Dr Craig Smalley

Craig participates in teaching, training, research and consultancy in:

• Harnessing Decision Analysis and Event-Based Risk Management tools to improve business performance, and to help focus and integrate geoscience, engineering and economic studies.
• Practical handling of uncertainties in geoscience and engineering workflows, including quantitative use of analogue data and use of Bayesian logic.
• Understanding, monitoring and improving recovery in oil and gas fields, including geochemical surveillance and production monitoring.
• Unconventional oil and gas production mechanisms, including heavy oil, shale gas and shale oil.
• Quantification of compartments and compositional variations in oil and gas reservoirs and hydrological systems using integrated pressure, density and compositional data combined with modelling of mixing processes.
• Diagenesis and prediction of reservoir properties.
• Natural tracers for natural and human-induced processes.

Alexandra Sarney: Shale reservoir properties deduced from petrography and image analysis.

Miriam Wright: Experimental approach to understanding shale gas production mechanisms.

Ruth Davey: Geochemical surveillance of shale gas production mechanisms

A selection of recent and most-cited publications:

SMALLEY, P.C., MUGGERIDGE, A.H., AMUNDRUD, S.S.,  DALLAND, M., HELVIG, O.S.,  HØGNESEN, E.J., VALVATNE, P. and ØSTHUS, A. (2020).  EOR Screening Including Technical, Operational, Environmental and Economic Factors Reveals Practical EOR Incremental Recovery Potential Offshore on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.  SPE paper 200376.

SMALLEY, P.C., MUGGERIDGE, A.H., and KUSUMA, C.R. (2020).  Patterns of water ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr variations in oil-, gas- and water-saturated rocks: implications for fluid communication processes, distances and timescales.  Marine and Petroleum Geology, 122, paper 104678.

SMALLEY, P.C., MUGGERIDGE, A.H., DALLAND, M., HELVIG, O.S., HØGNESEN, E.J., HETLAND, M., ØSTHUS, A. (2018). Screening for EOR and Estimating potential incremental oil recovery on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.  SPE paper 190230.

SMALLEY, P.C., WALKER, C.D. and BELVEDERE, P.G. (2018). A practical approach for applying Bayesian logic to determine the probabilities of subsurface scenarios: example from a deepwater oilfield.  AAPG Bulletin, 102, 429-445.

HUQ, F., SMALLEY, P.C., MORKVED, P.T., JOHANSEN, I., YARUSHINA, V., JOHANSEN, H. (2017). The Longyearbyen CO₂ Lab: Fluid communication in reservoir and caprock.  International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 63, 59-76.

SMALLEY, P.C. & CHEBOTAR, K. (2017). Event-based risk management for subsurface risks: an approach to protect value generation from oil and gas fields.  AAPG Bulletin, 101, 1473-1486.

ALANE, A., LUMSDEN, P.J., SMALLEY, P.C., HALLAM, R., SALINO, P.A., WELLS, S.J.  and PRIMMER, T.J. (2015).  The Reservoir Technical Limit approach applied to maximizing recovery from volumetric and aquifer-drive gas fields.  SPE paper 175004.

GO, J., BORTONE, I., MUGGERIDGE, A.H. & SMALLEY, P.C. (2014).  Predicting Vertical Flow Barriers Using Tracer Diffusion in Partially Saturated, Layered Porous Media.  Transport in Porous Media, 105, 255-276.

DALE, A., JOHN, C.M., MOZLEY, P.S., SMALLEY, P.C. & MUGGERIDGE, A.M. (2014). Time-capsule concretions: Unlocking burial diagenetic processes in the Mancos Shale using carbonate clumped isotopes.  Earth and Planetary Science Letters 394, 30-37.

GO, J., SMALLEY, P.C., MUGGERIDGE, A.H. (2012). Appraisal of reservoir compartmentalization using fluid mixing time-scales: Horn Mountain Field, Gulf of Mexico. Petroleum Geoscience, 18, 305-314.

SATHAR, S., WORDEN, R.H., FAULKNER, D.R. & SMALLEY, P.C. (2012). The effect of oil saturation on the mechanism of compaction in granular materials: Higher oil saturations lead to more grain fracturing and less pressure solution. Journal of Sedimentary Research 82, 574-581.

