Gulf Canada

May 1876 to October 1978

During employment with Gulf Canada, exploration work included sub-surface stratigraphic and structural mapping in the Western Canadian depositional basin which resulted in drilling programs over company-owned acreage. During land sales, my work included play generation which involved localized depositional environment identification and subsurface stratigraphic and structural mapping in clastic and carbonate regimes. I conducted the original structural mapping and landsale work for Gulf Canada in the northeast British Columbia overthrust belt using existing well data, extrapolation of surface geology and seismic data. Based upon this work, Gulf and its partners acquired exploration rights to 325,000 acres for $9.5 million [1978 dollars or ~$35,000,000 in today’s dollars]. This acquisition was the topic of an extensive presentation given to Gulf Canada’s Board of Directors at a company exploration conference held in Calgary in 1978.

Operations work with Gulf Canada involved taking well calls on a rotational basis, making operational decisions and travel to drill sites throughout North America (including offshore Beaufort Sea and offshore California) as the company representative to assist in the picking of casing and core points and supervision of wireline logging jobs.  I was chosen as the company representative to provide Geological Wellsite Supervision for the summer drilling season in the Beaufort Sea in 1978.

 

Frontier Mudlogging

October 1978 – December 1978

I needed a few months’ work as a mudlogger to qualify for a job as a consulting geologist. My goal after leaving Gulf Oil was to become an independent Wellsite Geologist. In fact that was the reason I left Gulf, to become a WSG.  Gulf had an excellent training program and part of the training program for their Exploration geologists involved trips to company drilling locations to observe geological and drilling operations. I was sent to the Mackenzie Delta in northern Canada to the edge of the Arctic Ocean to observe our most experienced wellsite geologist pick a critical casing point, followed by a very tricky fluvial sandstone core point. Bob Stevens was nicknamed “The Professor of Wellsite Geology” and I spent 2 weeks being mentored in every aspect of the job by this incredible man; I was a dry sponge and I soaked every bit of information he gave me. He also loved rocks and taught me how to describe them properly. Two days before the critical casing pick, Bob got sick and had to be medevac’d from the site. My boss told me there wasn't time to bring in another consultant and I would have to make the casing and core picks. No pressure, just the success or failure of the entire well resting on my shoulders. Bob and I had gone over the procedures he would use to make the picks, so I knew what to do in theory but of course had never done it myself, especially in a 45° directional well, having to convert measured depths to True Vertical Depth ‘on the fly' with a calculator, long before computers did the calculations for you. It was trial by fire and I ‘nailed’ the casing point!  After that, the ‘tricky’ core point was easy. The exhilaration I felt was out of this world and I knew the wellsite was where I belonged. I soon quit Gulf Oil, started my own wellsite geological consulting company in the fall of 1978 and have never looked back. The passion I felt looking through a microscope up in the Mackenzie Delta has built over the many years working as a Wellsite Geologist and is still strong within me.  I have continued to hone my skills and enjoy the work now as much as I ever have.

 

KJ Cooper Geological Consulting

January 1979 – May 1981

Geological Supervision in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. In the first 15 years of my consulting career in Canada, I worked mainly as an independent [without a ‘back-to-back’] and the majority of the wells were supervised for their entirety, regardless of the duration of the wells. The wells in the Eastern part of the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin of Alberta took about one week to complete. Very quickly as my experience grew, I was promoted into the middle basin of Alberta where the wells averaged about a month.  With added experience I was moved into the deep basin of Alberta and British Columbia and the Foothills Belt of both provinces where the wells typically had durations of 2-3 months and occasionally up to 4 months. I worked with my “Mudlogging Wife” for the first seven years of my career and learned the ‘art’ of mudlogging on the job.  The work in Canada was performed for a variety of companies from huge International majors to five person operations including: Aberford Exploration, Alberta Energy Company, Bow Valley, Burlington, Canadian Hunter Exploration, Canadian National Resources, Canadian Occidental, Chevron, Dome Exploration, Dynalta Exploration, Gulf Canada Resources, Home Exploration, Hudson’s Bay Oil & Gas, Merland, Petromet Exploration, Petro-Canada, Renaissance, Shell Canada, Suncor, Talisman, Temple Resources and Voyageur Exploration.

