Tutor(s)
Benoit Vincent: Associate Director, Cambridge Carbonates.
Overview
The Middle Jurassic outcrops of the south-eastern Paris Basin illustrate the complexity of architectures within ooid shoals and the interfingering with surrounding lagoon and open marine domains on carbonate platforms. These are exceptional analogues for several producing oil fields around the world, but also for geothermal energy, as the equivalent Middle Jurassic limestones are the main deep geothermal aquifer used in the Paris suburban area. The course provides an illustration of an integrated workflow for 3D modeling, starting with a review of the constraints to the static model acquired from subsurface data and including sedimentary architectures, distribution and evolution of petrophysical properties through diagenesis. All the key steps for robust static modeling are reviewed during the trip, always tying back to the geology and petrophysics.
Duration and Logistics
A 6-day field course based in the Auxois area (Burgundy, SE Paris Basin), with the itinerary and duration dependent on the technical objectives of the group. The course will comprise classroom lectures and fieldwork with transport by bus.
Level and Audience
Intermediate. This course is intended for geologists, geophysicists, petrophysicists or reservoir engineers. Knowledge of the fundamentals of carbonate sedimentology would be a useful prerequisite. However, a brief reminder of sedimentological elements and of sequence stratigraphy is scheduled in classroom on the first day. Practical logging sessions will also be organised in the field.
Exertion Level
This class requires an EASY exertion level. Access to the outcrops is easy, requiring only less than 10-15 minutes of walking. The longest walk is approximately 1.5km between 3 quarries on the same site. Outcrops include sections in both active and abandoned quarries.
Objectives
You will learn to:
- Assess textures, allochems of carbonates and the range of preserved sedimentary structures.
- Evaluate different carbonate facies and facies-association stratigraphic geometries in relation to environment of deposition, constrained within a sequence stratigraphic framework.
- Examine large-scale sedimentary architectures and their impact on the heterogeneity at the reservoir scale.
- Gauge the implications of sedimentological and diagenetic processes on petrophysical properties.
- Assess the key steps for robust static modeling of different carbonate systems.
Tutor(s)
Jo Garland: Director, Cambridge Carbonates.
Overview
This course explores the interpretation of carbonates successions within a sequence stratigraphic framework. The course provides an overview of carbonate sedimentology and diagenesis, and then dives deeper into the advantages of sequence stratigraphic approaches, the principles of sequence stratigraphy and how carbonates respond to both high order and third order relative sea level changes. The course integrates many case studies and exercises.
Duration and Logistics
Classroom version: A 3-day classroom course comprising a mix of lectures and case studies. The manual will be provided in digital format.
Virtual version: Six, 3.5 hr interactive online sessions presented over 3 days. A digital manual will be distributed to participants before the course
Level and Audience
Fundamental. This course is intended for exploration geoscientists who want to rapidly improve their knowledge of carbonate systems. An overview of carbonate sedimentary systems will be provided, as will an overview of diagenesis.
Objectives
You will learn to:
- Understand the controls on carbonate and evaporite sedimentation/production.
- Describe the distribution of carbonate depositional systems.
- Establish the sequence stratigraphic principles in relation to carbonate and evaporite systems.
- Assess carbonate diagenesis in a sequence stratigraphic framework.
- Examine seismic sequence stratigraphy of carbonates.
Tutor(s)
Andrew Horbury: Director, Cambridge Carbonates.
Overview
This course explores the palaeogeographic, tectonic and sedimentological development of the Arabian Plate and is divided into seven modules: Cenozoic, Upper Cretaceous, Middle Cretaceous, Lower Cretaceous, Jurassic, Permo-Triassic, Palaeozoic. The individual course modules aim to provide participants with a more regional understanding of their own acreage, which is often critical in development and production settings.
Duration and Logistics
The course can be presented in the classroom or online as a single event, covering all seven stratigraphic modules, or clients can choose the length of course depending on how many modules they require (half-day teaching time per module).
Classroom version: A 3.5-day classroom course comprising a mix of lectures and case studies covering all 7 modules. The manual will be provided in digital format.
