Oil and Gas

Oil and Gas | Petrophysics

Petrophysics and Formation Evaluation: Principles and Practice

Course Code: N083
Instructors:  David EickhoffMike Lovell
Course Outline:  Download
Format and Duration:
3 days
6 sessions

Next Event

Location: Virtual
Date:  5th - 14th Nov 2024
Start Time: 14:00 GMT
Event Code: N083a24V
Fee From: GBP £2,485 (exc. Tax)

Summary

This course examines the fundamental concepts, vocabulary, and techniques used in petrophysics. The course starts with a review of the controls on hydrocarbon accumulation and distribution in a conventional reservoir, before exploring how petrophysical properties can be determined from core and downhole logs.

Business Impact: Participants attending this course will acquire key petrophysical ideas that underpin petrophysical analysis and how integrated analysis of downhole logs, core data and downhole pressure measurements can enable quantitative estimates of hydrocarbons in place. It also provides an essential foundation as a precursor to the more advanced petrophysics courses.

Feedback

"The course was very organized and went into the right amount of depth for a fundamental/beginners course. Mike did a wonderful job explaining complex principles in a very simple way and was very patient and answered questions thoroughly."

Schedule

Event Code: N083a24V
Sessions: 6 sessions
Instructors: Mike Lovell
Dates: 5th - 14th Nov 2024
Start Time: 14:00 GMT
Location: Virtual
Fee From
GBP £2,485 (exc. Tax)
Good Availability
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Duration and Training Method

This is a classroom or virtual classroom course comprising a mixture of lectures, discussions, case studies, and practical exercises.

Course Overview

Participants will learn to:

  1. Understand how the critical properties of wettability and capillary pressure control the process by which hydrocarbons accumulate in a hydrocarbon reservoir.
  2. Define porosity; water saturation; gross, net and pay; and permeability.
  3. Explore how petrophysical properties can be estimated from core and downhole logs and appreciate the limitations involved.
  4. Establish lithology and calculate porosity from open hole wireline log and core data.
  5. Calculate water saturation from open hole wireline log and core data.
  6. Understand the basic principles of (a) fluid sampling and borehole pressure measurements and (b) gross net and pay.  

This petrophysics course focuses on the petrophysical analysis of hydrocarbon reservoirs to demonstrate how the main petrophysical attributes of porosity and saturation can be estimated in the laboratory from core, and downhole in the reservoir from openhole logs.

Particular emphasis is given to explaining the important principles underpinning the different measurements and the limitations of petrophysical data. Short webinar lectures are typically associated with short discussions, exercises or demonstrations designed to explore the topic, apply knowledge and develop skills.

Another key emphasis of the course is on evaluating the hydrocarbons in place (porosity and saturation) in conventional clean reservoirs. Crucially, the course considers the important effects of wettability and capillary pressure on the fluid distribution in the reservoir. Permeability and the concepts of gross, net and pay are also introduced and discussed.

Topic 1

  • Introduction to Petrophysics
  • The hydrocarbons in place equation
  • Petrophysical properties: porosity, water saturation and permeability

Topic 2

  • Fluid distribution
  • Wettability and capillary pressure
  • Interpretation exercise/demonstration – capillary pressure curves

Topic 3

  • Core analysis: porosity, water saturation and permeability
  • Interpretation exercise/demonstration -  porosity and permeability; drying effects

Topic 4

  • Openhole logs for lithology and porosity
  • Gamma ray, SP, Density, Photoelectric, Neutron, Sonic and NMR logs
  • Interpretation exercise/demonstration – lithology and porosity from logs

Topic 5

  • Openhole logs for water saturation
  • Resistivity logs and Archie’s equation
  • Special Core Analysis for Archie’s parameters
  • Interpretation exercise/demonstration – porosity and water saturation from logs

Topic 6

  • Pressure gradients for fluid identification
  • Defining gross, net and pay
  • Integrating petrophysical data
  • Integrated interpretation exercise/demonstration

Newly graduated scientists and petrophysicists are the main target audience, together with geologists, geophysicists and engineers who communicate with petrophysicists in regional evaluations, prospect generation and development studies. This is an excellent technical entry point for petrophysics evaluation and an ideal prerequisite to N054 (Skilled Petrophysical Methods for Conventional Reservoirs).

David Eickhoff

Background
David joined Shell Offshore in New Orleans, Louisiana as a petrophysicist where he had various assignments in production and exploration, covering all areas of the Gulf of Mexico. He worked for Pecten International, Shell’s global affiliate, in 1994, and focused on exploration in West Africa. In 1996, he moved to Shell’s South Texas Gas Asset team and worked on the development of Wilcox tight gas sands. From 1999 to 2011, David worked with Marathon Oil Corporation where he had exploration/operations assignments for Gulf of Mexico and Angola and a field development assignment for a Sirte Basin discovery in Libya. David retired from Marathon in 2011 and is now teaching industry courses.

David has a broad range of interests within petrophysics, but specializes on the elastic properties of rocks and how seismic attributes can be used to explore for and develop hydrocarbon reservoirs.  Other areas of interest are compaction and quartz cementation modeling of clastics for reservoir quality prediction. He has extensive experience in log and core data acquisition as well as reservoir characterization.

Affiliations and Accreditation
BSc California Polytechnic State University - Mechanical Engineering
Society of Petrophysicists and Well Log Analysts
American Association of Petroleum Geologists

Courses Taught
N054:  Skilled Petrophysical Methods for Conventional Reservoirs
N083:  Petrophysics and Formation Evaluation: Principles and Practice
N187:  Low Resistivity Low Contrast Pay
N560:  Petrophysical and Geophysical Evaluation of Unconventional Plays – Identifying the Prospective Reservoirs

Mike Lovell

Background
Mike is Emeritus Professor of Petrophysics at the University of Leicester. Mike’s career has focused on the physical properties of rocks and their interdependence, using both downhole measurements and laboratory measurements on core to assess subsurface reservoirs and repositories. His experience includes petrophysics projects funded by industry, government, and charities, covering both conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon reservoirs (hydrates, coalbed methane, and shale gas). Mike’s research spans both industry and academia, and he has also been actively involved with ocean drilling since 1986. Mike is a former Vice President of SPWLA and has served as a Director of the SPWLA Foundation; he has been a Distinguished Speaker for SPWLA, and is a SPWLA Distinguished Service Award holder.  Mike has edited 7 books and published over 150 papers.

In addition to virtual courses, Mike has taught a variety of classroom-based and field-based petrophysics courses specifically designed for industry participants.

Affiliations and Accreditation
PhD Physical Properties of Marine Sediments
MSc Wales - Marine Geotechnics
BSc Readings- Geological Geophysics with Mathematics

Courses Taught
N083: Petrophysics and Formation Evaluation: Principles and Practice
N030: Rocks and Fluids: Practical Petrophysics
N267: Petrophysics for Shale Gas Reservoirs
N525: Petrophysics Uncovered: a Helpful Guide to Understanding Petrophysics

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.