"Non-reservoir mudstones, opportunities and challenges for improved exploration and development success”
The Mudstone Seminar is a FORCE initiative arranged by the Reservoir Modeling SING to raise awareness and promote discussion on mudstone properties outside the reservoir. The focus of the seminar is concerned with predicting and understanding mudstone properties within overburden and underburden successions. The seminar is designed to appeal across the subsurface disciplines and attracts individuals who face the challenge of understanding and quantifying mudstone properties. Specific applications include geophysical based D.H.I., drilling issues, petrophysical modeling, faulting and fracturing, strain transfer capacity, overpressure prediction, sealing capacity and mudstone depositional modeling.
What is a mudstone?
Mudstones are fine-grained clastic rocks that are often described by a range of
terms including clay, mud, siltstone, shale, silty mudstone, and silt rich clay.
They account for some 65% percent of the sedimentary succession.
Why are mudstones important?
Interaction between reservoir and surrounding mudstones are very important
mechanisms to understand, although they are often neglected in the day-to-day
work.
From the drilling perspective, mudstones can provide as great a challenge as drilling in the reservoir itself. Exploration opportunities may reside as thin reservoir layers in an overall mudstone sequence, also, lateral changes in mudstone properties can cause apparent D.H.I. Basin modeling considerations include understanding the heat flow and hydrocarbon generation from mudstones.
The seminar will be held in 2003 on the 9th of April at the NPD.
For further information please contact the organizing Committee:
Robert.Trice@Shell.no,
Trond.Kristensen@dno.no,
Claus.K.Clausen@ConocoPhillips.com or
jean-marc.feroul@ep.totalfinaelf.no
Regards Robert Trice, Seminar Chairman