Reservoir Quality Analysis
of Sandstone & Carbonate Rock Types

INTRODUCTION

This GLOMACS training course is aimed at giving oil industry geologists a detailed introduction to the study of sandstone and carbonate rock-types in terms of reservoir quality. Reservoir quality analysis permits to identify the main depositional, provenance and diagenetic controls on the evolution of the poro-perm characteristics of sandstone and carbonate reservoirs (e.g. evolution of porosity vs. burial depth, mineralogical content and diagenetic environments). Examples from sandstone and carbonate oil/gas reservoirs (i.e. current East & West Africa basins) are also taken into consideration.

This training course will highlight:

• Introduction to siliciclastic and carbonate reservoirs with emphasis on controls on reservoir quality
• Sandstone composition, provenance, diagenesis, and tectonic settings
• Carbonate composition (allochems, orthochems), classification and diagenesis
• Petrographic analyses (TS, SEM, CL), XRD, QEMSCAN and integration of reservoir quality results
• Porosity classification, porosity evolution vs. burial depth, stratigraphy, composition, authigenic components and diagenetic phases/environments
• Concept of rock typing, rock typing schemes and rock typing analysis of uncored reservoir intervals (sandstone and carbonate cuttings tied to wireline logs)

Objectives

By the end of this training course, participants will:

• Understand what are the different types of sandstone hydrocarbon reservoirs and their main controls on reservoir quality
• Understand what are the different types of carbonate reservoirs and their main controls on reservoir quality
• Be able to differentiate depositional, provenance and diagenetic markers of analysed sandstones and carbonates
• Be able to integrate and interpret poro-perm data vs. stratigraphy and regional geology (e.g. well correlations)
• Understand the main rock-based methodologies of analysis applied to reservoir quality studies
• Be conversant with the concepts of Rock typing and petrophysical comparison of cuttings and core samples

Training Methodology

This training course for oil industry geologists is thus structured in oral and practical sessions, with PowerPoint presentations, didactic material/exercises and work at a polarizing microscope. Examples of SEM and CL analyses are also shown to integrate the different methodologies utilized for diagenetic/reservoir quality studies. 

Such training course can also be run as on-the-job-training session, during which clients can provide their own examples of reservoirs under exploration, so that new methodologies of work and solutions to their reservoir problems can be provided. The practical sessions at the polarizing microscope will show attendees oil industry data collection methods and reservoir quality descriptions of sandstone and carbonate petro-types (core samples, cuttings, and outcrops).

Organisational Impact

Organisations sending their employees to attend this training course will benefit by:

• Having employees with a better knowledge of sedimentary petrography topics
• Having employees with a working knowledge on reservoir quality methods of work
• Having employees able to collect, analyse and interpret single well to multi-well datasets from sandstone and carbonate reservoirs
• Having employees with further skills on oil industry data collection software
• Having employees improving their performance and efficiency on data interpretation
• Having employees with a better knowledge of current sandstone and carbonate reservoirs (e.g. East-West Africa) which can be utilized as analogues for regional exploration studies

Personal Impact

The participants in this training course will:

• Have improvement in their technical skills in data collection methodologies
• Be able to work more quickly in the interpretation of reservoir quality results
• Have a set of exercises and papers for self-training sessions
• Be able to perform “lunch & learn” sessions on the studied topics at their own company
• Be able to prepare rock descriptions and chapters of geological reports utilizing the skills gained during the training course sessions

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

This training course is suitable to a wide range of professionals but will greatly benefit: 

• Sedimentary geologists of service and oil companies
• Junior to mid-level geologists carrying out rock-based geological projects
• Sedimentologists who need to be conversant on rock typing concepts
• Petrographers of small and large oil-industry organizations
• PhD students in sedimentary geology of academic institutions