Geologic Carbon Storage for Geoscientists and Engineers

Date: 12 - 16 September
Time: Five 3.5-hour interactive online sessions presented over 5 days (mornings in North America and afternoons in Europe)
Location: Online
Tutors: Alex Bump, Seyyed Hosseini & Katherine Romanek

This course empowers attendees to develop and apply their skills to the growing industry of Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS). Attendees will be guided through the lifecycle of a CCUS project with an emphasis on key concepts, processes and workflows of the CCUS industry. Focus will be on developing the geoscience and engineering skills needed to progress a project.

Level and Audience
Intermediate. The course is intended for petroleum geoscientists, reservoir engineers and first-level leaders looking to adapt their skills to carbon capture and storage.

Objectives
You will learn to:

1. Outline the regulatory, policy and financial drivers and constraints for CCUS.
2. Describe the subsurface requirements for a successful storage project, including similarities and differences with oil and gas exploration.
3. Understand the workflow and perform the key tasks for defining, developing and permitting a CCUS project, including site selection, characterisation, risk assessment and monitoring for operational and post-operational phases.
4. Apply your subsurface knowledge and skills in oil and gas development to the concepts, processes and workflows of the CCUS industry.
5. Estimate CO2 storage capacity in saline aquifers at reservoir and basin-scales.

Upcoming courses

Embedding Environmental Social and Governance in Mineral Project Evaluation: a Guide for Geoscientists

Date: 27 - 29 Sep 2022
Time: Three, 3.5-hour interactive online sessions presented over 3 days (mornings in North America and afternoons in Europe)
Tutor: Ben Lepley, SRK Consulting

This course is designed for geoscientists in the exploration and mining industry to help navigate the environmental, social and governance (ESG) labyrinth and embed ESG good practice across all stages of mineral project evaluation from discovery to decommissioning and beyond.

Level and Audience
Intermediate. The course is designed for mining industry professionals who wish to understand the ESG standards, initiatives and legal conventions.

Objectives
You will learn to:  

1. Define ESG terminology.
2. Discuss the paradigm shift relating to ESG in mineral projects.
3. Summarise the explosion of standards, guidelines and initiatives relevant to mineral projects.
4. Establish steps to embed ESG good practice across the various mineral project evaluation stages.
5. Understand your stakeholders and how to engage with them.
6. Assessing the ever-expanding ESG requirements of resource and reserve reporting codes.

Course Content
Geoscience organisations now require a level of ESG understanding as part of ethical guidelines and good practice that is constantly evolving and can feel overwhelming. The main aim of the course is to demystify the world of ESG and evaluate the importance of ESG factors in project success

The course has been created by a team of ESG consultants with broad backgrounds including geology, mining, sustainability, ecology and human rights.

Integration of Rocks and Petrophysical Logs 

Date: 03 - 07 Oct 2022
Time: Five, 3.5-hour interactive online sessions presented over 5 days (mornings in North America and afternoons in Europe)
Tutor: Greg Samways: Director at GeoLumina

This course will focus on a simple petrophysical workflow entailing the determination of rock properties from conventional logs and core analysis data. Lithology, porosity, permeability and saturations will be determined using a variety of different analytical and simple modelling methods. Emphasis will be placed on understanding the importance of calibration, integration, and validation of the results of each method, based on a fundamental understanding of the geological controls on petrophysical properties.

Duration and Logistics
Five, 3.5-hour interactive online sessions presented over 5 days (mornings in North America and afternoons in Europe). The course will focus on problem-solving using real-world data and use a series of Excel workbooks. A digital manual and exercise materials will be distributed to participants before the course.

Level and Audience
Fundamental. This course is intended for non-petrophysicists who require a grounding in the petrophysical determination of lithology, porosity and saturation from conventional and special core analysis, and conventional open-hole logs.

Objectives
You will learn to:

1. Understand the fundamental geological controls on reservoir properties.
2. Describe how these properties are measured in the laboratory using conventional and special core analysis methods.
3. Characterize the ways in which lithology and porosity are determined from well logs and calibrated with core analysis, and how permeability may be estimated in the subsurface away from core control.
4. Evaluate how the Archie equation is used to determine saturation in cores and from well logs, and the uncertainties and limitations with this method
5. Investigate how saturation-height models can be created from special core analysis data, thereby avoiding some of the limitations of the Archie method.
6. Interpret typical conventional log and core analysis data using Excel spreadsheets.
7. Experiment with the sensitivities of input parameters for various determinations, such as V-Shale, porosity and saturation.

Course Content
It is important to become familiar with all the different analytical approaches available and consider all the possibilities, enabling the interpreter to make a sound judgment as to the accuracy and validity of the analytical results they achieve. The sections below provide a more detailed outline of the program.

