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Petroleum Systems Analysis - PSA

Discipline: Geology
Level: Foundation
Instructors who teach this course:
  • Mr. Andrew Pepper
    Mr. Andrew Pepper
    X
    MR. ANDREW PEPPER is Director of This is Petroleum Systems LLC - "t!Ps" - a consulting service that conducts studies, research into new workflows and tools, and training in the field of Petroleum Systems Analysis. The scope is both conventional and unconventional and global - but with current focus on the Gulf of Mexico and Permian Basins. He has held functional roles including responsibility for internal training at BP, Hess and BHP Billiton since 2000. Prior to forming t!Ps, from 2012-2015 he was VP of Geoscience and VP of Unconventional Exploration at BHP Billiton. At Hess, from 2003- 2012, Andy was Chief Geologist and Director of New Ventures (Conventional and Unconventional). At BP, in Houston, he led the Petroleum Systems Network from 2000-2003, after working in the team that positioned and delivered BP's exploration dominance of the sub-salt of the deep water Gulf of Mexico. His early career as an international exploration geologist was punctuated by a rotation into the Sunbury Research Center from 1985-1989, where Andy performed technical studies and conducted research in the (then developing) fields of organic geochemistry and basin modeling. He has presented many oral papers beginning 1989, and is best known for publication of a trilogy of papers concerning petroleum generation and expulsion in 1995. These algorithms are now coded into modern basin modeling packages. In 1981 Andy received a BSc 1st Class Honors in Geologic Sciences at Leeds University, UK, where he is currently a Visiting Academic.

    Courses:

  • Dr. John S. Sneider
    Dr. John S. Sneider
    X
    DR. JOHN S. SNEIDER is President of Sneider Exploration, Inc., an exploration/exploitation consulting service that conducts studies around the world, but with a focus in Latin America, China, North Africa and the United States. He is also involved with industry training with more than 18 years' experience in Venezuela, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Argentina, Mexico, the North Sea, Switzerland, Korea, China, the Gulf Coast, Alaska, and the Permian Basin. From 1994 to the present, he has been a partner in PetroTech Associates, providing exploration/exploitation with analysis and evaluation of reservoir, seal and flow barrier rock types. From 1989 to 1990 he was a consultant for Green Hill Petroleum, Inc., in East Texas, and previously was a geologist with Shell Oil, Inc., in South Texas. While working on his PhD in Geology and Geophysics at Rice University, he spent 18 months in the Elf Acquitaine Paris office working various sequence stratigraphy projects focusing in the North Sea. He received a BS and an MS in Geology from Texas A&M and a PhD in Geology and Geophysics from Rice University.

    Courses:



  • About the course
  • Designed For
  • You will learn
  • Course Content
The Petroleum System is a volume creation machine driven by heat and gravity. This course addresses the fundamentals of the Petroleum System, a holistic view of how it works, which is essential for geoscientists and engineers involved in today's challenging conventional and unconventional exploration and development projects. The elements of the Petroleum System Charge, Trap, and Reservoir, are described systematically within the framework of play and prospect evaluation.

The charge element begins with the deposition of the source rock and the establishment of its volumetric potential, or feedstock, for the system. Charge access involves converting this potential to expelled volumes, making, and then moving, the volumes from source bed to trap/reservoir. In the case of some unconventional reservoirs, this is within or adjacent to the source bed itself. A trap receives charge and petroleum columns build along its edges, until the container limit of the critical weak point is reached, or it spills. Reservoir rock storage and deliverability are modified by mechanical and chemical compaction, and fluid properties, fundamentally affecting project economics. Fluid properties further impact economics via the product value itself.

This 5-day class uses new purpose-designed materials, most previously unpublished, and draws on a global database and familiarity with many different styles of producing basin, play, and accumulation. About a third of the classroom time employs quick quiz and purpose-designed interactive individual and group exercises. The regular class offering covers both conventional and unconventional fundamentals, but upon request, can be focused on one or the other.

