Alfred Lacazette - Resume, Part 3:  Project experience. 
http://www.NaturalFractures.com

PROJECT EXPERIENCE

SUBSURFACE STUDIES

In addition to numerous small projects, I performed major studies of hydrocarbon fields as listed here. Fieldwork was involved in some of these projects.

Natural-gas exploration - Ongoing

Central Appalachian Basin

Currently working on a regional exploration project looking at opportunities in an under-exploited fractured reservoir.

Academic research - Ongoing

Permian & Ft. Worth Basins, Texas

Since Spring 2003 I have been working with a group at the Allied Geophysical Laboratories of the University of Houston on problems of seismic and core interpretation in several fields in the Permian and Ft. Worth basins, including the Thirty-one and Dollarhide fields.

Seismic interpretation and fractured reservoir studies  2001 - 2003

On- & off-shore Mexico

During this period the bulk of my work involved interpretation of 3D seismic data for the Tampico, Veracruz, Coatzacoalcos, Villahermosa, and Ciudad del Carmen offices of PEMEX, although some of the work has involved core and image log analysis. The work has included:

• Structural and tectonic interpretation in the Veracruz basin.
• Developed a tectonic model for the Macuspana basin.
• Core and image log studies of fracturing in the Sen field.
• Structural interpretation of the Nayade basin to explain wildcat drilling results and define fractured-basement play opportunities.
• Structural interpretation of, and definition of fracture domains in, the Arenque field and an associated exploration play as part of a major reservoir modeling and exploration effort.
• Teaching structural interpretation methodology.

Fractured basement reservoirs  2000

Offshore Vietnam

Completed study of a section of Rang Dong field in conjunction with a fluid-flow modeling study by Golder Associates. The project required detailed analysis of image logs, core, standard open-hole logs, production logs and other data. The study provided a genetic fracture model for the field, a revised chronology of deformation and mineralization, and identified a previously unrecognized tectonic event that was critical to the development of fracture porosity and permeability.

Fractured basement reservoirs  1994 & 1995

Offshore Vietnam

Completed projects on the Bach Ho and Rong fields which occur in the fractured igneous and metamorphic basement rocks of offshore South Vietnam. These projects required two trips to Vietnam to examine data and meet with the technical staffs of PetroVietnam, VietSovPetro and the Vietnam Petroleum Institute in Hanoi, Saigon and Vung Tau and one week of fieldwork both onshore and on Con Son Island.

Sour Lake Field

Sour Lake, Texas

Coordinated an integrated study of the fractured limestone caprock of a salt dome. A vertical and a horizontal well were drilled to evaluate reservoir fracturing. Oriented core, a cross-well tomogram, and crossed-dipole shear-wave, imaging and conventional logs were collected in the vertical well and then analyzed to determine the optimum horizontal wellbore orientation. The horizontal well was drilled through the plane of the tomogram to link fracturing to its seismic response. Key achievements of the study were: Accurate prediction of fracture density in the horizontal well, which validated a new method of determining fracture density (fracture surface area/unit volume) from borehole data, identification of the caprock fracturing mechanisms and identification of both new play types and previously unrecognized drilling targets in caprock.

Point Arguello Field

Offshore California

Analyzed image logs, core and other data; performed fieldwork; supervised company sponsored academic projects on Texaco's Point Arguello oilfield as part of a large integrated study to develop a new, full-field reservoir model.

Fractured reservoir assessment

Sichuan Province, China

Was part of a team that assessed fractured-reservoir farm-in opportunities in Sichuan Province. The project included ten days in Chengdu, Sichuan meeting with Sichuan Petroleum Administration representatives and evaluating data.

Mara Field

Venezuela

Analyzed acoustic image logs and structural data to determine subsurface fracture density. Identified hangingwall extension in response to normal fault-bend folding as the mechanism of fracturing. (See publication list.)

Khorat Plateau project

Thailand

Analyzed core and image logs from a well drilled into a fault zone in low-grade metamorphic limestones. The well had produced abundant gas during a drill-stem test but produced nothing after casing and perfing. The study indicated that cementing operations pumped cement into the producing fractures which sealed the producing zone for a substantial distance from the wellbore.

Cerro Gordo Field

Colombia

Analyzed image logs and well drilling & completion data to assess production problems in a fractured limestone reservoir. The study showed that poorly performing wells should have produced similarly to other wells in the field. This result confirmed the suspicions of project engineers that the fracture system was sealed when the polymer drilling mud reacted with an incompatible completion fluid to form a hard, insoluble, plastic-like material.

Timan Pechora Field

Western Siberia, Russia

Analyzed core and an acoustic image logs to assess fractured reservoir production and borehole stability problems in a limestone reservoir. Breakout rotations showed that the well was drilled through a number of active faults. The region was not known to be tectonically active.

