Fine Scale Characterization of Shale Reservoirs ― Methods and Challenges

This book summarizes the authors' extensive experience and interdisciplinary approach to demonstrate how acquiring and integrating data using a variety of analytical equipment can provide better insights into unconventional shale reservoir rocks and their constituent components. It focuses on a wide range of properties of unconventional shale reservoirs, discussing the use of conventional and new analytical methods for detailed measurements of mechanical properties of both organic and inorganic constituent elements as well as of the geochemical characteristics of organic components and their origins. It also addresses the investigation of porosity, pore size and type from several perspectives to help us to define unconventional shale formation. All of these analyses are treated individually, but brought together to present the rock sample on a macro scale. This book is of interest to researchers and graduate students from various disciplines, such as petroleum, civil, and mechanical engineering, as well as from geoscience, geology, geochemistry and geophysics. The methods and approaches can be further extended to biology and medicine.

Dr Mehdi Ostadhassan is an assistant professor position at the Petroleum Engineering department at the University of North Dakota. Prior to this, he worked as a research scientist at the Energy and Environmental Research Center; a former national lab and a current state of North Dakota research center. Dr Ostadhassan established the reservoir dogs research group which focuses on advanced analytical equipment and computational techniques to improve our fundamental understanding of complex rocks, especially unconventional shale reservoirs. Dr Ostadhassan has presented a number of papers in various SPE, SEG and AAPG conferences and has been the guest speaker for numerous technical forums in industry around the globe. He has published papers in several peer-reviewed journals related to investigating rock properties of shale plays and is also a co-author of the book “New Frontiers in Oil and Gas Exploration” published by Springer. Dr Ostadhassan has been awarded a number of state research grants to investigate the Bakken Formation, a major source of domestic resource, and has received several teaching awards for his innovative teaching ideas and for involving undergraduate students in his research efforts. He is also the recipient of the prestigious ExxonMobil and Chevron scholarship awards.