UK Onshore Carboniferous Shale Study

Introduction

The Carboniferous shales of the UK onshore area have become a major interest recently due to their potential to hold exploitable natural gas.

A key consideration in the exploitability of these natural gas assets is the current pore pressure regime within the shale. Knowledge of pore pressure is important in the process of hydraulically fracturing the shale to enhance permeability, and then to drive and enhance production of gas in place. However, traditional methods of pore pressure prediction within shales do not tend to work where effects of major uplift, diagenesis and hydrocarbon generation have eliminated usual porosity/effective stress relationships conventionally used to predict overpressure.

Benefits

Our analysis addressed two challenges:

To explain the lack of overpressure encountered in some wells
To apply alternative techniques to identify and build a predictive model of overpressure within the Carboniferous shales of the UK

The techniques deployed included:

Modelling of overpressure retention since maximum burial (and assumed maximum overpressure)
Examination of the log trends for evidence of diagenetic maturity
An assessment of current dry gas generation
An assessment on the impact of uplift on pore pressure

Deliverables

Analysis and results documented in study report provided in both hard copy and as a pdf
Available immediately, the study can be purchased in its current form, or would make a suitable framework for adding additional wells to suit specific requirements

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