All short courses take place at the Gulf Hotel in Bahrain.

Fees include coffee breaks and lunch.

All short courses are open to all GEO 2012 attendees, including exhibitors, visitors and conference delegates. You do not have to register for the conference to attend.

All short course registrations must be accompanied by full payment of course fees.

All cancellations or changes must be received in writing at Arabian Exhibition Management’s office by 27 January 2012. All cancellations will be charged a fee of US$ 100 per attendee. Refunds, less cancellation charges, will be made until 27 January 2012; after which date no refunds will be made. No refunds will be made for failure to attend.

Please note that short course fees are not included in the GEO 2012 conference delegate fee, and will be charged separately.

Course Title	Date	Fee per person	Organiser
Full Waveform Inversion	4 March	US$ 695
Risk, Uncertainty and Decision-making in Unconventional Resource Plays	3 & 4 March	US$ 1,450
Principles of Reservoir Characterization	3 & 4 March	US$ 1,450
New Approaches in the Tectonic Development of the Petroleum Systems in the Arabian Plate	3 & 4 March	US$ 105
Practical Geomechanics for Oil and Gas Industry	3 & 4 March	US$ 999
Microseismic Monitoring in Oil or Gas Reservoir	3 March	US$ 695
3D Reservoir Modelling of Naturally Fractured Reservoirs	4 March	US$ 699

 

Full Waveform Inversion

Instructor:	Date:	Fee
Mrinal K. Sen	4 March 2012	US$ 695

Objectives & Content

This course is designed for technical personnel in the oil and gas industry who are engaged or expected to be involved in seismic processing and interpretation, aimed at seismic reservoir characterization using seismic, well log and petrophysical data. Seismic inversion plays an important role in building reservoir models by integration of different data types.

The course will begin with a comprehensive review of elastic wave propagation, which is fundamental to understanding inversion algorithms and results. Several pre-stack and post-stack inversion methods will be reviewed. The theory and application of 1D full waveform inversion for reservoir properly estimation will be discussed. Finally, the principles of 2D/3D full waveform inversion will be reviewed.

Learner outcomes

At the end of the course the student will be able to:

• Explain the motivation behind FWI and the basic requirements for inversion.
• Recognize the need for full waveform modelling. Identify the approximations and limitations of different methods.
• Demonstrate how to formulate an inverse problem. Describe the difference between linear and non-linear methods, local and global optimization.
• Explain different methods of seismic inversion in 1D and the limitations, the need for FWI and its limitations.
• Discuss the theory and implementation of FWI, the need for this technology and its limitation.

Teaching methods

Students will experience lectures on theory and application, discussion of flowcharts, seismic images and inversion results. Course participants will receive course notes.

Instructor

Dr Mrinal K. Sen is a Professor and holder of the Jackson Chair in Applied Seismology in the Department of Geological Sciences and the Institute for Geophysics of UT Austin. Prof. Sen’s research areas include seismic wave propagation, inverse problems, seismic imaging, AVO and attributes, reservoir characterization and computational geophysics. He is an expert on seismic wave propagation including anisotropy and fracture characterization, and develops analytic and numerical techniques for forward and inverse modelling. He has worked on several field projects on innovative technologies and advanced applications of inversion technologies for reservoir characteristic description and delineation.

Prof. Sen has published over one hundred peer-reviewed papers, several book chapters and two books on seismic inversion. Professor Sen serves as an Associate Editor of the journals Geophysics, International Journal of Geophysics and the Journal of Seismic Exploration. Professor Sen received his BSc and MSc degrees in Applied Geophysics from the Indian School of Mines and a PhD in Geophysics from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Risk, Uncertainty and Decision-making in Unconventional Resource Plays

Instructor:	Date:	Fee
William Haskett	3 & 4 March 2012	US$ 1,450

Who Should Attend?

This course is targeted towards earth scientists, engineers, economists, landmen and managers who need to evaluate, plan and make decisions with regard to unconventional resource assessment, testing, and development programme planning. Since this course goes well beyond tactical number-crunching into analysis, decisions and strategy, a rudimentary understanding of risk analysis, including ranged or probabilistic input, will be assumed.

Please note: Participants in this course are strongly encouraged to bring a personal laptop computer for use with the simulations and teamwork exercises. People without computers will still get something out of the course but they will not take home the tools that we build or are given out.

Objectives & Content

This course is oriented towards decision-making in unconventional plays. It deals with a full value chain approach to the evaluation of unconventional opportunities.

