Oil and Gas
Oil and Gas | Basin Analysis
Integrated Charge Access Evaluation: The Key to Successful Exploration
Format and Duration:
3 days
5 sessions
Charge access considers the journey of expelled hydrocarbons from the source rock into the reservoir of a prospect and is often a critical, if not the critical, risk in any exploration well. In many cases, seismic interpreters hand over their work at the last minute to the petroleum systems analyst, leaving little time for the necessary integration. Integrating the geological framework with petroleum systems modelling is key to avoiding dry holes. Because charge access is complex, many explorers do not fully understand the scientific principles that govern it. This course demonstrates the need to integrate basin-wide regional understanding with prospect evaluation principles in order to quantify resource estimates and risk more effectively.
Business Impact: This course is designed to help reduce exploration failure by improving understanding of charge access and its impact on prospect risking. It will support better integration of geological and petroleum systems data, leading to more robust drilling decisions.
Feedback
"The course instructors have a lot of experience and show many global case studies covering different aspects of the complexity of Charge Access. A very useful course for people (like me) that need to improve their understanding of charge access."
Schedule
Duration and Training Method
This course can be delivered as either five online webinar sessions (one week of half-day sessions) or a three-day classroom, hands-on course. It includes a range of informative exercises designed to reinforce the key principles, supported by a series of short lectures. A rich set of global examples and case histories is included throughout, and the course is taught by two industry experts with more than 80 years of combined experience.
Course Overview
Learning Outcomes
Participants will learn to:
- Explain the science underpinning thermogenic and primary biogenic gas source-rock formation, petroleum generation, migration, and accumulation.
- Assess the influence of depositional environments, geological models, and, critically, the role of faults in petroleum migration and trapping.
- Apply the principles learned to make better predictions of charge access in prospect evaluation and, therefore, reduce the risk of drilling dry holes.
- Recognize the challenges involved in assessing primary biogenic gas charge volumes.
- Evaluate a wide variety of case histories from basins worldwide and apply relevant lessons to their own prospects to help reduce risk.
Course Content
The key elements to be discussed will be:
- Organofacies and thermogenic source rock formation
- Genesis of primary biogenic gas accumulations
- Geological Models (source-carrier-seal systems)
- Migration time lag and migration loss
- Role of faults as migration pathways
- Prospect charge evaluation workflow
- Top seal capacity (column height) evaluation workflow
- Biodegradation effect on oil composition
The course content has been organized into the following topics.
Topic 1: Source Rock Systems
- Introduction: course overview
- Thermogenic source-rock formation
- Primary biogenic gas system
- Case history: Gulf of Mexico — nature and distribution of the various petroleum systems (organo-facies A and B)
- Exercise: GoM Mensa gas field — did we miss thermogenic oil charge, or is a source rock absent?
- Exercise: Where are GoM Norphlet fields sourced from?
- Case history: Cooper Basin, Australia (organo-facies D/E/F)
Topic 2: Geological Models (Source-Carrier-Seal Systems)
- Petroleum expulsion — primary migration processes
- Overview of petroleum secondary migration guiding principles
- Depositional environments (clastic and carbonate systems)
- Exercise: Zohr gas field, Nile Delta, Egypt
- Case history: Pearl River Mouth Basin, South China Sea
- Exercise: Where is the missing oil charge in southern PRMB?
- Exercise: Liuhua 11-1 field — what are the dominant factors favoring long-distance transport of petroleum?
Topic 3: Migration and Entrapment
- Focused vs. dispersive migration on a basin scale
- Vertically drained vs. laterally drained petroleum systems
- Exercise: Alternative models, source and seal
- Exercise: Migration blind spots, Bintuni Basin, Papua New Guinea
- Case history and discussion: vertically drained petroleum system, Marco Polo Field, Gulf of Mexico
- Charge budget, structural focus, structure relief, and seal capacity
- The impact of oil and gas molecule travel time from source rock to first carrier bed, and time to fill the trap
- Exercise: West Shetlands Basin Palaeocene discoveries
Role of Faults as Migration Pathways
- Case history: Thunder Horse
- Trap configuration concept: evaluation of the capillary sealing capacity of all seal rocks
- Case history: Columbus Basin, offshore Trinidad
- Use of fault-seal analysis in understanding petroleum migration in a complexly faulted anticlinal trap
Topic 4: Post-Well Evaluation
- Case history: Norway and the Equatorial Margin
- Exercise: Catemaco fold belt
- Case history: Brigadier Trend and Ironbark well
- Exercise: Good luck, bad luck, and Mukluk
- Case histories: shows as a smoking gun
3D Petroleum Migration Modelling
- Case history: Williston Basin — 3D modelling study of the low-permeability petroleum system of the Bakken Formation
- The use of 3D petroleum migration modelling in exploration: how useful are these models in exploration risking and decision-making?
- Short discussion session
- Alternative workflow for petroleum migration modelling — thinking processes to draw schematic charge cartoon, and then with appropriate software (percolation modelling).
