Okay, originally this talk was going to be called the
Lifecycle of Oil, really got into
it and it's a long history there, so
we're just going to look at a component
of that. So we're going to do life cycle
of oil geology rocks. A couple geologists
get that joke nice work. All right so you
know here's my outline, but basically
what we're going to do is we're going to
introduce what oil is we're going to
make some simplifications around the
concept of oil but really want to what I
want to instill with you is that
creating oil is sort of a recipe process
where there are certain components
processes and outcomes that create the
end product what is oil. Big picture
why I'm even talking about oil so in the
Office of Fossil Energy we're working on
a crude oil characterization study and
what we're trying to do there is compare
conventional and unconventional oils and
these are these are terms i'm going to
address a little bit but you've probably
heard them now with the the shale
revolution increases in domestic
production um it's a game changer in the
United States so we're going to touch on
that, but really again the interest here
is describing geologic controls on
unconventional oil. So let's get into it.
So first some some information. I'm a
former EIA Energy Information Analyst
Administration Analyst Geologist, there I
see some people in the audience, thanks
for coming out. So I'm going to use a lot
of their work date they provide
excellent infographics, data, maps and I'm
going to use them throughout the this
presentation. So, it's really just
important points here oil is a mixture
of hydrocarbons, it's a soup of all sorts
of entrained gases, inert volatile gases,
water, muck it's a soup and because
it's so it exists on a wide spectrum of
properties it presents challenges when
you deal with it and one of those
challenges is has been with the increase
in unconventional oil production there's
been an increase in shipping crude by
rail. You may have heard out in just the
general environment that there have been
some incidents of derailment, some real
tragic losses, so this is a real issue
that we're trying to work on here at DOE.
So, just we got to introduce oil so
really here's a picture of hydrocarbons.
Again, hydrocarbons exist on it's sort of
the spectrum where different properties
at both ends so if we look at these
we're increasing in sort of have any
heavy density materials to lighter
essentially more pure material so if we
call these heterogeneous mixtures
there's a lot of stuff in there and we
make all these homogeneous mixtures sort
of single component and again if we
think about this in the context of
transporting crude oil it's how do these
properties influence that that transport
so that's something really to consider
as we move forward. So we're going to do
this sort of a in a geologic context but
also in a state profile setting. This
is again information from EIA, I've
modified it slightly, um I don't know if
it's still in the EIA color palette so
we'll have to review that... that's an
inside EIA joke. OK, so what we have here
,excuse me, essentially is production
volumes on the Left axis on the x-axis
the y-axis on the x-axis is api gravity.
So, if we go back, I'm sorry, when we say
low api gravity, we mean dense or heavy
stuff and when we say hi api gravity we
mean lighter stuff. So, if we look at this
California profile, they produce
primarily heavy oils. If we look at Texas,
huge state lots of producing areas, they
have a more normal distribution of a
demographic where they produce a variety
of heavy middle and white oils and then
there's North Dakota an area of
unconventional oil production which
predominantly produces this white oil. So
again, you know, for simplification sort
of heavier oil profiles lighter oil
profiles more unconventional oils
more conventional oils.
So let's begin
really what where every oil and gas talk
should begin at the Sun. So, really what's
going on here is you know our solar
system formed many many billions of
years ago, the Sun is undertaking
hydrogen fusion converting hydrogen into
helium,
in doing so emitting electromagnetic radiation and energy,
and 93 million miles later, Michael, in his previous talk, did a great
job sort of outline some some geology
here. So really just to take away a few
points, density matters at everywhere but
on earth especially. So, we have heavier
materials that kind of sink into the
core, we have lighter materials on top
and because everything is sort of
density driven these lighter materials
can surf on top of these heavier
material and that's really important in
the geologic rock cycle where you'll
have mountain building events, erosion
occurring, sediments running downhill
everything's gravity-driven density
driven. But most critically earth
provides the base components to produce
oil and specifically we'll look at the
atmosphere co2 carbon dioxide as a
source,but what's most important
critical about Earth with respect to oil
is life were fortunate to exist on be
here today but really what's going on
here is these organisms are capturing
solar energy and converting it into
organic material organic materials. So
you know we've got jellyfish, we've got
diatoms, we've got krill, we've got algae,
we have all these little critters
floating all all around the oceans and
rivers and lakes and and again they're
capturing that that light energy and
turning it into organic material. So
these these organisms over time are
going to to do this. So this is a picture
from space- that's the tip of Brittany
and France and that's Whales, and what we
have here is a massive algae bloom.
