Field Development is the Future of Petroleum Geology

Abstract

From Alaska's North Slope to Britain's North Sea, oil production has gone flat—almost everywhere but in the Persian Gulf nations (Tknner, 1987). Most of the world's largest fields are in mature prov­ inces and are past their prime production. Future addi­ tions to reserves are becoming more difficult and more dependent upon sophisticated geology and reservoir engineering. In Texas, the greatest petroleum province of the United States, in a recent survey, W. L. Fisher and W. E. Galloway (1983) estimated that only 35% of the 156 billion bbl of oil discovered will be recovered. The oil left in the ground is a huge target, and members of AAPG will increasingly be occupied trying to solve sub­ surface geological problems connected with the develop­ ment, extension, infill drilling, and enhanced oil recovery from existing reservoirs. Therefore, this issue of the Bulletin is devoted to field development studies. We anticipate that more of our articles in the coming years will investigate problems and solutions at the scale of individual oil fields. You will note that the World Energy Developments issue of the Bulletin is now being published as a separate special issue. The question posed in the articles in this issue of the Bulletin, then, is what can improve the quality of subsur­ face geological interpretation for optimum petroleum production? The long-range forecast for geological technology in the petroleum industry is for complete and quantitative subsurface extrapolation of geological bodies and their fluid production parameters. This extrapolation must occur at the appropriate scale and at every level of knowl­ edge. Geology must become less subjective, and geologi­ cal analysis must converge with petrophysical and