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Reservoir Associates International: consulting portfolio

U.K. Carboniferous: regional modelling of Dinantian and Namurian plays in northwest England and adjacent offshore areas; semi-regional assessments and licence-round studies of Namurian, Westphalian and Barren Red prospectivity in the southern North Sea; pre-development reservoir-modelling and simulation studies of fluvial architecture and connected volumes for Namurian, Westphalian A and B and Schooner Formation discoveries; assessment of the gas-storage potential of a Westphalian B-aged reservoir in onshore eastern England.

U.K. southern North Sea Rotliegendes: licence-round assessments of marginal Rotliegendes plays in the vicinity of the Silverpit Lake and Dowsing fault zone; multiple exploration, development and re-development studies; field and regional appraisals; field-management and reserve-optimization studies; basin-wide assessment of porosity and permeability variation.  As at August, 2010, sedimentological and petrological studies had been completed on cores from 85 wells.

U.K. Triassic: acquisition of geologically-constrained parameters for simulation modelling of aeolian and fluvial reservoirs in a Liverpool Bay oilfield; exploration modelling of reservoir distribution in the Wessex Basin and adjacent offshore areas; assessment of the gas-storage potential of abandoned fields in the southern North Sea.

U.K. west of Shetland: licence-round assessment of the potential of Middle and Upper Jurassic reservoirs in the Solan Basin; exploration studies of Triassic, Upper Jurassic to Lower Cretaceous and Eocene/Palaeocene prospects.

France: assessment of the exploration potential of the offshore and onshore Aquitaine Basin (including the development of source-reservoir models and identification of exploration leads); pre-development studies of Triassic strata straddling the Swiss border in the Jura.

Portugal: review of the petroleum potential of the northern Lusitanian Basin and the geology and structural development of the Oporto ((Galicia) Basin using analogue data from the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and other Atlantic-margin basins; development of seismically-constrained source-reservoir-seal models, delineation of prospects and drilling locations; post-well studies.

Italy: modelling of subsurface and regional data from a Miocene flysch basin in the Apennines; identification of sand fairways and assessment of potential for stratigraphic trapping.

Poland: exploration studies of Rotliegendes and Zechstein potential in the Central Polish Trough and adjacent areas and in the region of the Fore-Sudetic monocline.

Siberia: exploration studies of arc-related volcaniclastic potential reservoirs in the Taymyr and Kamchatka peninsulas; development modelling of shoreface reservoir systems for an oil accumulation in the Middle Ob region.

Algeria: exploration and development studies as below.

 Exploration studies of Siluro-Devonian, Carboniferous and Triassic strata in the Berkine (Ghadâmes-Illizi) Basin, including reconstructions of local basin configuration and structural controls on sedimentation patterns, assessment of sealing potential and constrained modelling of fluvial architecture based on field data acquired from the Tassili externe and In Amenas areas.

Sedimentological and petrological studies of Siegenian, Emsian and Strunian F1 to F6 reservoirs in the Berkine Basin.

 Multiple sedimentological, petrological and reservoir-modelling studies of the Trias argilo-gréseux in the Berkine Basin, including a regional appraisal of mineralogical and diagenetic trends in the northwestern province.

 Technical appraisals of producing, Triassic gas fields in the northern Oued Mya Basin and of Cambro-Ordovician prospects in the area of the Hassi Messaoud Arch.

 Assessment of Cambro-Ordovician to Triassic reservoir continuity and potential in the Khalef Depression and Touggourt Saddle areas to the north of the Hassi Messaoud-El Agreb Arch; semi-regional modelling of the Grès d'Atchane and Quartzites de Hamra.

  Exploration studies of Cambro-Ordovician to Triassic reservoir continuity and quality in the southern Oued Mya Basin-Keskes Trough trend to the west of the Hassi Messaoud Arch.

  Pre-acquisition studies of Ordovician reservoir prospectivity in the Ahnet-Timimoun areas and of the Quartzites de Hamra in the vicinity of the Hassi Messaoud Arch.

