SPE-180804-MS

The Impact of Reservoir Size on Gas Field Development Options

N. A. Alleyne and V. Stoute, The University of Trinidad and Tobago

Copyright 2016, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Trinidad and Tobago Section Energy Resources Conference held in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, 1315
June 2016.
This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents
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Abstract
The deep water province of Trinidad and Tobago is the next producing frontier for this country. The area
is of interest to a number of major oil and gas companies which have expressed interest in seven of the
exploration blocks in the deep water province. An extensive seismic survey was conducted over the area
in 2014 and exploration wells are planned for 2016/17. These wells will have to prove up a minimum
quantity of resources for the exploration venture to be commercially viable. This paper is an investigation
of the minimum resource required to support the development of a gas field in the deep water province
of Trinidad and Tobago.
In the absence of published data on the deep water province, analogue data is used to estimate a
minimum resource size for commercial exploration by investigating a number of scenarios, which
represent the discovery of a total gas- in- place volume of 2 and 3 TCF, with a variety of reservoir sizes
and condensate to gas ratios (CGRs), which are typical of those in the existing gas fields of Trinidad and
Tobago.
Each reservoir case in the estimated range is used to investigate its own applicable optimum
development strategy for taking the gas to market as liquefied natural gas (LNG), compressed natural gas
(CNG), gas to solid petrochemicals (GTS), gas to liquids (GTL) and gas to wire (GTW). The paper
establishes the total size of the accumulation and the associated reservoir sizes which could lead to
commercial exploration in each case.
As exploration moves from the continental shelf into deep water in Trinidad and Tobago, one of the
components geologists and geophysicists have specified is required for success in the search for gas
reserves is finding larger trapping mechanisms. This paper seeks to estimate some limiting bounds for the
designation of a successful find.

Introduction
Trinidad and Tobago has been a commercial petroleum producer for more than 100 years. During this time
the base of exploration and production activity has shifted from onshore to offshore. After extensive
exploration and production onshore and on the continental shelf, which together have produced over 3
billion barrels of oil, attention is shifting to the deep water province. There has been a series of competitive
bid rounds by the Ministry of Energy and Energy Affairs between 1998 and 2013. In their paper, Rajnauth

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et al. discussed the petroleum system for the deep water province in Trinidad and Tobago and concluded
that there is every likelihood that all parts of the system are in place (Rajnauth, Vincent, & Roberts, 2004).
The exploration and the exploration potential of the deep water province of Trinidad and Tobago are
getting much attention, as evidenced by the fact that this was part of the theme of the American
Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) Geosciences Technology Workshop 2014 in Trinidad and
Tobago. Trinidad and Tobagos interest in exploring the deep water is aligned with the global interest in
exploring the deep water province, thought to contain a large part of the hydrocarbon resources yet to be
found in the world. In the case of Trinidad and Tobago, the deep water province consists of about 60%
of its hydrocarbon prospecting acreage.
The deep water province in Trinidad and Tobago lies in water depths of 3000 9000 feet, covers an
area of 9300 square miles, about six times the size of the Trinidad and Tobago landmass, and is located
90 200 miles offshore the east coast of Trinidad and Tobago (Alleyne & Stoute, 2014). The country has
a developed natural gas industry and in recent years approximately 4 bcfd has been consumed. This was
produced from a number of gas fields located in the shallow waters of the continental shelf.
As in all exploration programmes, those wanting to explore the deep water province of Trinidad and
Tobago are always interested in knowing the minimum quantities of resources which must be discovered
to create a viable project. The study of the metrics to prove commerciality of the deep water province is
occurring against a backdrop of decades of successful exploration and development of many oil and gas
fields on the continental shelf of Trinidad and Tobago.
This paper is intended to contribute to the discussion of the metrics which would impact commerciality
in the Trinidad and Tobago deep water province, with a specific focus on gas fields. The authors are not
presuming to predict exactly what will be found but recognize that the production of natural gas will result
from the discovery of oil or gas.

Columbus Basin
The oil and gas fields off the east coast of Trinidad and the adjoining deep water province of Trinidad and
Tobago are located in the Columbus Basin. The basin forms the easternmost part of the Eastern Venezuela
Basin and is situated along the obliquely converging margins of the Caribbean and South American plates
(Wood, 2000). The two primary structural elements of the basin are transpressional northeast-southwesttrending anticlines and northwest-southeast-oriented, down-to-the-northeast extensional normal faults
(Wood, 2000). These structural elements play an important role in the formation of the oil and gas fields
in the Columbus Basin as is illustrated in Figure 1 (Gibson, Dzou, & Greeley, 2004). This shows most oil
and gas fields are associated with these major structural elements.

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Figure 1Regional map showing tectonic setting (inset) and index map of the Columbus basin showing major structural features and
petroleum fields (Gibson, Dzou, & Greeley, 2004). Fields and discoveries are identified by number see (Gibson, Dzou, & Greeley, 2004)
for details.