Topic 5: Prospect Charge Analysis
- Top capillary seal capacity evaluation workflow
- Gas chimney and prospect risking
- Charge assessment: procedures for estimating amounts of oil and gas generated, migrated, and trapped in prospects
- Exercise: Assess Campeche salt basin exploratory wells charge access risk
- Case history: Perdido Trend and Great White field, Gulf of Mexico
- Exercise: Biogenic gas charge assessment
- Biodegradation effects on oil composition
- Case history: Frade and Roncador Fields, Campos Basin
Concluding remarks and summary of best practice
Who Should Attend and Prerequisites
This course is aimed at geoscientists working in basin, play fairway, and prospect evaluation, with five or more years of experience in frontier to mature basins. It is an applied, integrated course involving regional and prospect-specific analytical techniques and petroleum systems modelling. As such, a broad understanding of basin, play fairway, and prospect evaluation, as well as petroleum systems, is required.
Instructors
Leon Dzou
Background
Dr Leon Dzou worked as a Consultant for ADNOC in Abu Dhabi, UAE until 2021 and is currently an Associate with Exploration Excellence LTD as well as a part-time Tutor for RPS Energy. He has more than 30 years’ experience with a variety of companies across the spectrum of petroleum systems, with a strong background in geochemistry, source rock depositional environments, petroleum generation and migration, as well as pressure and seal analysis. He has experience of both conventional and unconventional plays across the value chain of Exploration, Development and Production. As well as teaching courses on the Nautilus programme, Leon has been deeply involved in delivering training courses as part of a cohesive exploration capability development programme for a national oil company.
Dr Dzou completed a PhD at the University of Texas at Dallas, with the title ‘Quantitative study of biomarkers in coals and vitrinite concentrates of different maturity and a geochemical study of oils and condensates from K Field, offshore Taiwan’. He is the recipient of the 2015 ARCO Outstanding Technical Achievement Award, recognizing significant contributions to the understanding of Alaskan North Slope petroleum systems (ARCO-wide award).
Most recently, Dr Dzou was a Senior Advisor in Petroleum Systems Analysis with BP and a member of the global Exploration Assurance team. He was passionate about developing discipline health at BP and dedicated a lot of energy to training, advising, and mentoring less experienced petroleum systems specialists and practitioners. He derived great satisfaction from coaching, teaching and generally stimulating staff in the Petroleum Systems arena at BP.
Research interests include generation, expulsion and migration processes, especially secondary migration, which appears to be the key technical issue, mostly because the movement of petroleum in the subsurface is so poorly understood. Leon believes that young geoscientists should be taught to become skeptics who search for data that does not fit existing paradigms; they must go back to basics and challenge conventional wisdom.
Affiliations and Accreditation
PhD University of Texas at Dallas - Organic Geochemistry
MSc University of Texas at Dallas - Organic Geochemistry
BSc National Taiwan University - Geology
American Association of Petroleum Geologists, USA - Member
Recipient of the 2015 ARCO Outstanding Technical Achievement Award
Courses Taught
N425: Play Analysis for Targeted Prospect Identification
N491: Play and Prospect Assessment
N598: Geochemistry, Petroleum Systems Modelling, and Charge Evaluation
N522: Integrated Charge Access Evaluation: The Key to Successful Exploration
Mark Thompson
Background
Mark is Director of Lurch Oil Consultation Limited and is an Associate member of RPS Nautilus. As well as teaching courses on the Nautilus programme, Mark has been deeply involved in delivering training courses as part of a cohesive exploration capability development programme for a national oil company.
Mark is from Staffordshire in the British Midlands. He went to Cambridge University 1974 to 1977 to do a Natural Sciences degree, specialising in Geology. Mark joined BP straight out of University and successfully developed a career in both exploration and development geology, attaining the position of Senior Exploration Advisor before leaving BP at the end of 2014. He has been involved in many hydrocarbon discoveries worldwide in numerous basins. He was for many years a global coach in BP, where he prepared and taught many internal courses.
Mark’s career has taken him on many postings including Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia and Norway. His main interests include basin analysis, play fairway and prospect analysis. He has published on a wide variety of topics including alternative explanations for depth dependent stretching, heat flow associated with underplating and play fairway analysis. Interests outside geology include walking and orienteering.
Affiliations and Accreditation
MA University of Cambridge - Natural Science, Geology
Courses Taught
N005: Tectonic Controls on Basin Development and Petroleum Systems
N378: Basin Analysis for Petroleum Geoscientists
N380: Seismic Interpretation Workshop: Play Recognition on Passive Margins
N425: Play Analysis for Targeted Prospect Identification
N477: A Systematic Approach to Defining and Evaluating Stratigraphic and Subtle Combination Traps
N522: Integrated Charge Access Evaluation: The Key to Successful Exploration
Accreditation and Certification
CEU: 2.1 Continuing Education Units
PDH: 21 Professional Development Hours
Certificate: Certificate Issued Upon Completion
RPS is accredited by the International Association for Continuing Education and Training (IACET) and is authorized to issue the IACET CEU. We comply with the ANSI/IACET Standard, which is recognised internationally as a standard of excellence in instructional practices.
We issue a Certificate of Attendance which verifies the number of training hours attended. Our courses are generally accepted by most professional licensing boards/associations towards continuing education credits. Please check with your licensing board to determine if the courses and certificate of attendance meet their specific criteria.