HOUSTON, S.J, YARDLEY, B.W.D. & SMALLEY, P.C. (2011).  The relative importance of buffering and brine inputs in controlling the abundance of Na and Ca in sedimentary formation waters, Marine and Petroleum Geology, 28, 1242-1251.

SMALLEY, P.C. & MUGGERIDGE, A.H. (2010).  Reservoir compartmentalization: Get it before it gets you.  In: JOLLEY, S., FISHER, Q.J., Ainsworth, B., Vrolijk, P. and Delisle, S. (Eds.), Reservoir Compartmentalization.  Geological Society Special Publication 347, 43-53.

SMALLEY, P.C., ROSS, B., BROWN, C.E., MOULDS, T.P. & SMITH, M.J. (2009) Reservoir Technical Limits: A Framework for Maximizing Recovery from Oil Fields.  SPE Reservoir Evaluation and Engineering, August 2009, 610-617.

SMALLEY, P.C., BEGG, S.H., NAYLOR, M., JOHNSEN, S. & GODI, A. (2008). Handling Risk and Uncertainty in Petroleum Exploration and Asset Management: An Overview.  AAPG Bulletin 91, 1251-1261.

SMALLEY, P.C., ROSS, B., BROWN, C.E., MOULDS, T.P. & SMITH, M.J. (2007) Reservoir Technical Limits: A Framework for Maximizing Recovery from Oil Fields.  SPE Paper 109555.

HOUSTON, S.J., YARDLEY, B.W.D., SMALLEY, P.C. & COLLINS, I. (2007). Rapid fluid-rock interaction in oilfield reservoirs.  Geology, 35, 1143-1146.

HADDAD, S.C., WORDEN, R.H., PRIOR, D.J. & SMALLEY, P.C. (2006). Quartz overgrowths in the Fontainebleau Sandstone, Paris Basin, France: Crystallography and implications for cement growth.  Journal of Sedimentary Research, 76, 244-256.

MUGGERIDGE, A.H., ABACIOGLU, Y., ENGLAND, W.A. & SMALLEY, P.C. (2004).  The dissipation of anomalous pressures in the subsurface.  Journal of Geophysical Research 109, B11104, 1-16

MUGGERIDGE, A.H., ABACIOGLU, Y., ENGLAND, W.A. & SMALLEY, P.C. (2004).  The rate of pressure dissipation from abnormally pressured compartments.  AAPG Bulletin 89, 61–80

SMALLEY, P.C., ENGLAND, W.A., MUGGERIDGE, A.H., ABACIOGLU, Y. & CAWLEY, S. (2004).  Rates of reservoir fluid mixing: implications for interpretation of fluid data.  In: CUBITT, J.M., ENGLAND, W.A. & LARTER, S. (Eds.), Understanding Petroleum Reservoirs: towards an Integrated Reservoir Engineering and Geochemical Approach.  Geological Society, London, Special Publication 237, pp99-113.

WORDEN, R.H., SMALLEY, P.C. & BARCLAY, S.A. (2003). H2S and diagenetic pyrite in North Sea sandstones: due to TSR or organic sulphur compound cracking?  Journal of Geochemical Exploration 78-79, 487-491.

68. Marchand, A.m.e, Smalley, p.c., Haszeldine, r.s. & Fallick, a.e. (2002)

Note on the Importance of Hydrocarbon-fill for Reservoir Quality Prediction in Sandstones.  AAPG Bulletin 86, 1561-1571.

MARCHAND, A.M.E., HASZELDINE, R.S., SMALLEY, P.C., MACAULAY, C.I. & FALLICK, A.E. (2001).   Evidence for reduced quartz cementation rates in oil-filled sandstones.  Geology 29, 915-918.

SMALLEY, P.C. (2000). Heavy oil and viscous oil.  In: Modern Petroleum Technology, Volume 1: Upstream) (Dawes, R, ed.).  Institute of Petroleum, London, UK, pp409-435.

WORDEN, R.H., SMALLEY, P.C. & CROSS, M. (1999). The influence of rock fabric and mineralogy on thermochemical sulphate reduction: Khuff Formation, Abu Dhabi.  Journal of Sedimentary Research 70, 1210-1221.