 

SENATE RESOURCES (American Hunter) 

May 1981- September 1981

American Hunter was proposing a deep exploration well in the northern California sedimentary basin.  Since there were no offset wells, the quality of the reservoir sands was unknown.  It stood to reason that the uplifted sediments of the California Coast Range would be lithologically similar to the sediments that would be encountered in the deep exploration well, but they could be explored at a fraction of the depth.  Based on my work for Canadian Hunter in the deep basin of Western Canada, I was contracted to provide a ‘one-man team’ that encompassed  Wellsite Geology, Operations Geology, Drilling Supervision and Construction Supervision for a six well stratigraphic test well program in California for Senate Resources, a division of Canadian/American Hunter.  This was drilling purely for science; the 1000’ wells would allow us to examine the reservoir properties of the sediments close to the surface that were equivalent to the sediments that could be expected in the deep basin well.  In addition to the duties of Wellsite Geologist, the scope of work included setting up a mobile field office, location selection, lease clearing, road construction, materials acquisition, equipment rentals, bit selection and purchase, drilling the wells to TD, wireline logging and finally cementing and abandonment. I was was also the liaison between the company and landowners and State officials and was responsible for site reclamation, as well as all remaining aspects of drilling and geological operations.

 

January 1982 – September 1982

American Hunter in California

The Stratigraphic test program mentioned above was successful, reservoir rocks were encountered in the Coast Range and American Hunter drilled the Alvares 1 well, 10 km west of Corning California.  The northern basin well was almost 14,000’ deep and lasted 8 months.  I provided Geological Supervision for its duration and my mudlogging wife provided the mudlogging services.  

 

September 1982 – January 1992

KJ Cooper Geological Consulting

Geological Supervision in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin, including Montana USA; during this time I performed all aspects of Wellsite Geological Supervision for a variety of Canadian and multi-national exploration companies.

 

January 1992 – December 1992

Canadian Occidental Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Hadramat Province, South Yemen Wellsite

I was contracted to CanOxy’s Unconventional Resources Division where I conducted a Coal Bed Methane [CBM] study.  The scope of work included studying existing worldwide production models and applying them to Canadian depositional models, preparation of stratigraphic and structural cross-sections and reserve maps of potential CBM across Western Canada and the preparation of a feasibility study and costs associated with entering an existing but depleting CanOxy gas field that and commence the production of CBM.  An operational plan, cost analysis and budget were prepared for management and this work resulted in a CBM pilot project in the Paddle River Gas Field in central Alberta, Canada.

 

Based on the success of my work in their office, CanOxy contracted me as Wellsite Geologist for their first two wells in Yemen.

 

January 1993 – June 2000

KJ Cooper Geological Consulting

Geological Supervision in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. During this time I performed all aspects of Wellsite Geology for a variety of Canadian and multi-national exploration companies.

 

July 2000 – November 2000

Talisman Energy – Indonesia, Offshore Bali in East Java Sea

When I was approached to provide the Wellsite Geological Supervision for this well, I was informed the well duration would be about 25 days. I offered to supervise the entire well, without any back-up and the offer was accepted.  The duration of the well was 118 days and I provided the geological supervision for its duration.

 

December 2000  – April 2001

KJ Cooper Geological Consulting

Geological Supervision in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. During this time I performed all aspects of Wellsite Geology for a variety of Canadian and multi-national exploration companies.

 