"I most enjoyed learning about source rock potential and doing the course exercises." - Geologist, Thailand

"The course was very good!" - Participant
Geologists, geophysicists, and petrophysicists working on basin, play, prospect or reservoir evaluation, and reservoir engineers seeking a bottom up understanding of the genesis of their reservoir, or field. The course provides a refresher in new concepts in this field for geoscientists at a fundamental level.
How To:
  • Employ Petroleum System concepts as a holistic approach to risk and volume estimation in play, prospect and reservoir evaluation
  • Predict and confirm source rock distribution from rock and fluid data, and estimate volumetric potential
  • Predict the temperature, timing, volumes, compositions and phases expelled from kitchens, and the controls exerted by hydrodynamics and capillarity on migration from source bed to trap/reservoir
  • Describe a trap in terms of the critical weak points on its edges
  • Estimate column heights containable by those edges
  • Understand the Petroleum System controls on reservoir rock quality
  • Understand reservoir and reservoir fluid properties that govern deliverability, well recovery, and economics (rate, product value)
Volume, Risk, and Value (VRV)
  • Petroleum Systems in E&P

The feedstock
  • Charge | Source Potential: source rock deposition
  • Charge | Source Potential: type and organofacies

Making
  • Charge | Access: temperature and thermal stress, thermal stress indicators and maturity
  • Charge | Access: petroleum generation, cracking and expulsion; petroleum product composition and phase
  • Charge | Access: oil and gas geochemistry (biomarkers, isotopes) as a function of organofacies, maturity and biodegradation

Moving
  • Charge | Access: basin thermics; thermal modeling; volume and timing of expelled products; fluid phase properties
  • Charge | Access: capillarity; pressure; primary and secondary migration from source to trap; charge vs. trap timing

Receiving
  • Trap | Container Geometry: understand trap geometries that govern accumulation; container type and number of edges

Containing
  • Trap | Column Capacity: fluid phase properties density and interfacial tension; rock capillarity; hydrodynamics; capillary vs. fracture leakage; column capacity prediction methods; tertiary migration/leakage and seepage

Storing
  • Reservoir | Storage: effective stress and mechanical compaction; thermal stress and chemical compaction; how reservoir filling controls fluid phase saturation; fluid formation volume factor and gas expansion factor; geochemical methods of estimating fluid phase saturation

Delivering
  • Reservoir | Deliverability: P, T and compositional controls on fluid viscosity; segmentation; reservoir pressures and connectivity

Value
  • Value: the $ value of the produced petroleum product itself
Related courses
View the Progression Map
Basin Analysis Workshop: An Integrated Approach to the Exploration and Evaluation of Conventional and Unconventional Resources - BA
Prospect and Play Assessment - PPA
Evaluating and Developing Shale Resources - SRE
Download Progression Map

Petroleum Systems Analysis - PSA
Discipline: Geology
Level: Foundation
Duration: 5 days
Instructor(s): Andrew Pepper, John Sneider
The Petroleum System is a volume creation machine driven by heat and gravity. This course addresses the fundamentals of the Petroleum System, a holistic view of how it works, which is essential for geoscientists and engineers involved in today's challenging conventional and unconventional exploration and development projects. The elements of the Petroleum System Charge, Trap, and Reservoir, are described systematically within the framework of play and prospect evaluation.

The charge element begins with the deposition of the source rock and the establishment of its volumetric potential, or feedstock, for the system. Charge access involves converting this potential to expelled volumes, making, and then moving, the volumes from source bed to trap/reservoir. In the case of some unconventional reservoirs, this is within or adjacent to the source bed itself. A trap receives charge and petroleum columns build along its edges, until the container limit of the critical weak point is reached, or it spills. Reservoir rock storage and deliverability are modified by mechanical and chemical compaction, and fluid properties, fundamentally affecting project economics. Fluid properties further impact economics via the product value itself.

This 5-day class uses new purpose-designed materials, most previously unpublished, and draws on a global database and familiarity with many different styles of producing basin, play, and accumulation. About a third of the classroom time employs quick quiz and purpose-designed interactive individual and group exercises. The regular class offering covers both conventional and unconventional fundamentals, but upon request, can be focused on one or the other.

"I most enjoyed learning about source rock potential and doing the course exercises." - Geologist, Thailand

"The course was very good!" - Participant
Designed For:
Geologists, geophysicists, and petrophysicists working on basin, play, prospect or reservoir evaluation, and reservoir engineers seeking a bottom up understanding of the genesis of their reservoir, or field. The course provides a refresher in new concepts in this field for geoscientists at a fundamental level.
You Will Learn:
How To:
  • Employ Petroleum System concepts as a holistic approach to risk and volume estimation in play, prospect and reservoir evaluation
  • Predict and confirm source rock distribution from rock and fluid data, and estimate volumetric potential
  • Predict the temperature, timing, volumes, compositions and phases expelled from kitchens, and the controls exerted by hydrodynamics and capillarity on migration from source bed to trap/reservoir
  • Describe a trap in terms of the critical weak points on its edges
  • Estimate column heights containable by those edges
  • Understand the Petroleum System controls on reservoir rock quality
  • Understand reservoir and reservoir fluid properties that govern deliverability, well recovery, and economics (rate, product value)
Course Content:
Volume, Risk, and Value (VRV)
  • Petroleum Systems in E&P

