24-Pet-B3 Petroleum Geology · December 2015
Nivaar worked solution (AI-drafted; not reviewed by a licensed engineer)
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 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) Low-cost natural CO2 supply and existing pipeline infrastructure. The U.S. has large natural CO2 reservoirs (e.g., McElmo Dome, Bravo Dome, Jackson Dome) connected by an established CO2-pipeline network directly into the Permian Basin and other major oil-producing areas, giving U.S. operators a low-cost, high-purity CO2 source. Alberta has no comparable natural CO2 reservoir of that scale, so a CO2-EOR project there would depend on more expensive captured (anthropogenic) CO2 and new pipeline capital.
(2) Reservoir/fluid suitability and existing thermal alternative. Much of Alberta's heavy-oil resource is in oil-sands bitumen, which is far too viscous for miscible CO2 flooding to work (miscibility requires a light-enough oil and sufficiently high reservoir pressure); those reservoirs are instead developed by thermal methods (SAGD/CSS), for which the industry, service base and regulatory framework in Alberta are already mature, reducing the incentive to develop CO2-EOR capability in parallel. U.S. CO2-EOR targets are conventional, lighter, moderate-depth oil reservoirs (classic Permian Basin carbonates) that are naturally suited to miscible CO2 displacement.
