WHO SHOULD ATTEND

Exploration and Operation Managers, Geologists, Geophysicists and Petroleum Engineers.

COURSE OUTLINE

Petroleum geochemistry evolved rapidly in the period 1970-2000 and is now a mature discipline widely used in many aspects of petroleum exploration. If one thinks of the petroleum system, petroleum geochemistry plays a role in characterizing the source rocks, evaluating thermal history of the source rocks and whether they have matured enough to generate oil or gas, monitoring migration pathways and playing a significant role in reservoir characterization.

The first part of this course will provide participants with a basic knowledge of many of the important concepts and techniques of petroleum geochemistry. The knowledge gained from this course should help in their understanding of reports and published papers that make extensive use of geochemical data and techniques. For example how do you use steranes to get source information or maturity information; why can some compounds be used for age dating purposes; why are some compounds removed rapidly by biodegradation and others not; how do you distinguish oils from carbonate source rocks vs. those from shales; how do you correlate an oil with a suspected source rock? These and many other questions will be addressed. It is impossible to cover every issue in the time period available but the material provided should be sufficient to give geologists, geophysicists, engineers and other participants enough information to be potentially dangerous and able to ask appropriate questions concerning any future geochemical data they might have to work with!

In the second and related part of the course we will utilize many of the basic concepts described above and apply them to various aspects of natural gas exploration and exploitation. This area has seen a lot of interest in the past few years, driven in part by the interest in production of gas from non-conventional reservoirs. The geochemical techniques used for this purpose and how they are applied to improve production from these non-conventional resources will be described in detail.

COURSE CONTENT:

Part 1. Basic Concepts and Oil Exploration

Geochemical Analytical Concepts and Techniques:
In order to understand any of the organic geochemical concepts, it is necessary to provide a brief overview of the basic chemical structures used in the field. In addition standard analytical techniques used to obtain the analytical data will be briefly described prior to discussing the topics summarized below.

Source rock Depositional Environments (Production, Accumulation and Preservation)
What are the requirements for a good potential source rock?
Productivity vs. Preservation and accumulation
Why are some types of organic matter better preserved than others?
How does the nature of the depositional environment control the preservation of the organic matter?
What is the role of the mineral matrix in the preservation of the organic matter?

Source Rocks
(Organic richness, kerogen type, thermal maturity and potential, biomarkers)
What type of organic matter produces oil and what produces gas?
Why do we get these differences?
How are the different kerogen types related to the type of organic matter?
The use of Rock Eval in characterizing organic richness of source rocks, their thermal maturity and their potential to generate oil or gas. How this compares with earlier techniques.
Biomarkers-what is a biomarker? How are they detected and how are they used to characterize source rocks and crude oils.

Types of Source rocks (Shale & Carbonate)
Variations in the characteristics of shales vs. carbonate source rocks; variations in the products generated from the two types of rocks; potential problems in characterization and distinguishing oils from the two types of source rocks

Generation of Oil & Gas
(Time of generation, expulsion, quantities generated and expelled)
Parameters required to determine timing of oil generation; time vs. temperature effects. Use of Rock Eval parameters in basin modeling
Expulsion efficiencies

Migration Efficiency and Direction :
Geochemical parameters that have been used to demonstrate and evaluate migration efficiency. Primary vs. secondary migration. Attempts to determine migration distances through the use of various geochemical parameters and problems associated with this approach.
How can geochemical parameters are used to determine migration directions and subsequent fill directions in a reservoir.

Maturation and Degradation:

How does organic matter in a source rock change with increasing maturity?
How do the products generated from a source rock with increasing maturity?
How can we use our geochemical parameters to monitor changes in maturity both in oils and source rocks? What are the most reliable parameters and what maturity ranges do they operate over?
Degradation of crude oils-thermal degradation and biodegradation?
Changes observed in crude oils as a result of thermal degradation or thermal cracking.
Biodegradation of crude oils-changes in composition and characterization of crude oils. How can we monitor the extent of biodegradation through the use of geochemical parameters? Correlation of degraded and non - degraded crude oils.
Other aspects of biodegradation-anaerobic vs. aerobic degradation. Concept of paleopasturization

Correlation Oil to Oil, Oil to Source rock.
The use of biomarkers and other geochemical data for correlation purposes. Potential problems and pitfalls. How do you do it and what do you use to do it. Data quality and data interpretation

Basin Modeling Studies:
This section will review the basic concepts of basin modeling. Initially it will track the evolution of basin modeling from the early concepts of Lopatin and Waples through their time/temperature indices through to the more recently highly comprehensive 1D and 3D models. What are the data requirements for these models; how does one obtain a reliable set of input parameters for the models; what type of information is obtained and how reliable are the results.

