Major oil companies have been struggling as they attempt to make the unconventional business a profitable one. Indeed, the strategy of building an unconventional portfolio by means of mergers and acquisitions is not providing a satisfactory return on investment. This paper describes how seismic reservoir integration, advanced production analysis, and accurate nanoscale and 3D full-field simulations may address profitability issues and help oil companies to be more efficient in developing unconventional portfolios.
Introduction
While, from approximately 2008–2011, independents were building and developing their US unconventional portfolio, majors were trying to enter the same business by means of multibillion-dollar mergers and acquisitions. The majors were not fast enough to be able to repay the premium for this endeavor as a consequence of the combination of a low-margin-profit type of business and hydrocarbon-price evolution.
