Exploration

Non conventional

Beicip-Franlab has a state-of-the-art expertise in unconventional resource assessment, exploration and production. In the last four years, we have evaluated more than fifteen shale systems around the world, including North Africa, Africa, Middle East, Central and South America, USA and Europe. We have also a considerable experience with tight reservoir development (such as North Africa, Latin America, Russia) and with coal bed methane (CBM) resource and production evaluation. Our TightFlow technology initiative is a leading workflow to simulate production from non conventional reservoirs.
Shale characterization and modeling : from regional scale to well scale

Beicip-Franlab has developed rigorous and effective methodologies and workflows allowing evaluating shale oil and shale gas resources and map sweet spots. Our approach involves the multidisciplinary integration of various disciplines:

  •  Stratigraphy, Sedimentology and Petrophysics

  •  Geomechanics and natural fracture analysis

  •  Organic geochemistry and organic petrography (free hydrocarbon and bitumen, adsorbed hydrocarbon and bitumen)

Our geoscience teams have developed original methods to map Total Organic Content (TOC) at regional scale from core  data, log data (CARBOLOG® method), seismic attributes and sedimentological / stratigraphic models.
Using TemisFlow®, Beicip-Franlab teams will reconstruct in 3D oil and gas generation, expulsion, migration models, incorporating the effect of adsorption and lateral migration. This process allows our teams to evaluate volumes of resources (oil and gas) remaining in each shale intervals in the different areas in the basin, and evaluate producible quantities.

In order to assess production conditions in the different areas in the basin, our geoscience teams will evaluate and map geomechanical parameters (fraccability, regional stress, natural fractures )jointly with geological / petrophysical parameters and identify sweet spots that have the best production potential. FracaFlow® is the key technology to assess natural fracture conditions from lithology, logs , seismics and cores, as well as to understand the development of hydraulic fractures at both regional scale and local scale.

At individual well scale, our TightFlow methodology allows identifying drainage volumes from matrix, fracture and hydraulic fracture characteristics. Simulation of oil and gas from hydraulically fractured shale is performed taking into account the shale matrix/fracture system, processes of flow in the fractured zone, matrix zone. Adsorption / desorption phenomena are carefully taken into account. Our approach offers the unique possibility to match existing production data as well as microseismic information, when available. Our consultants have gained unique experience applying the TightFlow approach in various producing shale systems, notably in the USA.

Tight oil/gas reservoirs

Beicip-Franlab has developed a comprehensive expertise in the evaluation and production of tight reservoirs.
Our approach combines two components.  Firstly, our consultants will integrate available well data (cores, logs, production) and seismic data in order to understand lateral matrix variations. Key disciplines include stratigraphy, sedimentology, log analysis and petrophysics, seismic attribute analysis. One of the objectives of this step is to predict the existence of less compact areas in the tight matrix (sweet spots). Secondly, our teams will carry out a detailed understanding of natural fracture networks, using logs, core, dynamic data, seismic information. The objective is to develop of a comprehensive model of matrix and fracture properties and to predict volumes in place as well as future production profiles. Beicip-Franlab reservoir engineers will team with geoscientists to predict production profiles and evaluate risk.

Coal Bed Methane (CBM) :

Beicip Franlab has carried detailed regional scale and local scale studies of the potential of CBM resources (eg : Lorraine and Nord-Pas de Calais, France). Our experience includes the regional modeling of coal strata, the mapping of volumes in place using core data and logs, deterministic and probabilistic methods, the design of production pilots and production wells, the interpretation of well tests, the simulation of production from horizontal wells. We have a good experience with the evaluation of uncertainties all along the cycle of a CBM project, and their impact on the economics.

Solutions for tight reservoirs and CBM :

The following software solutions are ideally suited to characterize and model tight reservoir as well as CBM :

  • CobraFlow allows populating  whatever geologic reservoir grids with reservoir properties using a large variety of geostastical methods, including plurigaussian methods or other techniques, depending on the geologic situation. Diagenetic overprints can be simulated if applicable. Seismic, well and production constraints can be simultaneously or separately  taken into account to construct reservoir property models,

  • EasyTraceTM is a flexible tool allowing understanding correlations between logs, matrix properties, seismic attributes, production characteristics at wells,

  • FracaFlow® is the leading solution to understand and model natural fractures at various scales, as well as effect of hydraulic fractures, when applicable,

  • InterWellTM is perfectly suited to extract matrix and fracture properties from seismic data and to tie the information on geologic properties

  • PumaFlow® is the versatile reservoir simulation that will optimally simulate production from tight reservoirs or the coal beds, with or without natural fractures, with or without hydraulic fracturation. In the case of CBM, adsorption and desorption processes are explicitly accounted for.

  • CougarFlow® is the versatile solution to rank uncertain parameters and model uncertainty, whatever the reservoir simulator used.

Software
Software Solutions