The three major themes discussed are: • the geometry of carbonate reservoirs and relationship to original depositional facies distributions • the origin and types of porosity and permeability systems in carbonate reservoirs and their relationship to post-depositional diagenesis • the relationship between depositional and diagenetic facies and producing characteristics of carbonate reservoirs, and the synergistic geologic-engineering approach to the exploitation of carbonate reservoirs.The intention of the volume is to fully aquaint professional petroleum geologists and engineers with an integrated geologic and engineering approach to the subject. As such, it presents a unique critical appraisal of the complex parameters that affect the recovery of hydrocarbon resources from carbonate rocks. The book may also be used as a text in petroleum geology and engineering courses at the advanced undergraduate and graduate levels.

Hardcover plus Foldouts

Reservoir management is an important topic in the oil industry today. Conferences, forums, short courses, and technical papers, written and attended by engineers, geologists, geophysicists, petrophysicists, and managers discuss various aspects of reservoir management. A critical component of reservoir management is the accurate characterization of the hydrocarbon asset, called reservoir characterization. The topic of this course is the process of sequence-stratigraphic interpretation and characterization of carbonate reservoirs. Because of the overwhelming mass of information most reservoir geoscientists keep up with either some aspects of sequence-stratigraphy, or some aspects of reservoir characterization, but typically not both. The authors believe that the two disciplines are so intimately related that the sequence framework should be considered a critical piece of the integrated puzzle.