Seminar overview:
Most geomechanical interests and issues in the petroleum industry lie at much greater depths in the Earth than those usually addressed by geotechnical engineering. The stresses involved are those generated not by the weight of the rock being examined, but by the weight of thousands of metres of rock above it. During oil or gas production various kinds of excavations are made under these large stresses, fractures generated, and pore pressures and fluid chemistry in the reservoir and elsewhere are changed. During the seminar three of the consequences of these actions will be discussed – the production of sand from the reservoir along with the hydrocarbons; instability of the wellbore and its consequences; and the deformation mechanisms induced by the cutter of a modern drill bit.
Biography:
John Cook is a Scientific Advisor for the oilfield services company Schlumberger, and works in one of their research labs in the tent-like structure on the West Cambridge site. His academic background is in materials science and physics, but since joining Schlumberger in 1983 he has worked on many of the ways in which the behaviour of rocks - physical, chemical and mechanical - influence the production of oil and gas. These have included seismic response, swelling of shales, stability of holes during drilling and production, perforating, hydraulic fracturing, and currently the complex deformation responses under the cutters of a rock bit.