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24-Pet-B3 Petroleum Geology · December 2015

Question 19 of 22

Nivaar worked solution (AI-drafted; not reviewed by a licensed engineer)

Notes on this paper

National Exams, December 2015 — 98-Pet-B3, Oil and Gas Evaluation and Economics (3 hours, closed book, approved non-programmable calculator only). The exam's own cover page is titled "Oil and Gas Evaluation and Economics" and every question is property valuation / reserves & production economics / DCF-NPV screening content — no geology anywhere.

Reference texts: Thompson & Wright, Oil Property Evaluation; Canadian Oil and Gas Evaluation Handbook (COGEH), Vol. 1 (Society of Petroleum Evaluation Engineers, Calgary Chapter); National Instrument 51-101, Standards of Disclosure for Oil and Gas Activities (Canadian Securities Administrators); SPE/WPC/AAPG/SPEE Petroleum Resources Management System (PRMS); Ahmed, Reservoir Engineering Handbook.

The exam's own instructions ask for only 7 of the 10 short-answer questions and note the Cash-Flow/Future-Value tables are graded by column; for "choose N of M" exams, every item below is answered in full as a study resource. Questions 1–10 correspond to the exam's printed Short-Answer items 1–10; Questions 11–20 correspond to the printed Multiple-Choice items 1–10; Question 21 is the Future Value table; Question 22 is the Cash Flow table.

Question 19

Question text not reproduced: the examination questions are © Engineers and Geoscientists BC. Open the official past paper (linked at the top of this page) to read the question, then follow the worked solution below.

  1. a. Gas that is dissolved in oil ← correct
  2. b. Gas that is adsorbed onto coal or shale
  3. c. Gas that is contained in a gas cap
  4. d. Free gas found in a gas hydrate deposit
  5. e. None of the above

Answer: (a). “Associated gas” is most commonly used as a synonym for solution (dissolved) gas — gas held in solution in the crude oil and released as the pressure drops. Strictly, the PRMS definition of associated gas also includes gas-cap (free) gas (option c) as a second subset, so (c) is not wrong in a broader sense; but as a single best match for common usage on this exam's own short-answer Q10 (which lists dissolved gas and gas-cap gas as two SEPARATE classifications), (a) is the intended answer — (b) describes coalbed/shale-adsorbed gas, an unconventional category, and (d) describes hydrate-bound gas, neither of which is “associated” with an oil column at all.