[E&E seminars] Imaging Fractures: Exploring & Developing Tight Gas Reservoirs w/Seismic Methods (Dec 13)

[Karen Gibson]

LFEE Seminar on Energy and Environment


“Imaging Fractures: Exploring and Developing Tight Gas Reservoirs  
with Seismic Methods”

Dan Burns
MIT Earth Resources Lab

Wednesday
December 13, 2006
12:00 - 1:30 pm
E40-496


Natural gas is a growing part of the US energy mix and, because  
natural gas is also more environmentally friendly, the demand will  
continue to grow. The US currently has approximately 200 TCF of known  
conventional reserves (EIA, 2006a), with annual domestic production  
(2004) of approximately 19 TCF (EIA, 2006b).  The US also has an  
enormous potential source of new natural gas reserves in  
unconventional reservoirs including tight gas sands, gas shales,  
ultradeep water reservoirs, and methane hydrates.  In total such  
reserves could provide energy independence for the US if they could  
be economically produced.  Tight gas sand reservoirs are estimated to  
contain 200-1000 TCF of reserves, depending on the technology  
available to find and produce them (RPSEA. 2005). These reserves,  
however, are produced through fractures (both natural and induced)  
and can only be brought on stream through improved technology for the  
remote sensing and characterization of these fractures. A brief  
overview of passive and active seismic methods used to image and  
characterize such fractures will be shown, along with some promising  
new methods based on scattered wave analysis.



Bring your lunch - light refreshment will be provided.


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Karen  L. Gibson
Program Assistant
MIT Laboratory For Energy and the Environment
77 Massachusetts Avenue, E40-469
(1 Amherst St., E40-469 - for DHL and FedEx)
Cambridge, MA 02139  USA
Tel:  1 (617) 258-6368; Fax:  1 (617) 258-6590

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