ABOUT COURSE

Petroleum geochemistry has been an integral part of exploration geochemistry for the past 30 years. More recently it has played an important role in reservoir and production geochemistry. Many geologists and engineers have not exploited this particular discipline due to their lack of understanding of the capability of organic and analytical chemistry. This course will demonstrate how an understanding of basic organic and analytical chemistry can play an important role in understanding to origin and fate of organic matter in source rocks and crude oils. Specific organic molecules provide information on specific source inputs or depositional environments which in turn can be related to organic rich source rocks. All of this information can be integrated into models that predict the potential of a basin and its ability to generate oil or gas and related quantities. Furthermore geochemistry plays a role in reservoir geochemistry to understand communication between fault blocks, nature of fluids in a reservoir, tar mats, wax deposition and a whole realm of related production problems.

This course will provide a comprehensive introduction to the topic of petroleum geochemistry and applications to exploration and production problems. This will be illustrated with examples where geochemistry has been applied to such problems on a worldwide basis.
 

COURSE CONTENT

1. BASIC 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.

2. SOURCE ROCK (ORGANIC RICHNESS, KEROGEN TYPE, THERMAL MATURITY AND POTENTIAL, BIOMARKERS).

•  What is the definition of a source rock?
•  What are the main components of a source rock?
•  How is a source rock formed?
•  What determines whether a source rock will produce oil or gas or nothing?
•  How does a source rock with oil potential differ from a gas source rock?
•  How many different types of source rocks are there-kerogen types?
•  How do you determine the oil or gas potential?-Rock Eval.
•  How do the characteristics change with maturity?
•  Specific characteristics of source rock-soluble organic components-biomarkers.

3. TYPES OF SOURCE ROCKS (SHALE & CARBONATE).

4. SOURCE ROCK DEPOSITIONAL ENVIRONMENTS (PRODUCTION, ACCUMULATION AND PRESERVATION).

•  What is needed for the formation of a source rock?
•  Productivity vs. Preservation
•  How does OM change throughout diagenesis?
•  Various depositional environments.
•  Microbial degradation during diagenesis
•  Thermal alteration

5. GENERATION OF OIL & GAS (TIME OF GENERATION, EXPULSION, QUANTITIES GENERATED AND EXPELLED).

•  Modeling work

6. MIGRATION EFFICIENCY AND DIRECTION.

•  Primary vs. Secondary migration
•  Expulsion vs. migration
•  Migration efficiency
•  Migration distances

7. MATURATION AND DEGRADATION.

•  Crude oils-Biodegradation

   - Thermal Alteration
   - Water washing

•  Source Rocks

   - Thermal Alteration
   - Generation of oil vs. gas; cracking of crude oils.

8. CORRELATION OIL TO OIL, OIL TO SOURCE ROCK.

•  Correlations based on bulk parameters-API; isotopes; bulk composition
•  Biomarker correlations-correlate degraded and non degraded oils
•  Oil/source rock correlations

9. RESERVOIR AND PRODUCTION APPLICATIONS.

10. NATURAL GAS EXPLORATION–CONVENTIONAL AND UNCONVENTIONAL STUDIES.

11. WORLDWIDE EXPLORATION AND PRODUCTION CASE STUDIES.