Petroleum Exploration requires an integration of a variety of geoscience disciplines including geology, geophysics, petrophysics and geochemistry. Using a variety of data sets, students will use their knowledge of exploration tools and techniques to construct a petroleum prospect for a small oil and gas company.

Time Frame - 1 hour

Materials

• UTIG bucks - money for purchasing available data
• Basemap
• Data (three seismic lines, lithologic logs for two wells, geochemical logs for two wells)
• Samples of oil and various rocks mentioned in the game

Advance Preparation

1. How did the Gulf of Mexico originate? Review of the seismic stratigraphy and geologic setting of the Gulf of Mexico; define and show examples of acquisition of and interpretation of seismic reflection data.
2. Discussion of salt formation, accumulation and movement. Explanation of faulting and particularly growth faulting in the Gulf of Mexico. Examination of SEABEAM data in the Gulf of Mexico showing intraslope basins developed through salt diapirism and growth faulting. Echo character map of intraslope basin area demonstrating depositional processes and lithofacies distribution. Interpretation of faults and salt diapirs from seismic data in the Gulf of Mexico.
3. Investigation of Gulf of Mexico intraslope basin cores from UTIG collection. Activity involving analysis of coarse fraction, carbonate and foraminiferal data to distinguish the Holocene from the Pleistocene section in cores. Discussion of use of modern analogues for understanding deeper prospective intervals.
4. The Gulf Coast Basin is the largest basinal accumulation of oil and gas in the United States. Overview of the origin, migration, concentration, exploration, discovery and prospecting of petroleum. Examination of various grades of petroleum and explanation of the economics involved.
5. What is needed to find oil? Source rock, reservoir rock, seal and trap - what are they? Oil finders game where teams work as a company to purchase seismic data, geochemical data, and petrophysical data to determine where to drill for oil.

Procedure

The presenter will review the background required for this activity.

1. An initial presentation will be given on an overview of petroleum exploration, the various disciplines used in exploring for oil and gas, and the types of data employed by companies to develop an oil and gas prospect.
2. Teachers will be grouped into petroleum exploration companies composed of 3-4 individuals.

3. Each company will receive an exploration basemap locating the general prospective area and the various data sets available.

4. Each company will receive an operating budget for the prospect development of $330,000 in UTIG bucks.
5. Companies will now have the opportunity to purchase any of the available data for sale in order to develop a prospect. The presenter will give suggestions as to which seismic line might be the best one to purchase initially, etc.
6. The companies will assemble their data, interpret the data and then develop a potential drilling prospect in the area covered by the basemap.
7. Each company will locate their prospect with map coordinates and a total drilling depth on their base map.

Formative Assessment

The presenter will review the prospect and tell the teachers where the best drilling location is based on the available data. A map will be presented showing the map location and depth to the reservoir. Companies will note their total production based on a key provided by the presenter. Based on their total production, the current price of oil per barrel and the total cost of drilling/producing the well, companies will calculate their profit or loss from this well.

Assessment

Given a hypothetical petroleum prospect with exploration and drilling costs of $1,000,000, how many reserves (barrels of oil present in the reservoir) must be present at today's oil prices (check the daily paper's business section) to make a profit of $10,000,000? What if only 80% of the reserves could be removed from the reservoir? What would happen to the prospectivity of venture if the price of oil doubled? What if the price of oil dropped in half? How risky do you think the oil business is given that usually only one well out of nine is economically successful? How does this impact the profit margin that must be foreseen for a particular prospect in order for an oil company to consider investing in the project?