Technology Focus: Unconventional and Tight Reservoirs (July 2025)

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At the heart of any successful resource development, the need to understand the characteristics of the reservoir are paramount to enable optimized extraction. This month’s selections of unconventional technology articles investigate the factors affecting productivity and performance and highlight the need for effective strategies to enhance performance and mitigate impairment issues.

Unconventional assets are complex geological settings and, therefore, require tailored approaches to handle these complexities. Innovative methods and techniques are presented in paper SPE 220733 to analyze, model, and assess the effect of condensate banking; the paper proposes well-management techniques unique to unconventional wells considering their lengths and stimulation design.

Similarly, paper URTeC 4011664 assesses fluid-flow characteristics in tight rocks and introduces a new experimental technique aiming to improve the accuracy and efficiency of permeability and saturation-dependent relative permeability measurements. These reservoir parameters can have a great effect on the expected recovery from a resource play, and better characterization of these parameters can ultimately lead to better resource management.

Using the vast North American data set of unconventional plays from the last 10 years, paper SPE 220937 highlights ongoing efforts to enhance the understanding and exploitation of various reservoir types, aiming for improved productivity and efficient resource management. The paper assesses the influence of completion, fracturing stimulation, and reservoir properties on productivity in 10 major unconventional oil and gas plays. The study provides insights for optimizing field development that can be replicated for unconventional plays globally.

Summarized Papers in This July 2025 Issue

SPE 220733 - Field Study Explores Condensate-Banking Effect in Unconventional Gas-Condensate Reservoir by Jichao Yin, Occidental Petroleum, et al.

URTeC 4011664 - Workflow Improves Assessment of Permeability in Tight Rock Samples by Sabyasachi Dash, The University of Texas at Austin, et al.

SPE 220937 - Completion and Reservoir Data Deciphers Productivity Drivers in Unconventional Plays by Vincent Indina, CNPC, et al, et al.

Recommended Additional Reading at OnePetro: www.onepetro.org

SPE 222910 - Optimizing Exploitation Strategies for UAE Unconventional Oil Resources: A Case Study on Integrating Rock Quality and Completion Quality Aspects by Rakesh Roshan Rana, Indian Oil Corporation, et al.

SPE 221176 - Getting the Most Out of Coalbed-Methane Pilot Testing—Learnings From More Than 15 Years in Queensland by Alistair Jones, Origin Energy, et al.

SPE 223547 - Stacked-Pay Development Insights From Routine Sealed Wellbore Pressure Monitoring by Brendan Elliott, Devon Energy, et al.