Virtual version: Seven, 3.5-hour interactive online sessions presented over 3.5 days. A digital manual will be distributed to participants before the course.
Level and Audience
Fundamental. This course is intended for exploration geoscientists who want to rapidly improve their knowledge of these complex systems.
Objectives
You will learn to:
- Understand plate evolution at a regional scale.
- Appreciate the tectonic controls on sedimentation and stratigraphy.
- Analyse the wide range of proven carbonate reservoirs on a single structural template.
- Define factors associated with good structural and stratigraphic traps.
- Build an understanding of how carbonate source rock systems form.
- Compare and contrast climate controls on different carbonate systems tracts.
- Illustrate the interaction/interplay of clastic and carbonate depositional systems.
Tutor(s)
Jonathan Lean: Consultant Petrophysical Advisor at Lean Petrophysics and Islay Subsurface LLC
Overview
This course describes routine and advanced well core analysis techniques and how they are acquired, corrected, quality controlled and interpreted to provide inputs to petrophysical log calculations and/or calibrate log analysis results and describe and infer reservoir quality. Other core-based building blocks of static and dynamic reservoir models and shared earth models will be introduced and discussed.
Duration and Logisitics
Classroom version: A 3-day course comprising a mix of classroom lectures and discussion (80%), and exercises (20%). The manual will be provided in digital format and participants will be required to bring a laptop or tablet computer to follow the lectures and exercises, which will be performed in MS Excel.
Level and Audience
Fundamental. The course is designed for early career geoscientists and petroleum engineers, including petrophysicists who have a basic grasp of well logging i.e. logging tools, basic petrophysical interpretation for clay volume, porosity and fluid saturations. Some knowledge of concepts like permeability, and core versus log versus reservoir scales is useful.
Objectives
You will learn to:
- Understand the planning and operations behind the well coring process and how the rock is affected by it, both downhole and at surface prior to transportation to the lab
- Appreciate how core is prepared for analysis i.e. scanning, slabbing, plugging, cleaning, drying at the laboratory and its effect on the subsequent analysis.
- Implement routine and advanced core analysis workflows, including petrophysical properties, fluid interactions, rock mechanics, drilling and completion tests.
- Illustrate how porosity and permeability can be measured and predicted at the core scale, then upscaled to log and reservoir scales.
- Demonstrate how electrical properties are measured as input to log saturation equations.
- Establish how capillary pressure data is measured and used to build models to distribute fluids in reservoir models for in place and reserve calculations.
- Integrate workflows with other data sources i.e. petrophysical well logs, cuttings, gas logs, pressure tests and flow tests.
Tutor
Dr. Eric C. Gaucher: Lavoisier H2 Geoconsult
Overview
In the rapidly evolving field of natural hydrogen, mastering geochemical modeling is a critical asset for any technical team. This course will give participants the skills to undertake the numerical modeling of water-rock-gas systems and become familiar with the widely-used PHREEQC software package. You will receive debugged and optimized PHREEQC scripts and the specific LH2G methodology for water chemistry quality control. This allows your team to save weeks of in-house development and avoid costly modeling errors.
Duration and Logistics
Classroom version: A 4-day course including case studies, exercises, and practical work on a variety of waters and H2 generation systems. The exercises become more complex to allow for a step-by-step approach. The course can be given at your office, or for those wanting an out-of-office experience in Europe, the course can be delivered in Chamonix, France.
Level and Audience
Intermediate. The course is largely aimed at geoscientists, hydro-geochemists, hydrogeologists or process engineers wishing to acquire skills in geochemical numerical modeling. You will be required to have a basic knowledge of chemistry, geochemistry and fundamental notions of thermodynamics.
Objectives
You will learn to:
- Evaluate water chemistry and correction of the chemical composition.
- Calculate the speciation of an aqueous solution and simulate water/rock/gas interactions in open or closed batch systems.
- Model the evolution of fluid composition as a function of temperature, pressure and salinity.
- Assess the chemical composition of a fluid during dissolution/precipitation of solid phases.
- Characterize how hydrogen is generated from various rock types.