April 2001 – July 2001

Mohave Oil & Gas Houston, Texas / Portugal Wellsite

Mohave Oil & Gas had production from shallow oil wells in southern Portugal which provided exploration cash flow.  The company wanted to re-enter a plugged and abandoned well in the middle basin, feeling that the original well had not been completed properly and significant gas reserves were yet to be exploited. They planned to cut a window in the casing and drill a 45° tangent through their suspected pay zone. Prior to travelling to Portugal and providing Geological Supervision on this proposed well, the company wanted me in their Houston offices to look at the original borehole drill cuttings and hopefully confirm the presence of reservoir beds, particularly fractured limestone beds.  I was also asked to analyse the mudlogging anomalies that had been recorded during the drilling of the original well.  I examined all of the drilling cuttings from the original well but did not find any evidence of reservoir beds, including fracture porosity.  Likewise, I analyzed the mudlogging gas anomalies encountered while drilling the original well.  There was some confusion on the company’s part regarding the units of measurement of the gas anomalies.  The original hole’s gas units had been recorded in Europe in ppm (1% = 10,000ppm) but at this time in the Americas, they were not used to this unit of measure and company interpreted them as or assumed them to be “Gas Units” , a more common unit of measurement with some companies (1% = 100 units).  This had the effect of making the gas readings appear to be 100 times higher than they actually were.  I notified the company of my concerns but the momentum to drill the well was greater than my expressed concerns. The Portugal well was successfully kicked-off from the original cased borehole and the tangent borehole was drilled to TD.  Unfortunately, there were no reservoir beds, no significant mudlogging anomalies and no gas to surface during the openhole DST performed at TD.  The well was plugged and abandoned for a second time. 

 

August 2001 – April 2002

KJ Cooper Geological Consulting

Geological Supervision in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. Talisman Resources was my primary client during this period. I provided Geological Supervision on deep (4800m) wells in the structurally complex foothills belt of Alberta [Canada] and “geo-steering” of 1500-2000m horizontal legs along the crest of thrusted sheets of Mississippian-aged dolomite using samples, gas detection and LWD correlations.  To get “bed-parallel” (and stay) in the 5m target zones involved on-site interpretation of complex structural models and modification of the directional plan in response to faults and changes in the bedding dip, the strike and the plunge angle of the strike of the structure.

 

May 2002 – September 2002

Encana Exploration - Qatar Onshore Wellsite Geological Supervision

The directional/horizontal borehole was documented using WellSight Systems’ Horizontal Log Drawing Software.  The borehole was geo-steered within the upper Arab D formation but salt water was encountered and the well was plugged and abandoned.

 

October 2002 – April 2003

KJ Cooper Geological Consulting

Geological Supervision in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin.  I performed all aspects of the job of a Canadian Wellsite Geologist.  Mudloggers at this time were becoming very rare in Western Canada and all of the duties they performed were now performed by the Wellsite Geologist.  Rather than a full complement of mudlogging gear and mudloggers, the Wellsite Geologist would rely on a stand-alone Total Gas Monitoring Unit which he or she would rig up and monitor from their trailer.  Other duties included sample washing, drying and storage, sample descriptions, striplog preparation, picking casing and core points and the preparation of Daily Geological Reports and End of Well Reports. Canadian geologists all carry their own microscopes.  My microscope had a digital camera attachment and I included micro-photographs of the cuttings, cores and core chips in my reports.  Temple Resources was my primary client during this period.

 

May 2003 – September 2007

First Calgary Petroleum / Berkine Basin, Algeria

First Calgary had drilled one well in the Berkine Basin of Algeria.  Being a Canadian company, they were accustomed to Canadian standards of geological descriptions, which they were not getting.  I replaced the geologist who had been selected for the first well and went on to supervise 10 more wells, earning the following recommendation from First Calgary’s Exploration Vice President: “Kerry Cooper performed the duties of geological supervisor in an exceptionally competent and conscientious manner and in my opinion, set a new standard for geological sample logging in Algeria”.  During this time period I also performed the duties of an in-country Operations Geologist, creating standardized Geological Striplogs, Daily Geological Reports, End of Well Reports, Wireline Logging Reports, Core Reports, arranging the export of core sections to Canada for special analysis and liaison with wireline logging and coring service companies, etc.  After a brief hiatus, First Calgary moved from one rig to a three rig operation and I was appointed the Acting Operations Geologist in Hassi Messaoud.  This involved interviewing and hiring an Algerian Operations Geologist, three Algerian wellsite geologists and conducting a Mud Logging Tender process. A Wellsite Geologist Field Manual was prepared and training of the national geologists in computer use, Geological Striplog preparation, reporting procedures and sample examination and petrology to FCP standards was conducted.  During this time period I perfected micro-photography of cuttings and core chips.  On behalf of the company, I purchased two digital microscopes with cameras (identical to my own) for the two additional rigs and I trained their wellsite geologists in micro-photographic techniques.

