With the seminar complete, all of my resources today were
devoted to the project that Mr. Tucker tasked me at the beginning of the week. I continued my mobility analysis by running
statistics on certain intervals from each well/reservoir (still distinguishing
between MDT and TTK data). For the rest
of the day, I finished my analysis by creating multitudes of cumulative
frequency plots for the mobility. I have
to say that the analysis today started to test my excel skills, and I started
to see my statistics lessons coming through in my work. I began by creating a plot for all wells and
distinguished two more data sets by tester (MDT or TTK). I then created new cumulative frequency plots
of mobility, distinguishing data sets on a reservoir-by-reservoir basis; this
allowed me to identify those reservoirs that have a higher than average
mobility and those that have a lower than average mobility. Lastly, I created the same plots, but
splitting up data sets by well and creating individual plots for each
reservoir. Hopefully, all of my analysis
will be able to help Mr. Tucker in his work on this project during the ensuing
weeks.
As I wrap up my senior project and reflect upon my
experience this week, one conversation sticks out at me. I was talking to a world-class petrophysicist
and a close coworker of Mr. Tucker earlier in the week when I realized that
everything that this well-experienced man was speaking of was the very reason
why I like science and want to be involved in this industry. We were discussing logs when the importance
of our understanding of chemistry and physics on the atomic scale sparked him
into a discussion on the structural integrity of reservoirs when exposed to
foreign liquids such as salt water. His
paraphrased discourse is as follows: “As
is known, crystalline substances contain atoms, ions, or other molecules arranged
in very specific repeating patterns.
Shale-type rocks when forming deep in the earth contain many substances created
in a similar manner. Let’s say that one
day, numerous atoms are lining up in a nice pattern when all of a sudden a
ferric cation ion becomes stuck where a magnesium cation should be
located. Now, that locale has one less
electron than it should and the region has a slight positive charge. Now while this sort of “accident” may not
occur a lot from an atomic perspective, it occurs enough on a macroscopic scale
to make a huge difference. Imagine that
two of these positively charged regions are stacked close to one another,
enough so that there is repulsion between the two regions. When viewed on a macroscopic scale, this
local electromagnetic interactions account for a significant portion of the
structural integrity of a reservoir. Now
imagine that during the drilling/completion/recovery process, the reservoir is
exposed to an influx of salt water. All
of a sudden, excess electrons can complete these crystalline structures, the
positive regions and their repulsions disappear, and the reservoir collapses.” Our understanding of a very macroscopic event
such as a reservoir collapse can all come down to our understanding of the world
on an atomic level. It all relates to
the four fundamental forces: strong, weak, electromagnetism, and gravity.
This is what a love about science; it is the convergence of
the micro and the macro. It fascinates
me to no end that chemistry, physics, and biology can ascribe almost everything
we experience in day-to-day life to atomic and molecular phenomenon, and it is
for this very reason that I can see myself in this industry. As this petrophysicist said, in no other
field has he found so many different fields of science merging together for
some ultimate goal; in no other industry would he have been able to play with
such very large things and very small things on a daily basis and get paid to
do it.
Ultimately, I think I see now the motive behind Parish’s
senior projects. The goal of any
educational institution should not just be information oriented, but skill
oriented. My high school experience
would not be complete without being given the opportunity to take all of the
skills learned over the years and to apply them in a productive manner. Learning how to utilize skills outside of the
classroom environment should be part of the high school education as well. On top of it all, the one thing that sticks
out to me as being the most important part of any internship is simply the
exposure. Having been fortunate enough
to have these experiences at Five States and NSAI, I can say that I completely
expect that this exposure and basic understanding of industry dynamics will be
an invaluable benefit throughout college.
With a basic knowledge of the industry, I hope that I will better be
able to connect the dots between seemingly disjoint classes and place them a
greater context of their applicability in the workplace.
I would like to thank everyone at NSAI for their warm
welcome during my stay, Chris Tucker for everything that he taught me and
trusted me to analyze, and Dolores Gende, my faculty advisor, for her
continuous support throughout this project and all of high school.
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