Witness Permian Basin Unconventional Resource Play Development Booming

Title：Witness Permian Basin Unconventional Resource Play Development Booming

Speaker：Dr. Hongjie Xiong, Director of TOGI, Adjunct Professor of Texas A&M University

Time: 3:00pm to 5:00pm on June 7th, 2017

Place: State key laboratory A403

Speaker unit :TOGI

Content：Permian

Basin is located at the west Texas and Southeast of New Mexico. Oil and gas exploration and exploitation have been taking place since late 1920’s.Though unconventional resource (UR) exploration and development have started booming about 10 years ago in North America, such as in Barnett, Bakken, Eagle Ford, Utica, Montney, and DJ Basin, the development of Permian Basin UR plays did not get much attention until 5 years ago. The current oil industry down turn has stressed the development in most of UR plays, however, the Permian Basin UR development is surprisingly booming. The recent oil price upward brings most of activities to Permian Basin, even the water cut is very high in the producing fluid.

It is very intriguing to understand the reasons behind the success of UR reservoir exploration and development in Permian Basin:The knowledge and experience accumulated near 100 year in exploration and exploitation may help the booming?Unique geographic location may enhance economics? Stacking multiple reservoirs benefit the

economic? Does the stakeholders play a role?Is the operation efficiency different from other basins? What is the role of the innovated techniques and technologies? How do oil companies deal with excessive production water but lacking of fresh water for fracturing

treatments?

This presentation will try to answer all above questions. It will first review geological characters and the properties of UR reservoirs in Permian Basin. Then, it will discuss the all factors that impact on the economics, which include operation efficiency, cutting-edge technologies, legal and stakeholders, geographic location and surface conditions, infrastructure, and others. Next, the presentation discusses the differences of those factors among different UR play basins. Finally, the author systematically analyzes and summarizes the comprehensive technical and non-technical reasons why Permian Basin UR play development is booming even the oil price is still relatively low.

Dr. Xiong，Dr.Xiong currently is the director of Production Enhancement, Texas Oil and Gas Institute (TOGI), and an adjunct professor of Petroleum Engineering Dept., Texas A&M University, College Station, USA. Dr. Xiong is a licensed Professional Engineer with significant and diversified managerial and technical experiences in domestic and international oil and gas operations. His expertise includes conventional and unconventional reservoir exploration and development, reserve evaluation, well stimulation, technology development, oil and gas property evaluation and economic analysis.

Prior to joining TOGI, Dr. Xiong had been the Global Reservoir Engineering Advisor for ConocoPhillips for more than 10 years, where his main responsibilities were to evaluate company-wide exploration and field development projects, advise senior management for funding approvals and/or project sanctions, and provide guidelines to appraise and develop unconventional resources plays, including Niobrara, Eagle Ford, Bakken, Permian basin, Montney, and Horn River.  

Prior positions include the manager of production optimization for Schlumberger Data and Consulting Services in Houston. Hongjie holds BS and MS degrees from Southwest Petroleum Institute, and a Ph.D. in Petroleum Engineering from Texas A&M University.

Active in the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), he had served in several SPE technical committees, currently is a review committee member of SPE Production and Operation Journal. Dr. Xiong has published more than 50 technical papers.  

State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation

School of Oil & Natural Gas Engineering

Science and Technology Department of SWPU