So, when you think about sort of the
scale, what we have going on is basically
a photosynthesis and carbon
sequestration at a massive scale where
again white energy is coming down
hitting these organisms they're taking
in co2 they're creating an organic
material and then they're dying and
they're sinking to the bottom of the
ocean. So over time, huge volumes of this
organic material builds up.So so this is
sort of the recipe I wanted to introduce
where we have this solar energy combined
with this organic materials combined
with time heat and pressure and we get
this precursor material to hydrocarbons
called Kerrigan on you know Black Rock,
oily to the touch um really just
hydrocarbon rich compressed material and
with more time, heat, and pressure this
rock is going to be converted into these
liquids or gases and essentially
that the it's called catagenesis but
it's the process of converting this
kerogen in into hydrocarbons that we
use today. So oils like a cake in that
sense where we've got these ingredients,
we've got a process to to combine them
together, and then we have to cook them
um just right and so this is sorry this
is where I need to stop and spend a few
seconds here talking about a lot going
on. So we talked we've introduced the
terms conventional and unconventional.
Conventional oils, Michael introduced the
term - sweet spot, conventional oils were
sort of a sweet spot play where there
were fewer areas where oil and gas had
over time migrated. With respect to oil
and gas, you need a couple things here so
I'll just point them out. You need a seal,
you need an impermeable layer to track
everything down, you need a source that
organic material that we talked about.
You need migration paths usually between
those so I love this um as Michael
described stuff wants to rise sometimes
out of the air so oil and gas will
migrate upward. And so when we talk
about unconventional today, we've been
traditionally targeting these sweet
spots, these reservoirs where oil and gas
it migrated to. What's distinct about
unconventional oil, is now we're
targeting source rock, we're creating
flow paths that previously didn't exist.
So what that really is why that really
is a game changer is we've gone from
limited areas of production to
essentially massive areas of production.
So connecting this diagram to this and
sort of reintroducing this cake concept,when you bake a cake just right -
you've got that perfect fluffiness the
perfect moisture content, and and if you
imagine sort of putting preparing that
cake batter doing all that work and then
in the oven if we introduce again time
pressure and heat over time stuff sinks,
so older stuff is below younger stuff. As
you sink, pressure increases with that
pressure temperature increases also this
concept that will just touch on is
thermal maturity it's basically how well
you bake that cake. So with respect to
oil, there's a window as a function of
time pressure and heat where you'll find
oil if it's too cold you won't create
that oil if it's too hot you're going to
cook off that oil and you'll be
primarily left with gas and then to such
an extent you'll essentially cook off
that gas and that's what's called over
mature source rock. So unconventional oil
exists potentially in a lot of places. It
may be deeper, it may be more challenging
to reach, but the greater volumes
incentivize us to to look for that. So
back at my time at EIA, I worled with a
great group of colleagues on updating
the shale plays of the lower 48 states
and again with what I want to speak to
here is the prevalence of these shale
resources, these tight formations we're
really well endowed in the United
States. Each play has
its own unique age so if we go back in
the Cambrian to the Maya scene we're
going from older periods in time to
newer periods in time so as I said stuff
is sort of layered the old stuff at the
bottom and the younger stuff is at the
top and that geologic history drives
what type of oil you may have. So to do
this we're going to take a little trip
so please keep your arms and legs in the
vehicle and we're going to go back in
time. So, just to set this up, what I'm
going to show you are past environments.
Right now we are 550 million years in
the past a long time ago um and what we
had here this is work out of Northern
Arizona University, but what they've done
is they've recreated past environments
with respect to modern countries.
So, in this example we have Canada and
the United States as would have existed
550 million years ago. And this blue stuff is oceans, the darker
stuff is deeper oceans, lighter ocean and
then these are continents. If you recall,
I said continents are sort of made out
of this lighter material, so this stuff
can kind of surf on the Earth's surface
and what we're going to do is we're
going to go from 550 million years ago
to the present and walk sort of how the
domestic United States, the lower 48
changes over that time and I'm going to
stop off a few places to point out some
stuff. So well again what you're going to
see are oceans changing, land masses
sort of moving, doing a dance so we'll
just start going and we're going to move
through time so you can watch that. So
we're in the late precambrian, a long
time ago, sea level is changing again you
can sort of see modern states underlying
so right now the United States is
covered in a shallow sea you'll see sort
of these components in hou van and Mississippi
if you were to match that up
with this map there are geologic there
are geologic structures that match
this this setting so we'll keep going.
