Programs/Courses

·    ERSC6110, Petroleum Geology of the Middle East (fall semester). This course reviews the main petroleum systems of the Middle East, both sequentially by geological time periods and country by country. Reservoirs, seals, and source rocks for each system are examined in a sequence stratigraphic framework and in terms of depositional facies models. Emphasis is also placed on structural context, diagenesis, and reservoir quality. Much of the lecture time is used to review important articles and books that every petroleum geologist working in the Middle East must become familiar with.

·       ERSC6109, Description and Prediction of Reservoir Quality (spring semester). This course begins by reviewing what "reservoir quality" (RQ) is and the methods by which it is measured in the laboratory and the subsurface on various scales of observation, as well as the purposes for which such information is collected, like exploration risking, reservoir simulation, and enhanced recovery. The course examines the factors controlling RQ in both sandstones and carbonates. In general, these are depositional facies and diagenesis, but there is much complexity and several widespread misconceptions involved with each. Consideration is given to the methods by which both depositional texture/composition and diagenetic processes can be quantitatively measured and then related to variations in RQ. A major focus of the course is on strategies available for predicting RQ, both between wells on the field scale and outside of well control on the basin scale.