Cross sections across some of the oil and gas fields offshore Trinidad Figures 2 and 3 (Jemmott, 2003)
indicate that the reservoirs in the fields can occur as vertically stacked reservoirs as in the Cassia and
Amherstia fields, horizontally displaced fault blocks or compartments as in the Flamboyant field, or as a
combination of these arrangements as in the Mahogany field. The net result is that the reserves in the fields
are distributed across many compartments with the largest of these containing 0.5 to 1 tcf and many
containing 0.25 tcf or less.

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Figure 2Cross Section of Cassia to Immortelle / Amherstia Fault Block (Jemmott, 2003)

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Figure 3Cross Section of Flamboyant Field and Cashima (Jemmott, 2003)

Methodology
The model used in this paper for studying the deep water gas field developments assumes that any of
the fields in the deep water province may be similar to the fields on the continental shelf in terms of
lithology but different in terms of the structural elements which impact them. The paper studies gas fields
with Original Gas In Place (OGIP) from 1 to 3 TCF, initial condensate to gas ratios (CGRs) of 5 40 bbls
/ mmscf, and reservoir compartments of 1, 2 or 3 TCF arranged either vertically stacked or in adjacent
sealing fault blocks. These reservoir compartments are larger than the typical reservoir compartments
found in the oil and gas fields on the continental shelf of Trinidad and Tobago. The scenarios studied are
listed in Table 1 below

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Table 1Reservoir Arrangements in Modelled Scenarios

OGIP (TCF)

2
1

Reservoir Arrangement

Number of Wells

Single 3 tcf reservoir

3 1 tcf reservoirs in adjacent fault blocks
1- 2 tcf and 1 -1 tcf reservoir in adjacent fault blocks
3 1 tcf stacked reservoirs
1 2 tcf (lower) and 1- 1tcf stacked reservoirs
1 1 tcf (lower)and 1 2 tcf stacked reservoir
Single 2 tcf reservoir
2 1 tcf reservoirs in adjacent fault blocks
2 - 1 tcf stacked reservoirs
Single 1 tcf reservoir

4
6

4
6
5
3

The model is testing the view that structural elements which give rise to the reservoir arrangements on
the continental shelf as illustrated in Figures 2 and 3 do not affect the reservoirs which occur in the deep
water province. This allows for larger reservoir compartments. Each field is monetised through five
options of floating and land-based LNG, floating and land-based CNG and natural gas conversion to
petrochemicals and power (Alleyne & Stoute, 2014).
The model postulates a natural gas field being developed in 5000 ft of water as illustrated in Figure 4.

Figure 4 Deep Water Gas Well with Five Options for Monetising Gas

The field is developed with subsea wells equipped with 7 tubing. The wells flow to a subsea manifold
and then to a Gas FPSO which processes the production from the wells before routing it to shore via a
pipeline of to one of the floating gas monetising options offshore. Brief descriptions of the salient parts
of the field development are provided below.

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Reservoirs
The reservoir occurs at 20000 subsea. Where stacked reservoirs occur, these are 1000 vertically apart.
Where the reservoirs are horizontally displaced, they occur in adjacent fault blocks separated by sealing
faults. All reservoirs have a permeability of 100 mD which is very representative of the permeability of
reservoirs found in petroleum fields on the continental shelf (Jemmott, 2003).
Wells
The wells are designed as high rate wells equipped with 7 tubing. No sand control equipment is
needed since it is assumed that the formations are well consolidated.
Development Philosophy
Each scenario represents a field which is developed with the optimum number of wells required to
maximize the NPV. When different numbers of well yield the same NPV the smaller number of wells is
used. To ensure that the contracted quantities of gas are always delivered each field is developed with one
spare well. The wells will be drilled by a drillship which will batch drill and complete the wells before
field start up. It is envisaged that the drillship will return periodically during the life of the field to drill
additional wells or to effect repairs or recompletion of wells. All wells penetrating stacked reservoirs are
equipped with single selective completions which allow production from an upper zone behind pipe to be
accessed with wireline operations conducted by a drillship or another type of rig.
Evaluation of Cases
Each reservoir case is evaluated on the Net Present Value (NPV) generated from supplying 420
mmscfd gas for 20 years or until abandonment, whichever is sooner. There is no provision made for taxes
since the study seeks to capture the value created by the development of the resources. The fiscal regime
and taxation is the means for sharing the value created between the investor / operator and the state. The
study seeks to determine the intrinsic value which the resources can generate. The gas is used in the five
monetising options of:

Floating LNG
Land-based LNG
Floating CNG
Land-based CNG
Natural Gas for petrochemical manufacture and power generation

The LNG and CNG are supplied to potential markets in the Dominican Republic and the natural gas
for petrochemical manufacture and power generation is used within Trinidad and Tobago. The Dominican
Republic is seen as a realistic potential market for the LNG and CNG based on its 2012 energy
consumption equivalent to 629 MMSCFD (Bailey, Janson, & Espinasa, 2013). The data on the wells,
reservoirs and fields used in the evaluation is provided in Table 2. The cost and price figures are given
in Table 3.