Tunisia:  field-team management and outcrop studies of Cretaceous strata and surficial deposits within exploration permits of the Saharan province (including structural mapping and acquisition of data to constrain near-surface seismic-velocity models and subsurface fault geometries); sedimentological and petrological studies of Palaeozoic- to Triassic-aged reservoir systems.

Libya:  surface-geology structural analysis and rock-deformation studies in the Jabal Akhdar area to the north of the Cyrenaica Platform.

Mozambique: regional studies of the onshore and offshore exploration potential of the Domo, Sena and Lower Grudja formations and development of exploration plays in the Temane and Inhambane areas.

Western Madagascar: field-team management and field-based exploration studies of Sakamena and Isalo (Karoo) continental reservoirs in the Morondava Basin; reconstruction of basin-fill histories and development of structural models of trapping style; petrological studies of residual-oil distribution in the Tsimimiroro tar-sand accumulation.

Gabon and Cameroon: development and production modelling of multiple reservoirs in pre- and post-salt producing fields; well studies of lower Cretaceous fan-delta-fed turbidite reservoirs, pre-Gamba continental sequences, late Cretaceous deep-sea fan systems and Plio-Miocene deposits of the palaeo-Niger delta front.

Guinea Bissau: new-venture and exploration studies of the offshore, Cretaceous potential reservoir system.

Mauritania: seismic-stratigraphic modelling of potential reservoir development in the Ras El Baida upwelling zone and in deepwater acreage of the northern coastal basin.

Australia:  exploration and development studies as listed below.

   onshore Perth Basin:  pre-acquisition studies of tight gas-sand potential in Permian fluvio-deltaics; assessment of reservoir continuity for a Triassic field adjacent to the Northampton Arch; development studies of Lower Jurassic Cattamarra Coal Measures (including hydrodynamic modelling and assessment of deeper exploration potential).

  offshore Abrolhos Basin:  exploration studies of Permo-Triassic reservoirs and comparison with onshore analogues.

  Bass Basin:  prospect, exploration and development studies of Cretaceous- to Palaeocene-aged fluvio-deltaics and delta-front turbidites; sub-regional assessment of reservoir continuity and facies distributions.

  Otway Basin:  development studies of upper Cretaceous marginal-marine to delta-fed turbidite systems and assessment of associated deepwater plays.

Chlorite research: co-ordination of a multi-disciplinary research project to investigate the origin and geochemistry of chlorite cements in a Rotliegendes producing-field complex in the U.K. southern North Sea, their impact on reservoir prospectivity and significance with respect to exploration potential;  development of a seismically-constrained model of predictive burial diagenesis linking chlorite neoformation to depositional setting and surficial diagenesis.

Illite research: co-ordination of a multi-disciplinary research project investigating the origin and geochemistry of illite cements in a Rotliegendes producing- field of the U.K. southern North Sea; development of a predictive diagenetic model of reservoir quality to facilitate the design of infill-drilling strategies.

Reservoir Associates International undertakes ongoing research into the geometries of sandbodies.  Although primarily focused on fluvial, fluvio-deltaic and aeolian deposits, the numerical database includes lagoonal, shoreface-shelf and turbidite systems and provides analogue information for use in predicting lateral dimensions etc. for reservoir-simulation purposes.

In addition to the above, studies have been completed on data from Botswana, Columbia, Czechoslovakia, Egypt, Ghana, the Gulf of Guinea, offshore Kenya, Morocco, Namibia, the Philippines, the Republic of South Africa, the Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, the Yemen and Zimbabwe.  

Lou Macchi has also been involved in peer-group assessments of field-development and field-unitization programmes.

 Further information may be obtained from:

Dr Lou Macchi,

Reservoir Associates International, Laburnum House, Shocklach, Cheshire SY14 7BT, U.K.

Tel: +44 1829 250562, fax: +44 1829 250444