KEYNOTE SPEAKER: PETROLEUM STRUCTURE AND GEOMECHANICS – WHAT IT IS AND HOW THE INDUSTRY/ACADEMIC BOND CAN BE STRENGTHENED (Invited Presentation)

Petroleum Structure and Geomechanics (PSG) is one of the most important discipline areas in the petroleum industry. PSG is the science and application of analyzing crustal deformation and stress by integrating outcrop, seismic reflection, remote sensing, petrophysical, core, laboratory rock strength, and fluid flow data. The outcome of this pursuit leads to a more complete understanding of the creation of petroleum habitats (basins); formation and evolution of petroleum systems; formation and architecture of structural traps; internal architecture and stress state of reservoirs and their overburden; structural controls on permeability including fractures, faults and diagenesis; pore pressure environment; dynamic interaction of deformation and production; and geomechanical constraints on operational integrity. As a discipline area, PSG is absolutely central to the core components of exploration and production and the demands on effective integration between geophysics, geology, reservoir and production engineering, drilling, and well completions and can be extreme. PSG is an endeavor that spans spatial scales from tectonic reconstructions to SEM-imaged rock-fabric analyses.

While the need for traditional applications of structural geology in the petroleum industry has not waned, in the last few years the importance of reservoir geomechanics has increased many-fold. Topics in this area include characterizing and modeling the coupled nature of deformation and fluid flow in stress-sensitive faulted, fractured and compliant reservoirs; managing production-related operational integrity; deriving detailed models of subsurface stress and rock strength for horizontal drilling and stimulation of low permeability reservoirs; passive seismic monitoring of reservoir stimulation and assessing/mitigating induced seismicity; advanced laboratory rock strength characterization and many other topics.

This GSA keynote will describe the historical development of PSG, highlight the main application areas using examples, characterize technical challenges the PSG community faces, describe selected examples of productive industrial/academic collaborations and the needs that PSG has of the academic community, and seed a discussion of how ties between industry and academia can be strengthened.