Designed to complement existing conventional evaluation skills, this two-day exercise and example filled workshop provides participants with the techniques and reasoning needed to validly assess the merits of the search for and development of unconventional resource plays.

In addition to basic evaluation, it highlights the major decision points and strategic options available to companies to increase the probability of profitable results while identifying and limiting downside risk. The unconventional play discussion is centred around tight gas sands, shale gas and coal bed methane (CBM), though enhanced recovery, SAGD and oil shale resources can adapt similar techniques.

The traditional application of volumetric chance and uncertainty must be modified to provide a valid assessment of unconventional assets. A primary difference between standard and unconventional assessment is the reduction of dependence on volumetric uncertainty. Unconventional plays are rate based. As such, unconventional play evaluation requires an understanding of production profile uncertainty through time. A portion of the workshop is dedicated to the creation and interpretation of production profiles with uncertainty.

Unconventional evaluation methods must include a strong linkage to cost and revenue. A full business context is required to make appropriate decisions in the exploration for and development of unconventional resource plays. An introduction to probabilistic economics is provided.

New concepts are included such as the EUR Distribution Envelope, which helps to define recoverable resources and Pilot Effectiveness, which uses subsurface resource and stimulation uncertainty to provide insight into performance learning and the optimal number of pilot wells and pads.

More than evaluation, the methodologies shown provide the opportunity to assess the unconventional potential within a decision context. Participants will test and implement strategies to reduce competition, appropriately incorporate value of information assessment and mitigate downside risk.

Topics discussed and included in exercises will include:

• Building the Basis for New Methods
• Assessing and Working with Production Uncertainty
• Production Profiles: Comparing and Contrasting Profile Aggregations with Profile Pathways
• Traditional Volumetric Concepts as the Starting Point for Unconventional Assessment
• Field Size Distributions versus Well Size Distributions –Using Well Data to Predict Field Results
• Dealing with Imperfect Data
• Risk and Uncertainty in Tight Gas Plays
• Pilot Planning Including Optimal Pilot Sizing
• Unconventional Assessment within a Decision Context
• Application of Principles to Workshop Case Studies

Instructor

William Haskett (Bill), is Vice President and Exploration and Production Practice Area Leader with Decision Strategies in Houston, TX. He is a Certified Petroleum Geologist, having over 25 years of worldwide petroleum exploration and development experience. He is an industry recognised leader in Risk and Decision Analysis, Portfolio Management / Analysis and process implementation. Mr. Haskett graduated from McMaster University’s Geology Department and received an MBA from the University of Calgary (management of organisational change). He is a member of the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists, the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, the Society of Petroleum Engineers and is a Fellow of the Geological Society of London.

 

Principles of Reservoir Characterization

Instructor:	Date:	Fee
Jeffrey Yarus	3 & 4 March 2012	US$ 1,450

Who Should Attend?

The class is appropriate for geoscientists, engineers and modelling technicians who would like a better understanding of what is behind the sophisticated 3D reservoir modelling software they are using.

Objectives & Content

This class provides an overview of the principles of reservoir characterization and their use in preparing the static model for reservoir flow simulation. The course reviews the integration of key geological, petrophysical and geophysical information in constructing the geological model and the use of scenarios and multiple realizations to capture heterogeneity. To this end, attendees will learn:

• Suggestions for quality checking their data
• Building the structural and stratigraphic components of the model
• The difference between using depositional and petrophysical facies and the effect on modelling
• How to select key petrophysical variables
• What methods to use to quantify data relationships
• How to integrate geophysical and well data
• The selection of appropriate estimation and simulation options within your software
• The differences between scenarios and realizations

Further, participants will learn how model uncertainty is quantified and how models are upscaled and presented to the flow simulator. Key topics include:

• Post processing methods for ranking scenarios and realizations
• Summarizing realizations as an aid in selecting drill sites
• Selecting key scenarios and realizations for flow simulation

Deterministic and stochastic approaches are discussed and their underlying concepts and assumptions are revealed.

Instructor

Jeffrey M. Yarus is currently Senior Manager of Earth Modelling for Landmark Graphics, Inc., in Houston, TX, and holds a PhD in mathematical geology from the University of South Carolina (1978). He has previously worked for Amoco Production Company, Marathon Oil Company, GeoMath, (a subsidiary of Beicip-Franlab), Roxar, Inc. (formerly Smedvig Technologies) and Knowledge Reservoir, Inc. In 2001, along with Dr Richard L. Chambers, he started Quantitative Geosciences, LLP (QGSI), a consulting firm specializing in data analysis and geostatistics, which was then partnered with Landmark in 2006.