The feedstock
  • Charge | Source Potential: source rock deposition
  • Charge | Source Potential: type and organofacies

Making
  • Charge | Access: temperature and thermal stress, thermal stress indicators and maturity
  • Charge | Access: petroleum generation, cracking and expulsion; petroleum product composition and phase
  • Charge | Access: oil and gas geochemistry (biomarkers, isotopes) as a function of organofacies, maturity and biodegradation

Moving
  • Charge | Access: basin thermics; thermal modeling; volume and timing of expelled products; fluid phase properties
  • Charge | Access: capillarity; pressure; primary and secondary migration from source to trap; charge vs. trap timing

Receiving
  • Trap | Container Geometry: understand trap geometries that govern accumulation; container type and number of edges

Containing
  • Trap | Column Capacity: fluid phase properties density and interfacial tension; rock capillarity; hydrodynamics; capillary vs. fracture leakage; column capacity prediction methods; tertiary migration/leakage and seepage

Storing
  • Reservoir | Storage: effective stress and mechanical compaction; thermal stress and chemical compaction; how reservoir filling controls fluid phase saturation; fluid formation volume factor and gas expansion factor; geochemical methods of estimating fluid phase saturation

Delivering
  • Reservoir | Deliverability: P, T and compositional controls on fluid viscosity; segmentation; reservoir pressures and connectivity

Value
  • Value: the $ value of the produced petroleum product itself
Instructors:

MR. ANDREW PEPPER is Director of This is Petroleum Systems LLC - "t!Ps" - a consulting service that conducts studies, research into new workflows and tools, and training in the field of Petroleum Systems Analysis. The scope is both conventional and unconventional and global - but with current focus on the Gulf of Mexico and Permian Basins. He has held functional roles including responsibility for internal training at BP, Hess and BHP Billiton since 2000. Prior to forming t!Ps, from 2012-2015 he was VP of Geoscience and VP of Unconventional Exploration at BHP Billiton. At Hess, from 2003- 2012, Andy was Chief Geologist and Director of New Ventures (Conventional and Unconventional). At BP, in Houston, he led the Petroleum Systems Network from 2000-2003, after working in the team that positioned and delivered BP's exploration dominance of the sub-salt of the deep water Gulf of Mexico. His early career as an international exploration geologist was punctuated by a rotation into the Sunbury Research Center from 1985-1989, where Andy performed technical studies and conducted research in the (then developing) fields of organic geochemistry and basin modeling. He has presented many oral papers beginning 1989, and is best known for publication of a trilogy of papers concerning petroleum generation and expulsion in 1995. These algorithms are now coded into modern basin modeling packages. In 1981 Andy received a BSc 1st Class Honors in Geologic Sciences at Leeds University, UK, where he is currently a Visiting Academic.

DR. JOHN S. SNEIDER is President of Sneider Exploration, Inc., an exploration/exploitation consulting service that conducts studies around the world, but with a focus in Latin America, China, North Africa and the United States. He is also involved with industry training with more than 18 years' experience in Venezuela, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Argentina, Mexico, the North Sea, Switzerland, Korea, China, the Gulf Coast, Alaska, and the Permian Basin. From 1994 to the present, he has been a partner in PetroTech Associates, providing exploration/exploitation with analysis and evaluation of reservoir, seal and flow barrier rock types. From 1989 to 1990 he was a consultant for Green Hill Petroleum, Inc., in East Texas, and previously was a geologist with Shell Oil, Inc., in South Texas. While working on his PhD in Geology and Geophysics at Rice University, he spent 18 months in the Elf Acquitaine Paris office working various sequence stratigraphy projects focusing in the North Sea. He received a BS and an MS in Geology from Texas A&M and a PhD in Geology and Geophysics from Rice University.


In-House Course Presentations
All courses are available for in-house presentation to individual organizations. In-house courses may be structured the same as the public versions or tailored to meet your requirements. Special courses on virtually any petroleum-related subject can be arranged specifically for in-house presentation. For further information, contact our In-House Training Coordinator at one of the numbers listed below.
Telephone 1- 832 426 1234
Facsimile 1- 832 426 1244
E-Mail inhouse@petroskills.com

Public Course Presentations
How to contact PetroSkills:
1-800-821-5933 toll-free in North America or
Telephone 1-918-828-2500
Facsimile 1-918-828-2580
E-Mail registrations@petroskills.com
Internet www.petroskills.com
Address P.O. Box 35448, Tulsa, Oklahoma 74153-0448, U.S.A