Recent development of sedimentological approaches in petroleum exploration and development technology

Abstract

This paper reviews the progress on the sedimentological approaches in the petroleum exploration and production technology of Japan during the last years ( s to s). The notable progress on the sedimentological methods in the Japanese petroleum industry may include a) the introduction and application of sequence stratigraphy to actual exploration and production projects, b) the development of three-dimensional ( D) seismic geomorphology, c) an improvement of reservoir depositional models, d) the development of D geology/reservoir modeling, e) the basin analysis technique as an element of petroleum system, f) the siliceous rock petrography for shale development, and g) the methane hydrate-related researches. The sequence stratigraphic application has been accepted as an integration method of variable-scale petroleum industry data sets. The D seismic geomorphological approach resulted from the integration of sequence stratigraphy and the D seismic technology development, and has provided valuable benefits in terms of the improvement of depositional models and reservoir distribution analysis. The recent development of D geology/reservoir modeling technique has been facilitated by the advancing geostatistics and D seismic geomorphological methods. The recent industrial trends focusing on the petroleum system and unconventional hydrocarbon development have promoted the basin analysis technique and shale/gas-hydrate researches.