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  Critical Elements for Petroleum System

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- Paul: So just to do a quick reviewof the critical elements that we've been talkingabout, and how they fit into our assessment program, we'll use a schematic to take us through the steps. First of all, do we have a source rock? Is it 2-3% or more total organic carbon? Was it buried deeply enoughso that the thermal gradient would take it down intoa zone where oil or gas maturation could occur andwe would be expelling that? Is there a migration route? Either through faulting,up structural dip, or some other system. Or are we dealing with unconventional gas and shale and tight rock? Critical elements that we have to look at. And we also want to know if, what about reservoir rock? Do we have a reservoir? Is it a sandstone, is it a carbonate? Is it the source rock itself? Does it have porosity and permeability? Those are the key elements that you're gonna be looking at inyour reservoir rock. Engineers want to knowporosity, permeability, and is there capability and flow. And then finally, is there a trap? Did you put this intoa structural situation, or stratigraphic situation,and then have a seal to maintain the hydrocarbonsbetween your reservoir rock? So those are the five different elements you'll be looking at. And through time, youneed to know what was going on through time. And you will be makingyour risk assessments on all these pieces. Okay, now comes the fun part. We take all these differentelements that we've looked at in our basin, and as wemove forward into bays, and ultimately, newer prospects. And the critical aspects are,what happened through time? Did we get all these elementsaligned so that we could develop a source rock,generate hydrocarbons, migrate those hydrocarbonsinto reservoirs that did exist, and into trapsthat then hit seals. Because we need all thoseelements and processes to come together in a timelyfashion, so that we can have successful, technically successful hydrocarbon exploration programs. Now, I cheated a little bitin this one, because I have two source rocks andmultiple reservoir rocks. But this is often what happens. So when you're doing yourassessment, you need to look at all the possiblesource rocks you may have, gas and oil, the typesof reservoirs you have, and how they're situated, andhow it changes through time. And you'll come up with critical moments when you had everything in place for the right things to occur in order. In this case, we havetwo critical moments, as shown along the bottom of this time, process, and element chart.