Unconventional Oil and Gas Resources ─ Exploitation and Development

In the next decade, over 100,000 shale wells and one to two million hydraulic fracturing stages could be executed, with industry spending close to $1 trillion. This growth requires knowledgeable professionals in all areas of exploitation and development. The book starts with basics of unconventional resources and delves into subsurface measurements and associated interpretation, plus all disciplines associated with drilling, completion, stimulation, production, reservoir, monitoring techniques, the associated software, and overall unconventional resource development workflow. It covers emerging technology like data mining and future areas of technological development.

D. Nathan Meehan is Senior Executive Advisor at Baker Hughes Incorporated. Prior to Baker Hughes, Meehan was president of CMG Petroleum Consulting, vice president of engineering for Occidental Oil & Gas, and general manager exploration and production at Union Pacific Resources. He previously served as chairman of the CMG Reservoir Simulation Foundation and as director of the Computer Modelling Group, Vanyoganeft Oil Company, Pinnacle Technologies, and JOA Oil & Gas BV. Previously, he served as an at-large director on Society of Petroleum Engineer’s Board of Directors. Meehan earned a BSc in physics from the Georgia Institute of Technology, an MSc in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Oklahoma, and a PhD in Petroleum Engineering from Stanford University. He served on advisory boards of the University of Texas and the University of Houston and currently serves on the EME industry relations board at Pennsylvania State, the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, and the Advisory Board of World Oil. He is the recipient of the Lester C. Uren Award for Distinguished Achievement in Petroleum Engineering and the Degolyer Distinguished Service Medal and has served as a Distinguished Lecturer. He is a licensed professional engineer in four states and has published scores of papers and two books. He currently serves as President of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (2014-2016).

Usman Ahmed is Vice President, Reservoir Themes & Solutions and Chief Reservoir Engineer at Baker Hughes Incorporated. In this capacity Usman leads BHI’s reservoir-driven, cross-BHI solutions in unconventional reservoirs (Shale, CBM, Tight formations and Heavy Oil), mature oil and gas fields, integrated completions, intelligent reservoirs, dynamic reservoir characterization, carbonates and carbon capture & sequestration. Usman has more than 30 years of practical petroleum engineering experience from prior roles with Schlumberger, TerraTek and his own reservoir and production engineering consulting firm. He holds a B. Sc. and M. Sc. (both in Petroleum Engineering) from Texas A&M University. Usman has contributed to the industry through more than seventy publications, textbooks and patents and has held many technical and professional leadership roles while supporting the industry through participating in panels and keynote presentations. He was Society of Petroleum Engineer's distinguished lecturer during the period 2004-2005.