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The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality recently concluded that hydraulic fracturing operations were not the likely cause of well water contamination in a small town.

When interviewing potential senior-petrophysicist recruits, we exchange pleasantries to break the ice and then I ask an easy, yet fundamental technical question: “How would you explain Archie’s law to an inexperienced colleague?” Then, I sit back in expectation of a slick answer from the candidate. Imagine my surprise when the interviewee takes a sharp intake of breat…

The evaluation of complex carbonate reservoirs is a challenging task, and a detailed understanding of reservoir heterogeneity is still lacking. In this study, the effect of static rock type and sample size was investigated on special-core-analysis laboratory (SCAL) data derived from capillary pressure and resistivity-index experiments at reservoir temperature and net …

Accurate determination of relative permeability hysteresis is needed to predict water-alternating-gas (WAG) injection reliably. Two series of gas/water relative permeability hysteresis curves were obtained from corefloods under mixed-wet conditions. The results revealed that none of the widely used hysteresis models (e.g., Carlson and Killough models) is able to predi…

Geophysicists from Stanford University have compiled a map of new maximum horizontal stress orientations in Texas and surrounding areas, potentially giving operators new information for avoiding seismic activity in their hydraulic fracturing operations.

Drillstem testing of low-permeability reservoirs is challenging because high-pressure drawdown around the wellbore lowers fluids below saturation pressure and creates two-phase flow into the wellbore. The fluids produced at surface no longer represent the original reservoir fluid. This paper shows the benefits of a careful methodology of data selection and equation-of…

My, what a difference a year makes as I look back at last year’s interest vs. this year’s. Improved-oil-recovery (IOR) technology and remotely-operated-vehicle support were in the forefront last year. This year, the buzz is around high pressure/high temperature (HP/HT). This is not to say that IOR technology has vanished or become passé; far from it. But this year’s g…

The design of subsea equipment for pressures greater than 15,000 psi and temperatures more than 250°F is a substantial challenge. The current standard from the American Petroleum Institute (API), Specification 17D, for designing subsea equipment provides little guidance on conditions exceeding these measurements. This work has been performed to demonstrate the accepta…

As the need for oil and gas equipment working in hotter and higher-pressure environments continues to mount, the effort to develop an adequate set of design, material, and validation practices continues to be challenging. More-rigorous stress analysis and design methods that more closely model fast-fracture burst conditions are needed to achieve safe, reliable, and co…

A program was devised to test the manufacturability of shrink-fit joints made from high-strength (greater than 100 ksi) mill pipe and forged couplings.