Part II. Natural Gas Exploration and Production
Sources of hydrocarbons: For the most part it is assumed that hydrocarbons in natural gas samples are derived from breakdown of kerogen or cracking of crude oils. It is therefore very important to be able to distinguish between these sources of hydrocarbons. How can we look at the gas samples and get information on maturity and whether the gas was associated with oils at low level of maturity or much higher maturity levels required for cracking the oil to gas. How can we look at associated condensates to get maturity related information? What models are available for predicting generation levels of gas samples? In addition to the information described in the source sections in part I all of the above topics require a good understanding of the use of stable isotopes for carbon and hydrogen and a basic understanding of diamondoids in associated condensates. The basics of stable isotopes and an introduction to diamondoid geochemistry will be provided in this section along with a discussion on how this information is applied to gas exploration.

Sources of non-hydrocarbon gases.
Non hydrocarbon gases that occur in natural gas samples include hydrogen sulphide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and other inert gases such as helium for example. This section will discuss the various origins of these components and how in some cases they may help exploration efforts. Where do these compounds come from and how do they vary with source and maturity.

Geochemical Applications to Exploration Programs for Natural Gas.
In terms of exploration activities, the main use of geochemistry can be summarized in the following way: maturity of the source rocks; characterization of the gases both in terms of their molecular and isotopic composition; continuity studies within a reservoir. How these tools are used to optimize natural gas exploration programs will be discussed, including how you use maturity models to delineate drilling targets to optimize yields of dry gas and minimize yields of associated liquids.

Environmental Applications.
The majority of environmental applications related to natural gas studies are associated with distinguishing natural gas from biogenic gas. This is a relatively easy task and can be established through the use of stable isotopes and compositional analyses. Examples of this application will be discussed using isotope techniques described in other sections.

Non-Conventional Gas Resources.
Non-conventional gas resources have become a very important exploration topic in the past few years. Major gas discoveries in the Barnett shale in the Fort Worth Basin in the USA were partially responsible for this interest. Many of these unconventional sources are found in shales previously designated as oil source rocks. However large amounts of gas are trapped in these shales and released by significant fracturing operations. Geochemistry plays a major role in determining the potential of these shales to produce gas; regions of the shales mature enough to have produced gas; mechanisms of generation; distinguishing free v. adsorbed gas; maturity modeling. All of these topics will be discussed with examples from a number of non-conventional resources.

Part III. World wide exploration and production case studies.

LOCATION

First day will be held at the Sofitel Hotel, in Cairo. The participants will fly the next day to Sharm El Sheikh to continue the course.

COURSE FEES

FIVE DAYS U.S.$ 1750
Inclusive of refreshment and lunch at the Sofitel Hotel. Air Ticket Cairo/Hurgada/return and accommodation in Hurgada.

INSTRUCTOR PROFILE

Dr. R. Paul Philp is Professor of Petroleum and Environmental Geochemistry at the University of Oklahoma. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Sydney, Australia in 1972 and a D.Sc. from the same University in 1998 on the basis of his research in geochemistry over the past 20 years. Prior to starting at the University of Oklahoma in 1984

Dr. Philp was a Principal Research Scientist, C.S.I.R.O., Sydney, Australia. His current research interests center around petroleum, reservoir, and production geochemistry with an emphasis on molecular and isotopic characterization of oils, gases, and rock extracts for the purposes of source determination, characterization of depositional environments, maturity, biodegradation and for correlation purposes. Integration of geochemical techniques into reservoir characterization and facies characterization is become an increasingly important focus area of his research along with applications to various aspects of basin modeling.

He has authored or co-authored over 340 articles and books and has lectured extensively on petroleum and environmental geochemistry in SE Asia, South America, Europe and Africa.