Induced Seismicity

Date: 04 - 06 Oct 2022
Time: Three, 3.5-hour interactive online sessions presented over 3 days (mornings in North America and afternoons in Europe)
Tutor: Ben Edwards: Professor at the University of Liverpool

This course will provide participants with a broad understanding of induced seismicity, a phenomenon which has led to significant impacts on a variety of industrial projects worldwide, from geo-energy to CCS. The course will cover a range of fundamental topics: from the basic physical mechanism of induced seismicity, through to the application of monitoring and detection strategies, and subsequent location and magnitude determination. These topics will be covered within the context of regulatory factors, such as ‘traffic light systems’. Finally, we will review the hazard and risk posed by induced seismicity and methods used to determine this, covering topics such as intensity measures, ground motion attenuation, and local amplification effects in the near surface.

Duration and Logistics
Three 3.5-hour interactive online sessions presented over three days (mornings in North America and afternoons in Europe). Digital course notes and exercise materials will be distributed to participants before the course. Some exercises may be completed by participants off-line.

Level and Audience
Intermediate. The course is largely aimed at geoscientists and engineers who are working on subsurface projects where an understanding of induced seismicity is required. However, the broad range of topics make the course widely accessible to any science-based profession.

Objectives
You will learn to:

1. Develop awareness of the challenges faced by industrial projects due to induced seismicity.
2. Understand the key techniques used to monitor, detect, and characterise induced seismicity.
3. Be familiar with seismic data and its acquisition, both in terms of earthquake catalogues and waveform data.
4. Understand the controlling factors on the seismic hazard (and risk) due to induced seismicity.
5. Be aware of regulatory factors and mitigation techniques to reduce the impacts from induced seismicity.

Developing and Delivering a Geothermal Energy Project Business Model

Date: 10 - 13 Oct 2022
Time: Four 3.5-hour interactive online sessions presented over four days (mornings in North America and afternoons in Europe).
Tutor: David Townsend: CEO of TownRock Energy

This course covers all aspects of how to develop and deliver a geothermal project business case from the fundamentals of what a geothermal resource can offer through to financing and raising funds. The course will explore a variety of geothermal resource types and current UK-based project examples.

Duration and Logistics
Four 3.5-hour interactive online sessions presented over four days (mornings in North America and afternoons in Europe). Digital course notes and exercise materials will be distributed to participants before the course.

Level and Audience
Fundamental/Intermediate. The course is aimed at consultants, developers and regulators looking to understand the business elements of geothermal developments, as well as individuals involved in local government looking for an overview of geothermal projects.

Objectives
You will learn to:

1. Understand the basics of geothermal resources and their use and applications.
2. Recall the fundamental characteristics of geothermal resources and reservoirs.
3. Appreciate the UK potential for geothermal projects and the current state of active projects.
4. Describe the fundamentals of a geothermal project business case including a project development timeline.
5. Assess the financial framework of a geothermal project and how to create a business model and de-risk these projects.
6. Understand how emerging technologies can be included as part of a geothermal project.

Course Content
The course will illustrate geothermal project development from the point of identified value through to a business case and model. The tutor will explore current projects in development and give attendees a sound understanding of the business context of these.

Predictive Sequence Stratigraphy

Date: 17 - 21 Oct 2022
Time: Ten 3-hour interactive online sessions presented over 5 days (mornings and afternoons in North America)
Tutor: Vitor Abreu: President, ACT-Geoscience; Adjunct Professor, Rice University

The application of sequence stratigraphy allows for the geologic interpretation of core, well log, seismic and outcrop data to predict play elements, presence and quality before drilling. This course introduces sequence stratigraphy and presents workflows to describe, correlate and map strata. The terminology of surfaces, systems tracts, sequence sets and stratigraphic hierarchy will be described and then applied to subsurface data exercises in non-marine, shallow marine and deep marine depositional settings. The emphasis will be on the recognition and mapping of play elements from exploration to production scales.

Duration and Logistics
Ten 3-hour interactive online sessions presented over 5 days (mornings and afternoons in North America). A digital manual and hard-copy exercise materials will be distributed to participants before the course. Some reading and several exercises are to be completed by participants off-line.

Level and Audience
Fundamental. This course is intended for geoscientists (reservoir modelers, seismic interpreters, sedimentologists), reservoir engineers and petrophysicists who want to understand and apply the concepts of sequence stratigraphy.

Objectives
You will learn to:

1. Apply the basic terminology of sequence stratigraphy.
2. Contrast the various approaches to sequence stratigraphy.
3. Apply the concept of facies, facies stacking and shoreline trajectory to define parasequences, surfaces and system tracts.
4. Evaluate main controls on depositional sequences in non-marine, shallow marine and deep marine environments.
5. Assess and interpret cores, well logs and seismic lines to characterize and map hydrocarbon play elements in different settings.
6. Implement sequence stratigraphic methods to predict play element presence and quality on seismic data.
7. Describe the Accommodation Succession Method and Sequence Stratigraphy Hierarchy.
8. Apply chronostratigraphic techniques.

 For further information on the course contents and to book a place, click here.

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