Dr Yarus is well known throughout the petroleum industry as a leader in applied statistical and geostatistical methods and has provided numerous public seminars and lectures throughout the world. Dr Yarus has served as AAPG’s Chair of the Geological Computing Committee, Publications Chairman and Chair of the Reservoir Development Committee. He has authored many papers and abstracts on applied statistics and geostatistics and, along with his partner Richard Chambers, he has edited the AAPG volume on Stochastic Modelling and Geostatistics. He is also co-editor of the AAPG volume on Geologic Information Systems with Dr Timothy Coburn (released in 2000). In 2008, the SPE Petroleum Engineering Handbook was published, in which Dr Yarus is co-author of the chapter on applied geostatistics.

 

New Approaches in the Tectonic Development of the Petroleum Systems in the Arabian Plate

Instructor:	Date:	Fee
Mesbah Khalil	3 & 4 March 2012	US$ 105

Who Should Attend?

Geosciences and engineers working for petroleum exploration and development.

Objectives & Content

With the theme of GEO 2012 “Shaping the Future of Geoscience in the Middle East”, this proposed course emphasizes through a plate scale model at the critical aspects for guiding successful petroleum exploration and development process. These aspects are:

• Back to geoscientific basics
• Full data integration
• Latest technology

The Arabian plate includes petroleum systems related to intra-plate multi-tectonic regimes those are generated evolved through time due to intra-plate stresses with minor influence of the plate boundary stresses. These petroleum systems are; inverted passive margin in Eastern Arabia, grabens and transtenstional pull a-part basins in Yemen, horests and grabens from Sarhan in northwest Saudi Arabia to Euphrates in Syria, inverted basin in Syria. At Present; the plate is bounded by trantensional boundaries from south and west (Gulf of Aden and Red Sea). From east and north; the plate has compressional to transpressional plate boundaries.

This course introduces in short conclusive presentations the mechanisms of generation and evolution of the intra-plate basins in the Arabian plate with special emphasis on the development of their petroleum system elements. The course provides a toolkit for generating new play concepts to aid petroleum explorationists reaching the success in such intra-plate setting. It relays at three platforms: back to geoscientific basics, full data integration, and latest adequate technology. The course covers the wide spectrum of exploration and development process starting from acquiring concession, planning for data acquisition, generating play concepts, achieving and delineating a discovery then developing it into a producing field. The course introduces also the main concepts for mapping reservoir sweet spots in both clastic and carbonate reservoirs.

Instructor

Mesbah Khalil is a PhD petroleum geologist with 35 years experience. He has worked for Saudi Aramco exploration since 2003 until present. After receiving B.Sc in geology from Al Azhar University of Cairo (1977), he joined the Suez Canal University for teaching. In 1979 he worked as petroleum geologist and mud logger for Geo-Services Petroleum (French company). From 1980-1995 he worked as a petroleum geologist for the Gulf of Suez Petroleum Company (joint venture of Amoco production and Egypt). He worked from 1995-2003 for Agip-Eni, Egypt branch (Italian oil company) then he joint Saudi Aramco.

Mesbah received M.Sc. (1988) and Ph. D. (1995) in structural geology from Ain-Shams University, Cairo. Mesbah’s area of experience is the play concepts generation and structural geology applications in petroleum exploration and development.

Mesbah developed a special talent in generating play concepts from surface and subsurface analog models that led to several discoveries during his career. Mesbah is an international field trips leader; he has led several structural field trips for AAPG, international geological union and other conferences, beside trips for Saudi Aramco.

Mesbah Khalil is the author and co-author for several publications, the most important is chapter 20 in geology of Egypt book (1990) on the positive basin inversion in North Africa and the analogs of the Jinadiryah folds east of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (2009).

Practical Geomechanics for Oil and Gas Industry

Instructor:	Date:	Fee
Dr Hamed Soroush	3 & 4 March 2012	US$ 999

Who Should Attend?

Drilling, completion, production engineers, geoscientists and petrophysicists.

Objectives & Content

Fundamental knowledge of "Petroleum Geomechanics" is an essential component of field development planning from the initial reflection seismic survey through to drilling, completion, production and even abandonment. Geomechanics has been proven to save several billions of dollars for the oil and gas industry annually.

