With the nation's oil industry increasingly focused on short-term efforts that generate rapid returns on investment, the Department of Energy is looking to the longer term - the next decade and beyond when new concepts in exploration, drilling, and production will be needed to keep the nation's oil and fields in production.

The Fossil Energy program supports fundamental research in advanced diagnostics and imaging technologies with a major emphasis on seismic imaging and new techniques to detect, predict and stimulate fractures in the low-permeability gas-bearing formations that are prevalent in the Rocky Mountain region.

In addition, in 2002, the Department's Office of Fossil Energy initiated PRIME, for Public Resources Invested in Management and Extraction, a fundamental R&D program in oil exploration and production technologies.

Advanced Diagnostics & Imaging Research

With better diagnostic and imaging technologies, producers can "see" oil, gas, and associated rocks from the earth’s surface and nearby wellbores. Visualizing the barriers and pathways for underground fluid flow allows expensive wells and enhanced production projects to be more efficiently positioned, thereby reducing risk, cutting costs, and increasing the ultimate recovery.

	Advanced diagnostics and imaging technologies allow producers to drill strategically- targeted wells to intersect multi-component reservoirs. Reservoir compartments are identified from production history, detailed well-log cross sections, and 3D (three-dimensional) seismic imaging.

Historically, new imaging technologies have contributed significantly to improved drilling success. For example, 3D seismic imaging, today's leading imaging technology, has been a major contributor to the revitalization of operations in the Gulf of Mexico where oil production increased by 50% between 1995 and 2000.  A DOE-funded project recently helped boost oil production off the California coast while reducing the amount of water produced by re-analyzing past seismic data with modern logging instrumentation and newly developed software.

State-of-the-art geophysical technologies, however, still cannot image most reservoir features; surface seismic can only differentiate rock layers over 30 feet thick. Smaller features, such as thin reservoirs and fractures, are "invisible." An additional problem is the limited capability of geophysical techniques to distinguish between water and oil. With advanced diagnostics and imaging technology, the costs and risks of exploring and developing these reserves can be significantly reduced.

In alliance with the oil and gas industry, the Department of Energy is supporting R&D of advanced diagnostics and imaging techniques, combining the best public and private capabilities to accelerate the creation and implementation of promising, innovative approaches. Some examples of the Energy Department's efforts include:

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Advanced Seismic Surveying Technologies. Seismic surveys – a technique in which sound waves are bounced off underground rock structures to reveal possible oil- and gas-bearing formations – are now standard fare for the modern petroleum industry. But today's seismic methods are best at locating "structural traps" where faults or folds in the underground rock have created zones where oil can become trapped. They often overlook the more elusive "stratigraphic traps" where oil can accumulate due to changes in the rock's character, such as its permeability.

DOE is supporting new seismic concepts that reveal stratigraphic traps by employing four types of shock waves generated in a seismic survey.

Typically, a seismic survey uses artificial noise – in most cases, a heavy thumping – on the surface to radiate out shock waves that are reflected back from underground rock structures. By studying the echoes, petroleum geologists can calculate the depth and outlines of underground formations. But conventional seismic surveys generally use only one type of shock wave – the compression or "P" wave. The "P" wave is adequate for locating stratigraphic traps but often fails to reveal fractures that are required for commercial flow rates.

New technologies under development in DOE's program use the "P" wave plus the three other major types of shock waves – the horizontal shear wave (referred to as an "SH" wave), the vertical shear wave (an "SV" wave) and the converted shear wave (a "C" wave) – to "paint" a richer and much more revealing portrait of the underground rock formations. Expectations are that the combination of all four wave types will permit petroleum geologists to locate the elusive stratigraphic traps.

The results could be extremely important for future U.S. oil exploration. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, there may be as much as 32 billion barrels of technically recoverable, onshore undiscovered oil resources in the United States.

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In December 2004, the Office of Fossil Energy announced 18 new projects aimed to recover vast amounts of hard to reach domestic natural gas. These projects will develop advanced diagnostic tools and technology to reduce the risk in exploration and development of oil and gas reservoirs.

Results from the projects will be applicable to a variety of geological formations and depths, including depths greater than 15,000 feet. The Department of the Interior Minerals Management Service estimates that 55 trillion cubic feet of natural gas exists at 15,000 feet or greater below the outer continental shelf in the Gulf of Mexico. 

Fracture Detection, Prediction and Stimulation. The ribbon-thin fractures in gas-bearing reservoirs can both benefit and hinder production. Especially in formations where the density of the rock prevents natural gas from moving easily through the reservoir rock pores, fractures can serve as conduits for the gas to flow to producing wells. But if a fracture crosses the path of the gas flow, it can divert the gas and create an obstacle to production. Therefore, accurate methods for locating fractures and determining the direction they run, or creating fractures that provide pathways for gas to flow most efficiently, are key to maximizing production from geologically-complex reservoirs.

In its 1996 study, Rock Fractures and Fluid Flow, the National Research Council recommended additional research to increase the understanding of fractured rocks, specifically the origin and development of facture systems and the interrelationship of stress, fluid flow, chemical processes, and temperature. The Council also recommended the development of improved fracture detection methods and numerical flow models.

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The Energy Department's Fossil Energy research program supports several projects to improve today's methods for locating or creating fractures. Some of these projects are using improved seismic technologies that employ multiple types of sound waves, such as described above, to determine the spatial distribution of natural fractures. Other projects are studying "geomechanical" methods for predicting where natural fractures are likely. The geomechanical approach is based on the mapping of fault systems within the reservoir from existing seismic data, then calculating where natural fractures are probable based on fault geometry or the geologic stresses (paleo-stress directions) that can be measured in the formation.

About 460 trillion cubic feet of natural gas – almost three times the amount of existing gas reserves nationwide – is estimated to exist nationwide in low permeability reservoirs. The key to producing this vast resource is to locate and drill areas where natural fractures improve the quality of these tight reservoirs.

PRIME - DOE's Fundamental Oil/Gas Research Program

The Public Resources Invested in Management and Extraction, or PRIME, program began in 2002. It differs from other Energy Department oil technology R&D programs in that it stresses high-risk research on concepts that may require 5 to 10 years to develop. A major goal is to develop new approaches that can lead to enhanced production of oil resources found on public lands.

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PRIME seeks to fill a growing void within the domestic oil industry - an industry increasingly made up of smaller independent companies. In a market where prices have become increasingly volatile, U.S. oil producers have increasingly narrowed their focus to projects that return a positive cash flow over a few months, rather than years. Industry-funded oil research laboratories have closed, and private sector support for fundamental research and longer-range technology development has dwindled. PRIME looks well beyond industry's current focus.

Three areas were included in the initial call for PRIME proposals which the Department issued in 2002: (1) new technologies for oil and gas recovery; (2) innovative drilling, completion and stimulation technology, particularly new materials and downhole fluids for use while drilling; and (3) revolutionary approaches in advanced diagnostics and imaging for finding and developing new oil and gas fields in the United States. In March 2003, the Department announced its first PRIME projects, scheduled to be completed through 2008.