 

September 2007 – June 2008

Repsol YPF / Gassi Chergui, Algeria

I provided Geological Supervision on two wells during this time period in the Gassi Chergui area of east central Algeria. 

 

July 2008 – November 2008

BG, Sultanate of Oman      

I was hired to provide coverage on a second rig for two holes only in the northwestern quadrant of the Sultanate of Oman.  I provided Geological Supervision for those two wells.

 

November 2008 – February 2009

BP, Sultanate of Oman

I provided Geological Supervision on two wells during this time period in the northwestern quadrant of the Sultanate of Oman.

 

February 2009 – December 2010

Repsol YPF / Reggane, Algeria

I provided Geological Supervision on two wells during this time period in the Reggane area of south central Algeria, including the re-entry of TIO-3, a high pressure prospect.  This well was drilled under-balanced utilizing a Weatherford rotating head.

 

February 2011 – May 2011

Petro-Canada / Suncor, Ash Shaer Field, Syria

Geological Wellsite Supervision was provided on the first of two directional development wells prior to all field personnel being evacuated for 6 weeks due to the increasing hostilities in the country.  The lithology from near-surface to TD was primarily fractured fossiliferous carbonates, my absolute favorite cuttings to describe and photograph through my microscope.  The company appreciated my enthusiasm for rocks; my immediate supervisor, the Operations geologist wrote: “Kerry worked for me over a period of 8 months until the end of the project and I found him to be one of the most professional Wellsite Geologist I have encountered.   I have not met another geologist who describes samples so well with a knowledge that is vast and accurate.  I learned a great deal from Kerry during the time he worked for me”.

 

May 2011 – June 2011

EXXON – Gulf of Mexico

It so happened that during Petro-Canada’s first evacuation from Syria, a colleague working for Exxon in the Gulf of Mexico required emergency relief for one month, so I filled in.  When I arrived onto the Maersk Developer in the Gulf of Mexico, it was drilling Hadrian #5 and was just handling a kick from the Piacenzian reservoir.  The well was shut-in and as the hydrocarbons were circulated out, I got to see the reservoir beds penetrated prior to the kick.  I also observed and described a shaly bituminous siltstone bed just off bottom that was notorious for flowing uncontrollably in some locations.  The high pressure kick had originated from a sandstone bed just below the bituminous layer.  Per Exxon’s drilling program, the open hole borehole section was wireline logged prior to plugging back, sidetracking and coring the reservoir section in the bypass borehole.  I supervised the wireline program including an extensive MDT program over the entire reservoir section.  With a great deal of care and perseverance, I was able to get two pressure readings (sufficient for a fluid gradient) from the basal sandstone bed.  Since this sandstone had generated a kick and was below the potentially flowing bitumin bed, I was required to write a separate safety protocol for the procedure.  The successful MDT test program showed the basal sandstone to lie in a separate and significantly higher reservoir pressure regime.  As mentioned, per Exxon procedure, the open hole section was plugged back and a bypass (sidetrack) borehole was kicked-off and drilled to the top of the reservoir section.  The reservoir section was then cored.  I wrote the final coring protocol document, customized to the Maersk Developer’s layout and then supervised the cutting, recovery and preservation of the cores.  I left the Gulf of Mexico and returned to Syria at the end of my very exciting hitch.

 

June 2011 – September 2011

Petro-Canada / Suncor - Ash Shaer Field, Syria

Geological Wellsite Supervision was provided on the second directional development wells prior to all personnel being evacuated due to the increasing hostilities in the country.  These wells were among my career favorites because of the lithologies encountered, predominantly fossiliferous fractured carbonates from near-surface to TD.