Tutor(s)
Rene Jonk: Director, ACT-Geo Consulting and Training; Honorary Professor, University of Aberdeen
Overview
This hands-on course enables attendees to enhance their skills and critical evaluation of all aspects related to pressure, trap and seal evaluation workflows. This includes understanding and predicting fluid pressure, retention of hydrocarbon fluids and column heights, and reservoir connectivity and compartmentalization. Fluid pressure is evaluated from first principles, downhole measurements (mudweights, RFT/MDT data) and estimated from porosity-effective stress relationships. We make estimations of mechanical seal capacity ranges using Leak off Test data and fundamental elastic rock properties. Capillary seal attributes are estimated from core measurements and calibrated against buoyancy pressure estimates from the crests of oil and gas fields. The fundamental techniques developed in the first two days of the course are applied across a variety of case studies in various modules, including aspects of oil versus gas prediction techniques in exploration, reservoir connectivity evaluation in a faulted reservoir and seal risking workflows for stratigraphic traps.
Duration and Logistics
Classroom version: This course can be customized for a 3 or 4-day delivery, depending on which of modules 5, 6, 7 and 8 are of most interest. It is also possible to include client data or problems to substitute classroom exercise time with discussion time on actual client datasets and problems. The mix of classroom lectures and discussion (50%), and hands-on exercises with subsurface datasets (50%) allow for an interactive and deeply applied learning experience. The lecture materials will be provided in digital format. Participants can bring a laptop or tablet computer to follow the lectures and exercises using digital provided formats. Exercise manuals will be printed in 11×17 format for each student to enhance learning by interpreting using pencil on paper.
Level and Audience
Fundamental. This course is intended for early to intermediate-experience career geoscientists (0-10 years experience), reservoir engineers and petrophysicists who want to understand the fundamental controls on prospect and field pressure, trap-seal, connectivity and compartmentalization, including seal risking worflows and pre-drill predictions of fluid type, column height and pressure.
Objectives
You will learn to:
- Describe trap-seal attributes of prospects in a consistent manner (crest, spill points, seal and fault-seal controls).
- Understand the controls on subsurface fluid pressure and the methods used to describe and predict subsurface fluid pressure.
- Describe and quantify mechanical seal capacity of various seal types relative to hydrocarbon liquids and gases using field data, wireline logs and core attributes.
- Describe and quantify capillary seal capacity of various seal types relative to hydrocarbon liquids and gases using field data, wireline logs and core attributes.
- Understand various controls on hydrocarbon-water contact distributions, including fault-seal, hydrodynamic tilting, reservoir quality controls on saturation.
- Make predictions of oil versus gas column heights for multiphase petroleum systems in exploration settings.
- Make predictions of reservoir connectivity and compartmentalization in faulted reservoirs in appraisal and field development settings.
- Use seal risking workflows to high-grade portfolios of stratigraphic trap prospects, including both deep-water and shallow-water clastic settings.
Tutor(s)
Zane Jobe: Research Professor, Colorado School of Mines and the Director of the Geology Center of Research Excellence (CoRE).
Andrea Fildani: Professor at University of Naples Federico II
Overview
This course will explore a range of outcrops in central California to study topics inherent to the energy transition. Participants will be introduced to the tectonic setting of Western North America that provides opportunities for geothermal energy production, carbon sequestration (both mineralization and pore-scale trapping) and additionally, natural hydrogen exploration. Participants will learn how to characterize the locations of potential projects and explain the key geological factors that affect these and their feasibility.
Duration and Logistics
A 7-day field course based in Sacramento, California. Training will take place through in-class presentations, field observations, printed exercises and discussions in the field. Transport will be by coach.
Exertion Level
The field component of this course requires an EASY exertion level. There will be short hikes to outcrops mostly on flat to gently sloping terrain and gravel tracks. The climate in California during the spring and fall is variable with temperatures from 50°F (10°C) to hot and dry up to 100°F (38°C).
Level and Audience
Fundamental. The course is intended for a variety of professionals working in the energy transition including those responsible for policy on energy, regulators, energy sector investors and also those working on conservation. The course would also be suitable for geoscientists interested in a broad overview of energy transition topics.
