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February 2016 Bulletin

OPTIMIZING LATERAL PLACEMENT AND PRODUCTION:  AN EAGLE FORD CASE STUDY
 
Rick Schrynemeeckers
North American Business Development Manager
Amplified Geochemical Imaging, LLC
 
Introduction
Shale plays are an extremely difficult arena in which to explore. Lack of heterogeneity is not the only problem. The Eagle Ford play, for example, has numerous hydrocarbon sources and multiple stacked zones. These multiple stacked pays result in mixed drilling success with both economic and noneconomic drilling results.
 
Towards that end, a variety of logging technologies provide information during drilling as to the presence of hydrocarbons. However, these logging technologies do not measure hydrocarbons directly, but rather measure hydrocarbon proxies and infer hydrocarbon presence and phase based on this data. These technologies, while sophisticated can lack specificity and sensitivity when trying to accurately identify hydrocarbons.
 
Additionally, some new technologies can monitor hydrocarbons from C1 (methane) to n-C8 (octane) and expand the scope of hydrocarbon detection. These new technologies can clearly detect gas range organics and can infer light oils and condensates. However, all of these technologies lack the ability to measure the heart of the oil or liquid hydrocarbon fingerprint of n-C7 (heptane) to n-C15 (pentadecane). Thus, accurately characterizing and differentiating between multiple oil fingerprints (i.e. multiple sources) becomes difficult, if not impossible, for current technologies. As such, these limitations negatively impact the ability of companies to properly assess zones of highest hydrocarbon richness and porosity. As a result, companies commonly have template completion and fracturing schemes that generate production, but are not optimal.
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