The integrity of the wellbore plays an important role in petroleum operations including drilling, completion and production. Borehole enlargement, stuck pipe, mud losses, casing collapse, compaction, subsidence, permeability reduction and sand control issues cost the oil and gas industry several billions of dollars a year. Prevention of these issues requires understanding the interaction between formation strength, in-situ stresses and drilling practice. This multi-disciplinary course provides a concise overview of basic rock mechanics and its application to many practical problems encountered at well and field scales.

In this course, basic theories of rock mechanics will be taught and the importance of geomechanics in the oil and gas industry will be discussed. Different applications of rock mechanics in petroleum engineering will be also explained. You will learn how to use geology and drilling information, well logs and core data from off-set wells to construct geomechanical models and then calibrate the model with regional and lab data.

The course also provides an insight into wellbore stability analysis for generic and optimum well trajectories. The use of geomechanics to define a safe operating mud weight window will be described. Special cases such as chemically reactive rocks, anisotropic formations, natural fractures, salt domes and underbalanced drilling will also be addressed.

Course outline:

Introduction to Geomechanics

• Overview and history
• Importance in the oil and gas industry
• Geomechanical model
• Anderson faulting theory and stress regimes

Background and Theories

• Theory of stress and strain
• Effective stress concept
• Stress concentration around a borehole development of breakouts and tensile cracks
• Stresses in inclined wells
• Theory of deformation
• Rock behaviour models
• Time-dependent rock deformation (creep)
• Rock failure mechanisms and criteria

Petroleum Applications

• Wellbore stability and lost circulation
• Hydraulic fracturing
• Fractured reservoir analysis
• Optimizing production from natural fractures
• Sand production prediction
• Compaction and subsidence
• Casing collapse and shear
• Salt bodies modelling
• Multi lateral junctions

Geomechanical Modelling

• 1D to 4D models
• Strength modelling
• Laboratory measurements
• Log-based models

Model calibration

• Pore pressure prediction
• Generation mechanisms
• Pp measurement
• Pp prediction methods
• Real time pore pressure prediction
• Stress modelling
• Overburden stress
• Minimum horizontal stress magnitude
• Stress orientation
• Maximum horizontal stress magnitude
• Effect of pore pressure on stresses
• Effect of depletion on stresses

Instructor

Hamed Soroush is Weatherford’s Geomechanics Advisor for the Well Engineering Centre of Excellence (WECOE) with over 14 years of experience in different applications of rock mechanics. He holds a BSc in Mining Engineering, an MSc in Rock Mechanics and a PhD in Petroleum Engineering. Prior to joining Weatherford, he worked with companies such as Technical and Soil Laboratories, CSIRO, GeoMechanics International and Senergy in the Middle East, Asia Pacific and North Sea regions. In addition, Hamed taught geomechanics related topics for two years at the department of Petroleum Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology in Tehran.

 

Microseismic Monitoring in Oil or Gas Reservoir

Instructor:	Date:	Fee
Leo Eisner	3 March 2012	US$ 695

Objectives & Content

This course will discuss principles of microseismic monitoring. A brief historical overview of earthquake and micro-earthquake monitoring techniques in related fields will allow basic insight and provide a list of most important publications.

Downhole monitoring techniques will be described with detailed examples of the complete process from velocity model building, through geophone orientation to microseismic event locations.

Principles of surface monitoring will be also discussed with examples of velocity model calibration, location of microseismic events and source mechanism analysis. The course will also explain principles of source mechanisms inversion and an estimation of strength of anisotropy from shearwave splitting.

The course will briefly discuss the application of microseismic monitoring to reservoir stimulation, particularly to estimate stimulated reservoir volume.

Finally, case studies and a broader discussion of felt seismicity in the vicinity of oil and gas fields will be discussed.

Course outline:

