This integrated course and field workshop offers an optimum environment to build fundamental knowledge of petroleum geology and hands-on experience of using subsurface data, whilst reinforcing concepts with daily visits to world-class outcrops along the Yorkshire coast, used for decades by oil companies as analogues for the North Sea. This workshop develops both knowledge and in-depth understanding.
The course reviews the fundamental elements of petroleum geoscience. The key elements of a petroleum system are reviewed; source rocks, reservoirs (including unconventional reservoirs), traps, seals and the timing of generation relative to trap formation. Emphasis is placed on the integration with typical oilfield data. Visits to outcrops reinforce the lectures and allow the participants to understand the lithologies and characteristics of key surfaces and reservoirs / seal architecture. The Jurassic sequences exposed along the Yorkshire coast offer a unique opportunity to observe many of the elements of the North Sea petroleum system.
The course examines subsurface environments, the usage and display of typical subsurface geological data, with an introduction to wireline logs. This is then developed into a definition of petroleum systems and an introduction to play fairway definition and finally leads / prospects.
We conclude with the assessment of subsurface resources by calculating in-place reserves using deterministic methods.
Planned Field Visits- Saltwick Nab to examine the well exposed Lower Jurassic mudstones on the coast. Here we will look at the key criteria for depositing a source rock and its quantification of richness and maturity. A field experiment will generate hydrocarbons in the field to reinforce the theory!
- Staithes to examine shallow marine reservoirs exposed along the beach. At this locality we will look at how depositional environments can be determined from the rock properties and examine the controls of reservoir quality, heterogeneity and faulting
- Cloughton to examine Middle Jurassic fluvial reservoirs
- Whitby to look at reservoir architecture and controls on reservoir development
Course Level: Foundation
Duration: 5 days
Instructor: Jonathan Redfern