Objectives
You will learn to:
- Evaluate the regional tectonic framework and evolution for prediction of energy transition opportunities.
- Describe regional geothermal systems and understand their relationships to tectonic evolution.
- Analyze ultramafic rocks that are targeted for CO2 mineralization studies and natural hydrogen exploration.
- Compare outcrop analogues to subsurface data for carbon sequestration in sedimentary rocks from several depositional environments.
- Characterize the locations of potential projects and explain the key geological factors that affect these and their feasibility.
Tutor(s)
Rene Jonk: Director, ACT-Geo Consulting and Training; Honorary Professor, University of Aberdeen
Overview
This hands-on course enables attendees to enhance their skills and critically evaluate all aspects of hydrocarbon charge, including source presence, maturation, migration, commodity type and timing. Lectures and exercises focus on characterization and prediction of hydrocarbon charge adequacy using core, well log and seismic data. Global examples, covering a range of basin and depositional settings, will be discussed and used in the exercises.
Duration and Logistics
Classroom version: A 3-day course comprising a mix of classroom lectures and discussion (50%), and hands-on exercises with subsurface datasets (50%). The lecture materials will be provided in digital format and participants will be required to bring a laptop or tablet computer to follow the lectures and exercises. Exercises manuals will be printed for each student to enhance learning by interpreting using pencil on paper.
Level and Audience
Fundamental. This course is intended for geoscientists, reservoir engineers and petrophysicists who want to understand the basic concepts of petroleum systems.
Objectives
You will learn to:
- Characterize source rock presence from cores, well logs and seismic and learn to predict source adequacy and risk from first principles.
- Understand the controls on source rock maturation and describe fundamental controls on maturation and maturation timing using burial history charts.
- Assess the fundamental controls on hydrocarbon migration and apply the principles of primary and secondary migration to predict hydrocarbon charge pathways and risk migration adequacy for plays and prospects.
- Assess commodity implications from source rock type and maturity.
Tutor(s)
Brian Matthews: Independent Consultant, Founder and Managing Director of TerraUrsa
Overview
The aim of this course is to provide an overview of the economic and market opportunities of renewables in the context of European decarbonisation policies and targets.
Duration and Logistics
Classroom version: Two-day classroom workshop.
Virtual version: Option 1: One 3-hour interactive online session that would cover contents sections 1-4. Option 2: Two 3-hour interactive online sessions would include content sections 1-6.
Level and Audience
Fundamental. The one-session course is aimed at non-technical staff and those who do not have a business background but want a basic introduction to the topic. The subject matter will be covered from very basic principles and will be of interest to staff from a range of departments. The two-session course is aimed at middle and senior managers who can influence strategy within the company.
Objectives
You will learn to:
- Understand global and European energy demand trends to 2050.
- Explore the economic and market opportunities of renewables.
- Analyse primary energy supply projections and the role of different energy sources.
- Examine European decarbonisation policies and targets.
- Evaluate case studies to assess market context, policy drivers, and commercial strategies.
- Develop and assess a sustainability timeline.
Tutor(s)
Douglas Paton: Director, TectoKnow.
Overview
The workshop is a follow on from the introductory course G111 and will focus on developing the concepts and skills presented therein. It will go into more detail on the structural styles for each tectonic setting and outline the uncertainty in sub-surface data that has to be considered.
Duration and Logistics
Classroom version: A 4-day course comprising a mix of lectures and exercises. The manual will be provided in digital form and participants will be required to bring a laptop or tablet computer to follow the lectures.
Level and Audience
Intermediate. The course is aimed at more experienced subsurface geoscientists who want to focus on the structural uncertainties in data, at all scales.
Objectives
You will learn to:
- Appraise the impact of normal fault identification and fault mapping on reservoir understanding.
- Gauge the limitations of seismic imaging for reverse faults, their temporal variation and impact on reservoir presence and distribution.
- Validate strike-slip deformation on seismic sections and reconstruct the 3D and 4D evolution of strike-slip systems.
- Evaluate negative and positive structural inversion and its impact on hydrocarbon systems and basin fill.
- Manage the impact of deformation close to or beyond seismic resolution with respect to subsurface prediction and modeling.