• Definition of microseismicity, induced/triggered seismicity, a brief review of microseismicity outside the oil industry: water reservoirs, mining, geothermal. Historical review of microseismicity in the oil industry with focus on hydraulic fracturing (M-site, Cotton Valley, Barnett, etc.). Review of the main results obtained to date. Brief overview of hydraulic fracturing.
• Location techniques for earthquakes: number of unknowns, differences from active seismics. Large earthquake locations: grid search techniques. Relative locations. Order of magnitude estimates of locations. Earth velocity model and crustal waves. Introduction to anisotropy.
• Downhole location technique: single well monitoring technique - S-P wave time + P-wave polarization technique location, P-wave and S-wave polarization. Single phase location and uncertainty. Class exercise on moveout-distance. Picking strategies for microseismic data, class exercise. Orientation of downhole geophones/deviation surveys/velocity model calibration. Anisotropy and geometry. Inclined/dual and multi-well monitoring techniques. Design of downhole monitoring array.
• Surface monitoring technique: vertical component only, uncertainty associated from P-wave locations: depth versus origin time, class exercise. Frequency content, attenuation and detection. Calibration shots/velocity model building: isotropic versus anisotropic velocity. Relative locations through cross-correlations of the vertical component. Downhole and surface location case study. Near surface amplification. Design of surface monitoring array.
• Source mechanisms: concept of source mechanism, definition of dip, strike and rake for shear source. Description of shear, tensile, volumetric, CLVD source through moment tensor. Inversion for source mechanisms from single monitoring borehole/ multiple monitoring boreholes/ surface P-only data, class exercise. Picking of data for determination of source mechanisms. Radiation pattern of various source mechanisms. B-value, moment, magnitude, Stress drop, source dimensions.
• Anisotropy: Effect of anisotropic media on S-waves: shearwave splitting. Source radiation pattern and shearwave splitting. Shearwave splitting observed in microseismic data. Inversion of anisotropic media from P and S-waves using microseismic events. P-wave anisotropy on surface monitoring data. Time-lapse changes in anisotropy. Effects of VTI versus scaled isotropic velocity model.
• Reservoir simulations: diffusion model for pressure triggering of microseismic events. Current use of microseismicity in oil industry and implementation of microseismicity in modelling. Discrete fracture networks constrained by microseismicity. Reservoir simulations and history matching.
• Review of recent important case histories. Seismicity felt in the vicinity of oil or gas reservoirs with a focus on hydraulic fracturing. Summary of the class. Most important things to remember about microseismicity.

Learner outcomes

• Design an optimal array for passive seismic (surface or downhole) monitoring and estimate uncertainties of locations for microseismic events.
• Orient downhole geophones from a perforation or calibration shot, estimate approximate distance and depth of a recorded microseismic event.
• Locate from the surface monitoring array and estimate source mechanisms of visible microseismic events, pick first arrivals on surface array.
• Measure S-wave splitting.
• Calculate stimulated reservoir volume from microseismic event locations.

3D Reservoir Modelling of Naturally Fractured Reservoirs

Instructor:	Date:	Fee
Dr Tim Wynn	4 March 2012	US$ 699

Who should attend?

Geoscientists newly working in naturally fractured reservoirs and petroleum engineers providing input to, or receiving output from fractured reservoir models.

Broad experience of subsurface engineering or geoscience is required. No software will be used interactively during the day and no hands-on modelling experience is therefore required.

Objectives & Content

Reservoir modelling for field development planning is a well-accepted process but its application to fractured reservoirs requires specific considerations which are less commonly known. This course describes a practical methodology for building 3D static (‘geocellular’) reservoir models for naturally fractured reservoirs using standard modelling software, covering such considerations.

The issues addressed include the integration of log, core and seismic data, the sourcing and application of in situ stress data, the process of defining and building the static reservoir model itself and the creation of output in a form appropriate for dynamic modelling using dual porosity reservoir simulators where appropriate.

More complex workflows using discrete fracture networks will also be summarized, as will general issues of fracture description, uncertainty-handling and volumetrics.

Objectives:

• To go away with a practical workflow for modelling naturally fractured reservoirs using standard industry software.
• To understand the data-gathering requirements and methodology for characterizing fractured reservoirs.
• To appreciate the special distinction of naturally fractured reservoir models compared to standard single-porosity models.

Course outline:

• Styles of natural fracturing
• Describing fractures from core and image log data
• Describing fractures from standard open hole logs
• Predicting fracture density away from wells
• Integrating production data
• Model-building workflow for implicit fracture representation
• Discrete fracture networks
• In-place volumes and preparation of output to simulation
• Static-dynamic model iteration

Instructor

Tim Wynn is a reservoir geologist with 15 years experience in the geological and geomechanical aspects of fractured reservoir characterization and modelling. With a PhD in structural geology at Imperial College London, he joined GeoScience Limited in 1994 and spent 6 years working on fractured reservoir characterization projects for the nuclear and oil industries. He then joined ICE Energy working on wellbore stability problems until the merger of ICE Energy with TRACS International in 2001. Since then, Tim has worked on a wide variety of international consultancy and training projects with TRACS, including geocellular modelling and in-situ stress characterization of fractured reservoirs. Tim is a member of the SPE, Geological Society London, PESGB and AGU.

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