 

May 2012 – October 2012

PetroFrontier – Georgina Basin, Australia

The Australian project was projected to last approximately 4-6 weeks and I agreed that a back-to-back mobilized from Canada would not be required.  Drilling ended up lasting over 14 weeks and I stayed until the project was finished without relief until the final 10 days when a local geologist was provided as a night man.  My work in Australia involved geological supervision and geo-steering of 1000m+ horizontal legs from directional pilot holes and staying in a 3m target zone using LWD parameters.  The Adelaide Office was using an LWD-based computer program to predict structural changes and pick the probable landing point of the horizontal build section of the second well.  I was also correlating the bedding and discovered that the computer program was erroneous by almost 3mTVD; I stopped the drilling operation, consulted with the Adelaide office and the directional plan was modified, saving the company a very severe dogleg at the least and the cost of a plug-back at the worst.  I kept the wellpath within 1.5m TVD of the target zone, while keeping dogleg severity to a minimum, giving the company a very useable borehole for the completion. 

 

December 2012 – April 2013

EON Exploration, Berkine Basin, Eastern Algeria

I was contracted as the Wellsite Geologist on the first of three proposed wells.  The well locations were picked based on a new seismic technique that was supposed to identify & delineate porous oil-bearing TAGI channel fairways.  Sadly, the first well did not encounter any channel sands whatsoever.  It was plugged and abandoned and the forward plan to drill the other wells was re-evaluated.

 

May 2013 – July 2014

Cooper Consulting

I considered semi-retirement at this time and filled my time buying houses and renovating them for rental and resale. However, I couldn’t retire from oil patch; I missed the travel, missed the comradery of a wellsite drilling team but most of all, I missed looking at rocks and the rhythm of the rotational lifestyle of a wellsite geologist. I took the following job in Myanmar and it re-kindled my love for wellsite geology.  The geology was facinating and the subtle lithological differences I logged proved to be the key to explaining the variabilities in borehole cleaning between the multiple boreholes in the production development project - see below.

 

August 2014 – April 2015

Daewoo Exploration & Production

SHWE Production & Drilling Platform, Bay of Bengal, Offshore Myanmar

When I started this project, I was informed that the lithology in the Turbidite depositional environment was rather ‘boring’, consisting of very uniform claystone until the reservoir sandstone was reached. The drilling team, however, could not explain why each directional borehole behaved differently with respect to borehole cleaning, cuttings returns morphology and borehole stability. Under low-magnification and coated with SOBM, the cuttings did all look the same and had been described as such, a slightly silty claystone. However, my high-magnification detailed examination explained why there were dramatic differences between the wells. The cuttings were by no means lithologically uniform; there were 3 distinct lithologies: amorphous non-silty claystone, silty claystone and argillaceous siltstone, all gradational with one another. The amorphous Claystone was very well indurated and hard; however, with increasing siltiness, the hardness decreased dramatically to very soft. When a section of the hard claystone was drilled, it retained the long PDC ‘scoop’ shaped cuttings and since the mud removed larger fragments preferentially, the borehole cleaning was excellent. As siltiness increased, the hardness decreased and the cuttings became smaller. The smaller cuttings were harder for the mud to remove and they commonly stayed in the hole and built up as 'cuttings beds' on the low side of the deviated borehole, requiring back-reaming. My logs and descriptions were quite a departure from the work that had been done previously and provided the explanation for the variability in cleaning and returns morphology between boreholes. Understanding this variability of lithology and its effect on borehole cleaning helped the company understand the returns variability and differences between the boreholes.

 

Prior to my arrival on the project, borehole cleaning efficiency while the drilling each borehole was being estimated visually which was subjective and inaccurate. I developed a system to quantify the borehole cleaning efficiency. I trained the sample catchers to record the time to fill a large sieve with cuttings every time they caught a sample. A chart of Depth versus Time (to fill the sieve) was created and included with the Daily Geological Report. Any change in the slope would indicate a change in borehole cleaning efficiency. Further, any changes in the drilling parameters that would affect borehole cleaning could be immediately and easily quantified as a positive or negative effect.

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May 2021 – Present

Belloy Geological Consulting

After a brief retirement, I returned to wellsite geology in Canada. Things have changed a great deal since I last worked in this country; the wells are practically all horizontals.  Belloy has kept me very busy on wells from the extreme southeast corner of Alberta to northwest of Ft. St. John in BC.  If anything, I am enjoying this challenge as much as at any other time in my career.