We'll keep going ordovician a long time
ago, fish are starting to show up, first
sort of algae things are starting to
grow on the earth - silurian first bony
fish, very exciting times for everyone.
Okay, case study one,because I've got
some bony fish fans nice... that was a big
deal just before we didn't have bony
fish and now we do. So here we are
in the North Dakota as I said
unconventional oil and we're now in the
devonian period. So 400 million years ago
a long time ago, but what we're going to
see here is a really prolific Inland Sea
migrate across North Dakota you may
have heard the Bakken formation so when
we produce oil and gas from this area
it's a result of the shallow sea
activity so we'll just go through the
devonian really quickly and as you can
see that that Inland Sea is migrating
across North Dakota so sediments are
running off those organisms that I
talked about earlier are dying and they're
getting stacked and covered with with
sediments so it's building up over time.
So we'll just keep going, keep going. So
we were in an old period and we're
again moving forward through thr
Pennsylvania beautiful Coal is developing in
Pennsylvania and Ohio um so now we're at
Texas so Texas has a wide profile of oil
and gas and that's because Texas is
massive and it has a unique geologic
history. So if we look at this section of
the map, we're talking about the Permian
section now so 290 million years ago and
as you can see in West Texas a beautiful
Inland Sea about the size of Syria is
forming and we've got these matching
Permian plays to produce oil from
we also have older stuff that we should
have mentioned in the past but Cambrian
stuff so we'll just keep going basically
seeds are migrating across Texas for the
long haul so much oil so much gas or
precursors to oil and gas long history
long history still in the Cretaceous. So
this is when dinosaurs are about to go
extinct unfortunately but we'll keep
going keep going and we're getting into
an environment that's sort of you know
more similar to what we have today only
40 million years ago, Florida has yet to
form, but now we're in the legacian.okay so
last stop so I said in the past that
North Dakota has light unconventional
oil, Texas sort of has all types of oil,
here in California we have mostly heavy
oil and if we remember that it's a
function of time, heat, and pressure if we
look at the the California resources
that we would develop oil and gas from
there just forming only pretty recently
15 million years ago so we're just
essentially putting them in that oven to
bake, so they really don't have enough
time to fully cook, to become sort of
lighter and fluffier than than other
oils. So we'll just fast forward through
time and interesting you can watch the
the Baja of California migrate up, they say
California is going to fall off
eventually that's totally true.
You can see it migrating up. So you know
last ice age sea levels were lower
because we had all this water trapped up
um. but here we are today. So, what I
wanted to just touch is because of that
trip we just went through, we have a lot
of oil and gas
we had a lot of organic material being
deposited in a variety of environments
over a long history across a large area
so because of that the shale revolution
has been really successful in this
country just simply because the
resources there, the geology is there, the
time and the heat and the pressure, all there
the recipe really works in the United
States so again if if we think about you
know the timing of stuff how it matters
and where it's located as a function of
time heat and pressure we get these
hydrocarbons with with different
properties and that's important again.
You know in the concept of crude by rail,
how do we how we transport a gas
versus something that's almost a solid?
You don't transport them the same. So, you
know again when it comes to oil you want
to be in that perfect window, you want to
make that cake that that is just right,
and here in the United States we're
really fortunate to have a lot of areas
that exist in this oil window and
then we have a lot of areas that exist
in the gas window. So again these
geologic controls are really what drives
our our resource abundance here and
because again there's a long history
there we'll just deal with these
properties of crude oil on in different
manners, but here at DOE we're
working with our partners at DOT
FmCSA, Transport Canada, our neighbors to
the north, to try to get a handle on
these properties and how this property
influence hazards with respect to
transport. So you know we've been through
a lot so I think we'll just identify
that we're in this area of resurgence,
these new oils are sort of distinct from
the past oils, and in terms of oil
demographics we're moving from this more
conventional side of the spectrum to a
more unconventional spectrum. And again
just how do we deal with that is the
question at hand. So, I hope this is a
picture of a cake and it is so thank you
very much.