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Petroleum Geology for Non-Geologists Training

From $3850 per attendee

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Course Information

Day 1

  • The Earth: its properties, internal structure and age
  • Earth sciences: definition and overview
  • Various types of rocks, their origins and examples
  • Rocks associated with oil and gas:
  • Sedimentary rocks: their origin, key features and associated terminology
  • Depositional environments, processes and the concept of facies
  • Introduction to geological time, principles of stratigraphy and stratigraphic relations:
  • The concepts of relative and absolute time
  • Measurement of geological time
  • The Uniformitarian Principle
  • The Law of Superposition
  • Unconformities
  • Sequence startigraphy
  • Establishing lithostratigraphic and biostratigraphic units
  • Correlation.
  • Principles of structural geology: various types of geological structures (folds, faults and thrusts) and their relationship to oil and gas occurrence
  • Definition of oil and gas fields
  • Habitat of oil and gas and factor that control their occurrence
  • Processes that control the occurrence of oil and gas fields
  • Geological controls on oil and gas occurrence

Day 2

  • Sedimentary basins:

– Definition

– Formation and development

– Global distribution

– Exploration status

– Production status

  • Association between sedimentary basins and oil and gas occurrence
  • Overview of plate tectonics
  • Plate tectonics control on the formation, evolution and characteristics of sedimentary
  • basins
  • Petroleum substances – chemical composition of oil and gas
  • Petroleum systems analysis in terms of elements and processes:

– Source rocks: origin, burial history and maturation

– Generation of petroleum

– Migration of petroleum

– Petroleum reservoir rocks and their properties

– Oil and gas traps

– Seals

  • The petroleum play and petroleum events chart

Day 3

  • Exploring for oil and gas – sources of data
  • Acquisition and interpretation of geological and geophysical data

– Seismic sequence stratigraphy

  • Subsurface mapping

– Various types of contour maps

  • Resources and reserves: definitions, classification and quantification

– Definition and classification

  • Reserves estimation:

– Volumetric (the deterministic and probabilistic methods)

  • Leads and prospects
  • Risk and risk analysis
  • Play fairway analysis
  • Shale oil, shale gas, oil sands, coal bed methane and gas hydrates

Day 4

  • Acquisition and interpretation of open hole logs
  • Various types of well logs
  • Acquisition of well log data
  • Principles of well log data interpretation
  • Practical session

The global petroleum industry

  • Some recent trends in the petroleum industry
  • Importance of oil in modern societies
  • Overview of prices and politics of oil and gas – historical review of the price of oil over the
  • past 150 years (since 1861)
  • The main events of the last decade
  • Review of the major players in the past 25 years – private oil company rankings in terms
  • of turnover and market capitalization
  • State oil company rankings
  • Biofuels – a panacea?
  • Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
  • Definitions of reserves
  • Global distribution of oil and gas reserves
  • Sources of information
  • Giant fields – definition and significance
  • The world’s top 25 oil fields – locations and reserves
  • Regions of high potential for future discoveries
  • Global oil and gas production
  • Oil and gas reserves/production ratios
  • Future world energy supplies:

– Concept of ‘peak oil and gas’

– Review of various ‘peak oil and gas’ scenarios

  • Selected recent publications

Petroleum Geology for Non-Geologists Training Course

This course covers the fundamentals of the Earth sciences and examines their role in controlling the occurrence, distribution and quantification of oil and gas resources. It focuses on geological and geophysical principles and practices, demonstrates their application to hydrocarbon exploration and production and provides an understanding of the factors and processes involved in the formation of oil and gas fields and their worldwide distribution.

It also reviews the recent trends in the global petroleum industry and provides an insight into the operations of the international oil companies.

Prerequisites

This is a course for non-specialists and no prior knowledge of Earth sciences is necessary.

Non-Earth scientists with little or no background in the subject, including petroleum engineers, technical assistants involved in the handling of geological and geophysical data, administrative and finance personnel.

Continuing Professional Development

28 HOURS CPD