The Life cycle of Reservoir

By Shaker Mahmoud

The lifecycle of the reservoir

Each petroleum field investment has numerous stages from first discovery until abandonment in purpose to exploit the hydrocarbons and get them to market. There are five stages of oil or gas field development project in the oil and gas industry.

Field discovery (Where is the oil or gas?)

Hydrocarbons are existed beneath earth in reservoir rocks here the Geoscientists and petroleum engineers work together to locate them via utilizing seismic wave's technology to get a picture of subsurface and build a 3D geological model to identify potential reservoirs , then drill exploratory well in the location that they think will produce oil

Evaluation or appraisal (The amount of reserves?)

This stage is close to exploration and begins once discovery has been found the traces of petroleum so the team must appraise and evaluate the interest area by building 3D reservoir simulation models in order to know how much oil or gas is available? The type of oil or gas? And the extend of field size to make decision whether or not to proceed the development of the field.

Field development (construction of production facilities)

If evaluation determined there is enough oil or gas then the company plan to develop the field by selecting where wells to be drilled? And their number. Next installing the tools and main parts such surface gathering to bring field to production.

Field production (Oil and gas production)

Production means field produces and makes actually the money because production the only stage to make money for all cost of investment which perhaps prolong from a year to decades rely upon size of field This includes primary, secondary, and even enhanced oil recovery (EOR) processes.

Field abandonment (Site restitution)

When the production rate from the field becomes non economical the wells will be shut down .So the facilities dismantle, make sure the wells in a safe mode and there are environmental consideration must be addressed.