It is possible that the Deepwater Horizon debacle will have the same kind of damper effect on offshore oil output that Three Mile Island and Chornobyl did on nuclear energy. This has everyone looking at alternatives, including Canada's environment minister, Jim Prentice. His comment: "I think it's always been clear that the oil sands provide a safe, stable, secure supply of energy, and they need to be developed in an environmentally responsible way. The risks associated with the oil sands, the environmental risks, are significantly different than and probably less than the kind of risks associated with offshore drilling."
However, it is not clear that the consistent greenhouse gas emissions and impact on water resources from the Alberta oil sands are any less damaging than that from an occasional major oil spill. But we will be hearing calls for more output from those large land-based, low-grade deposits like the oil sands of Alberta and Venezuela and the so-called oil shale in the Green River basin.
Using any of those resources has significant environmental impact.
The other option, biofuels, will certainly get renewed emphasis. But biofuels have their own issues with fertilizer runoff, water consumption, and soil degradation. In addition, even if aggressive federal production targets could be met, biofuels would provide just a single-digit percent of the energy we get from petroleum.
"Ay, there's the rub", said Hamlet, summing up our current dilemma.
Rolf Westgard
St. Paul, Minn.
Improving mud logging
I was surprised and pleased to see Alan Petzet's Journally Speaking column on mud logging and wellsite geologists (OGJ, May 10, 2010, p. 14). And I commend Horizon Well Logging for attempting to emphasize the field geologist component of that business. I spent 20 years as a well sitter, more than half as a small independent providing a premium logging service with emphasis on my sample-interpretation skills. Too often, mud-logging companies have emphasized only the technology. I do a broader range of consulting now, but to this day I am reluctant to recommend any geology graduate go into mud logging as a career move. Going into government service is a better move.
It is a simple truth that most exploration companies consider mud loggers as inept wannabe geologists or worse. And for many, their experience with mud loggers has been less than happy. Personnel turnover, nonfunctioning equipment, and unprofessional behavior are all too common. I recall a mud logger who used to catch samples in the nude late nights. It is tough making a career move when your peers are viewed as the rig psychopath.
The lack of training, turnover, and inept management by the companies is a far bigger problem than can be overcome by simply installing a more sophisticated (and unreliable) chromatograph.
Two years ago I was well sitter for a client on a rank wildcat in extreme eastern Arkansas in an area of complex structure and stratigraphy. They employed a mud logger on site. The company came ill-prepared to log the well. They had no air trap for air drilling and lacked a mud box or other means to sample gas when lost circulation forced the shale shaker to be bypassed. They served only as sample catchers, and late-night sampling was problematic as I frequently caught the loggers asleep.
The well, which was targeting the Fayetteville shale, drilled out of the Cretaceous and directly into Devonian carbonates. There was no Mississippian or Pennsylvanian section. I reported this, and the well was terminated immediately. Without me, I suspect the well would have continued to its projected TD for no reason. The loggers were totally unprepared to make that call.
Mud logging needs to change if it is going to provide maximum value to the client. In days gone past, the life span of a drillbit was a few hours. Even in the 1980s a bit lasting 100 hr was a rare bird. Loggers working 12-hr tours are exhausted. Trip time was important for both rest and to keep equipment in shape. Further, penetration rates are multiples of the old days. Mud-logging personnel should be worked in shifts of 8 hr, which means an additional person on the unit. Rugged, reliable instruments are more important than high-maintenance, unreliable equipment. The only reason a flame ion detector is more sensitive is because most hotwire chromatographs used ambient air instead of helium as a carrier gas. Further, it is time to throw away those $50 student scopes and buy a real microscope. The cheap shortcuts taken by some mud-logging companies are inexcusable.
Sample-catching must be emphasized. Accurate, lagged samples are still important. Sleeping on shift is unacceptable, and relying upon samples caught by crews is nearly worthless. Perhaps the solution is to place real-time video on the sample box to document when and how the sample is taken.
True wellsite-proven geologists are the Rodney Dangerfields of the oil patch. In fact, today's exploration geologists—in the office or on the site—are rarely sample-savvy enough to understand what they see. Companies should require their new hires to draw logs from sample libraries and then lay the results down to the electric log as part of their training. Too many explorationists think the only rock in the world is shale. Horizon appears to be trying to change that. More power to them.
Terrel Shields
Siloam Springs, Ark.
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