About this Training Course

This 5-day advanced course will start with a refresher on key aspects of carbonate sedimentation, diagenesis and porosity evolution. Participants will then explore factors that have influenced carbonate sedimentation through time, including global sea-level fluctuations and their effects on accommodation space and depositional energy, tectonic cycles, palaeolatitude, palaeoclimate, oceanic chemistry and the evolution of biota. The significance of these global changes will be examined with respect to the deposition and diagenesis of reservoir facies and the prediction of exploration targets including the identification of stratigraphic and diagenetic traps. The second part of the course will focus more on the factors that influence reservoir behaviour and fluid production. This will include examination of saturations including capillary pressures and the relationship to depositional and diagenetic pore systems; wettability in carbonate reservoirs; rock typing for input to reservoir modelling and mapping using the sedimentological model and knowledge of the pore systems. Seals, permeability barriers and high permeability streaks will be mapped using a sequence stratigraphic approach. Finally, participants will examine the importance of natural fracture systems in enhancing permeability or providing the main reservoir volume and factors that may be locally important in influencing reservoir quality and production, specifically tar mats and bitumens.