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Table 2Deep Water Well Reservoir and Field Data

Well, Reservoir and Field Characteristics
Location of field
Distance from shore
Water Depth
Reservoir Depth
Reservoir Pressure
Reservoir Temperature
Reservoir Thickness
Perforation interval
Reservoir Permeability, high
Reservoir Permeability, low
Gas Gravity
Carbon Dioxide
Nitrogen
Porosity
Connate water Saturation

Value
Offshore
150 Miles
5000 Feet
20000 feet subsea
13200 Psi
280 degrees F
200 Feet
150 Feet
100 mD
10 mD
0.61
0.43 mole %
0.05 mole %
0.2
0.24

Table 3Input Data Used in Evaluation

Input Data (Costs and prices)

FLNG

LNG

Pipeline to shore

FPSO

FCNG

CNG

Cost $ MM
O&M Cost $/MMBTU
Annual Opex $ MM
Fuel Cost as % throughput
Shipping Cost $/MMBTU
Shipping Cost $ MM / day
Regas Cost $ /MMBTU
LNG Price $ /MMBTU
Discount rate %
CNG Price $ /MMBTU
Labour and Fuel Cost$/MCF

1954
0.16
137
9
0.09

1013
0.16

750

400

1701

1105

32

89

1.16
5.70
10

1.16
5.70

9
0.09
0.22

0.22

4.76
0.70

4.76
0.28

2
1000
36
10
150
500

Gas Price - $/MMBTU

Gas heating value BTU/SCF
Oil Price - $/bbl
Interest rate - %
Well Cost - $MM
Prod. Opex - $/MMSCFD

Results
The result for the 3 TCF single reservoir for the five options are given in the table below
Table 4 Net Present Values of Options for 3- TCF Single
Reservoir
Option

NPV

CNG
LNG
FCNG
FLNG
Domestic Sales

$1307
$1197
$1152
$955
($315)

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The results for all other cases showed the same trends for the cases. The results for the LNG option
are used for the detailed discussion of the results since the values are close to that of the CNG option and
the LNG option is well established in T&T. These figures are given in Table 5 and shown graphically in
Figure 5
Table 5Net Present Values (Million USD) of LNG Options for Different Reservoir Sizes
Condensate to Gas Ratio (bbls/mmcf)
Reservoir

10

20

30

40

# Wells

3 TCF Single
3 TCF(3- 1 TCF adjacent)

$587
$461

$667
$554

$819
$717

$1,025
$868

$1,197
$1,043

4
6

2 TCF Single
2 TCF (2, 1 TCF stacked)
2 TCF (2, 1TCF adjacent)

$96
($125)
($162)

$205
($20)
($46)

$459
$272
$184

$721
$528
$465

$989
$751
$703

4
5
6

1 TCF Single

($916)

($828)

($653)

($507)

($359)

Figure 5NPV LNG Options at Different Gas to Condensate ratios

The 3 TCF field creates value at all condensate to gas ratios (CGRs) and for all reservoir arrangements.
The single reservoir and the three 1 TCF adjacent reservoirs establish the upper and lower limits of the
value created by this field. The results for the two types of 2 1-TCF fields indicate that stacked reservoirs

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create more value than the adjacent reservoirs by requiring fewer wells. The 2 TCF field creates value for
all CGRs while the vertically stacked and horizontally adjacent fields only create value at CGRs greater
than or equal to 20 bbls / mmcf. The condensate to gas ratio (CGR) can have a major effect on the value
which a gas field creates as indicated by the difference in value in all fields between CGRs of 5 and 40
bbls / mmcf. However, the biggest increase in profitability with condensate to gas ratios occurs with the
2 TCF Original Gas in Place (OGIP) options, so much so that the 2 TCF single is nearly as profitable as
the 3 1-TCF option at the higher condensate to gas ratios.

Conclusion
In the present gas and oil price environment a field size of at least 2 TCf is required to create value at
CGRs of 5bbls/ mmcf and greater and reservoir compartments need to be 2 TCF and greater. This
evaluation highlights the importance of a minimum reservoir size coupled with a field size in creating
value in gas fields in the deep water province of Trinidad and Tobago.

References
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Conference. Port of Spain, Trinidad: Society of Petroleum Engineers.
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Power Generation in the caribbean. Inter-American Development Bank, Infrastructure and Environment Department.
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Floating liquefied natural gas. (2013, September). Retrieved April 7, 2014, from Shell.com: http://www.shell.com/global/
future-energy/natural-gas/flng.html
Gibson, R. G., Dzou, L. I., & Greeley, D. F. (2004). Shelf petroleum system of the Columbus basin, offshore Trinidad,
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Affairs: http://www.energy.gov.tt/our-business/
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Wood, L. J. (2000, December). Chronostratigraphy and tectnostratigraphy of teh Columbus Basin, eastern offshore
Trinidad. AAPG Bulletin, 84 (12), pp. 19051928.