Instituto Universitario Politcnico

Santiago Mario
Extensin Costa Oriental del Lago
Sede Ciudad Ojeda

Technical English
A. Read the following text
PETROLEUM RESERVOIR
A petroleum reservoir, or oil and gas reservoir, is a subsurface
pool of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock
formations. The naturally occurring hydrocarbons, such as
crude oil or natural gas, are trapped by overlying rock
formations with lower permeability. Reservoirs are found
using hydrocarbon exploration methods.

In addition to the aquatic environment, which is usually a sea,

but might also be a river, lake, coral reef or algal mat, the
formation of an oil or gas reservoir also requires a
sedimentary basin that passes through four steps: deep burial
under sand and mud, pressure cooking, hydrocarbon
migration from the source to the reservoir rock, and trapping
by impermeable rock. Timing is also an important
consideration; it is suggested that the Ohio River Valley could
have had as much oil as the Middle East at one time, but that
it escaped due to a lack of traps. The North Sea, on the other
hand, endured millions of years of sea level changes that
successfully resulted in the formation of more than 150
oilfields.
Although the process is generally the same, various
environmental factors lead to the creation of a wide variety
of reservoirs. Reservoirs exist anywhere from the land surface
to 30,000 ft (9,000 m) below the surface and are a variety of
shapes, sizes and ages.
Traps
A trap forms when the buoyancy forces driving the upward
migration of hydrocarbons through a permeable rock cannot
overcome the capillary forces of a sealing medium. The
timing of trap formation relative to that of petroleum
generation and migration is crucial to ensuring a reservoir can
form.
Structural Traps

Figure 1. Screenshot of a structure map generated by Contour map

software for an 8500ft deep gas & oil reservoir in the Erath field, Erath,
Louisiana. The left-to-right gap, near the top of the contour map
indicates a Fault line. This fault line is between the blue/green contour
lines and the purple/red/yellow contour lines. The thin red circular
contour line in the middle of the map indicates the top of the oil
reservoir. Because gas floats above oil, the thin red contour line marks
the gas/oil contact zone.
Source: Petroleum Reservoir (Wikipedia)

Formation
Crude oil found in all oil reservoirs formed in the Earth's crust
from the remains of once-living things. Crude oil is properly
known as petroleum, and is used as fossil fuel. Evidence
indicates that millions of years of heat and pressure changed
the remains of microscopic plant and animal into oil and
natural gas.
Roy Nurmi, an interpretation adviser for Schlumberger,
described the process as follows: "Plankton and algae,
proteins and the life that's floating in the sea, as it dies, falls
to the bottom, and these organisms are going to be the
source of our oil and gas. When they're buried with the
accumulating sediment and reach an adequate temperature,
something above 50 to 70 C they start to cook. This
transformation, this change, changes them into the liquid
hydrocarbons that move and migrate, will become our oil and
gas reservoir."

Structural traps are formed as a result of changes in

the structure of the subsurface due to processes such as
folding and faulting, leading to the formation of domes,
anticlines, and folds. Examples of this kind of trap are an
anticline trap, a fault trap and a salt dome trap.
Stratigraphic Traps
Stratigraphic traps are formed as a result of lateral and
vertical variations in the thickness, texture, porosity or
lithology of the reservoir rock. Examples of this type of trap
are an unconformity trap, a lens trap and a reef trap.
Hydrodynamic Traps
Hydrodynamic traps are a far less common type of trap. They
are caused by the differences in water pressure that are
associated with water flow, creating a tilt of the hydrocarbonwater contact.
Seals
The seal is a fundamental part of the trap that
prevents hydrocarbons from further upward migration.

Hydrocarbons Fluids
Hydrocarbon fluids are mixtures of molecules containing
carbon and hydrogen. Under initial reservoir conditions, the
hydrocarbon fluids are in either a single-phase or a twophase state. A single-phase reservoir fluid may be in a liquid
phase (oil) or a gas phase (natural gas). In either case, when
produced to the surface, most hydrocarbon fluids will
separate into gas and liquid phases. Gas produced at the
surface from a fluid that is liquid in the reservoir is called
dissolved gas. Therefore, a volume of reservoir oil will
produce both oil and the associated dissolved gas at the
surface, and both dissolved natural gas and crude oil volumes
must be estimated. On the other hand, liquid produced at the
surface from a fluid that is gas in the reservoir is called gas
condensate because the liquid condenses from the gas phase.
An older name for gas condensate is gas distillate. In this
case, a volume of reservoir gas will produce both natural gas
and condensate at the surface, and both gas and condensate
volumes must be estimated. Where the hydrocarbon
accumulation is in a two-phase state, the overlying vapor
phase is called the gas cap and the underlying liquid phase is
called the oil zone. There will be four types of hydrocarbon
volumes to be estimated when this occurs: the free gas or
associated gas, the dissolved gas, the oil in the oil zone, and
the recoverable natural gas liquid (condensate) from the gas
cap.

Figure 3. Distribution of water, oil, and gas and position of gas/oil

contact (GOC) in a segregating-gas-cap reservoir: (a) before production
and (b) during depletion
Source: Primary Drive Mechanism (PetroWiki)

B. Extract the following information:

1. According to you, define the reading levels presented
in the previous article.
1pt
2. Briefly describe in your own words what is shown in
Figures 2 and 3.
2pts
3. Name 4 possible false cognates and explain why they
are.
1pt
4. Name 3 Prefixes and 3 Suffixes and explain why they
are.
1pt

Figure 2. Schematic representation of a hydrocarbon deposit in a

stratigraphic trap
Source: Introduction to Petroleum Reservoirs and Reservoir
Engineering (informit.com)

Gas Drive Reservoirs

Gas drive reservoirs are further subdivided into either
solution gas drive or gas cap expansion drive reservoirs. A gas
cap expansion drive reservoir is a gas cap reservoir in which
the expanding gas cap is responsible for the majority of the
gas expansion. A gas cap is a free gas zone that overlies an oil
zone. The free-gas zone may be pre-existing or may form
during the depletion process. Pre-existing gas caps are called
primary gas caps. Gas caps that are not originally present but
that develop during the depletion process are called
secondary or developed gas caps. Secondary gas caps can
form from the upward migration of either liberated dissolved
gas or from reinjected gas. Fig. 3 shows a schematic of a gascap expansion-drive reservoir.

Good Luck!