Awibengkok Geothermal Field

Indonesia

Analyzed image logs to determine subsurface fracture density (fracture surface area/unit volume) and predict intersected fracture frequency as a function of drilling direction using new statistical methods. Multiple wellbores allowed testing of the statistical methods which accurately predicted the number of fractures encountered.

Loma Las Yeguas Field

Neuquen Basin, Argentina

Determined fracturing mechanisms by analysis of fractured core and image logs in a reservoir formed by contact metamorphism around a basaltic sill.

Mabee Field

West Texas

Analyzed fractured core and image logs to plan an infill drilling program, to predict fracture development as a function of structural position and to determine optimum wellbore orientation. The well was drilled as recommended and is an excellent producer.

FIELD STUDIES

These projects were field-based.

Petroleum-related

Madidi block, Rio Beni region, Andean front

Bolivia

Worked two, two-month field-seasons in uninhabited, mountainous jungle on the western rim of the Amazon basin in northeastern Bolivia*. Fieldwork involved both detailed structural mapping of transects in well-exposed streambanks and collection of detailed mesoscopic structural data for paleostress analysis. The study supported a major geophysics-based exploration program. Key results included: Recognition that multiple, non-coaxial deformations affected the entire study area, determination of the direction and sequence of tectonic compressions, identification of stratigraphic units with good fractured reservoir or sealing potential, recognition of fault-propagation folding in addition to fault-bend folding, recognition of regional rock strain and previously unrecognized decollements. These results had significant implications for structural interpretation of the seismic data.
* Madidi's rugged, mountainous jungles are one of the most wild, remote, beautiful, and savagely dangerous places on earth.  I lived and worked in those jungles for four months: Two months in remote seismic base camps and two months in isolated campsites where I was dropped by helicopter with a cook and field assistant then left for up to two weeks at a time.  Four of my photos were published in the April 1993 issue of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists Explorer magazine.  To learn about Madidi, read: Madidi: Will Bolivia Drown Its New National Park? in the March 2000 issue of National Geographic Magazine.

Fracturing of the Bald Eagle Formation, Central Appalachians

Pennsylvania

PhD project funded by Texaco to identify the mechanisms of natural fracturing of the Bald Eagle Formation, which is a significant gas producer in central Pennsylvania. The study used field and petrographic methods and applied a new paleostress measurement method (developed as part of the project) based on fluid-inclusion thermobarometry. The study demonstrated that: The Bald Eagle Formation was naturally hydraulically fractured by a methane-saturated oilfield brine at the onset of Alleghanian-age deformation. A 45° stressfield rotation during the Alleghanian orogeny reactivated joints as wrench faults which caused the gas to vent to the surface and allowed meteoric water to mix into the reservoir. Paleomagnetic work showed that stressfield rotation and meteoric water invasion occurred at about 265 Ma (Early Permian) when folding was about 80% complete. At three sites the paleostress measurement method was used to measure the burial depth of the Bald Eagle (6.0, 6.3, 9.5 km), the paleogeothermal gradients (31 °C/km) and paleoheatflow. These measurements are in good agreement with independent fission-track and vitrinite reflectance studies. Measurements of the fold-axis-parallel horizontal-stress during fault-related folding at two sites yielded 95 and 166 MPa at depths of 9.5 and 6.3 km, respectively. These values depart from idealized stress gradients and respectively indicate stretching at an anticlinal nose and synclinal crowding.

Identification of gas-driven fracturing, Appalachian Plateau

New York

PhD project funded by the Gas Research Institute identified gas as the driving fluid of a joint in the Ithaca Siltstone Formation, which is a known gas producer in the subsurface of the Appalachian plateau. This was the first demonstration of natural gas-driven fracturing and the first recognition of the effectiveness of gas as a driving-fluid for natural extensional fracturing. (See publication list.)

Igneous and metamorphic rocks

Detailed structural mapping

Blue Ridge, North Carolina

M.S. thesis research. Mapping at a scale of 1:6,000, structural analysis, and petrography in the Nantahala Mountains of North Carolina determined the nature of the boundary between the Eastern and Western Blue ridge and showed that the boundary is defined by a kilometers-thick ductile shear zone that developed when the still-hot, granulite-grade rocks of the Eastern Blue Ridge were thrust over the cooler continental-margin rocks of the Western Blue Ridge. The study defined a complex, sheath-folded mixture of mafic and ultramafic rocks, trondhjemites and various metasedimentary lithologies in an anastamosing ductile shear zone. (See publication list.)

Coal and engineering geology

In addition to numerous smaller coal reserve assessment, environmental and geotechnical projects I performed the following major studies.

Surface resistivity mapping

Eastern Kentucky

Developed surface resistivity mapping to measure coal and overburden thickness variations for shallow strip mining and to locate deep-mine openings that were buried by later contour stripping.

Landslide assessment

Eastern Kentucky

Used air photos and tree-growth to show that a landslide threatening a litigant's home was much older than the mining operation that was blamed for the landslide.