Specialisation (GeoEnergy) Short Courses
Our world-leading experts offer you advanced courses on technical themes like subsurface geology, geomechanics, drilling engineering, production engineering, enhanced oil recovery and more.
These are taught through our prestigious coursework Masters programs in engineering and energy geoscience but external applicants are welcome to join regular classes for relevant modules or we can custom-design a format and content to meet your specific professional development needs.
Our courses
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Data analytics for GeoEnergy resources
What is covered
What are the real benefits of data analytics? This course will guide you through the opportunities, challenges and applications and includes both theory and practical applications so you will be equipped with the skills and knowledge to apply data analytics and machine learning methods in your own workplace.
What you will learn
- Basic artificial neural networks
- How to perform data clustering, feature extraction and classification
- How to describe the fundamentals of descriptive and predictive analytics
- How to choose the most appropriate machine learning and data analytics models
- Python basic commands and dealing with speciality data types
- Python most popular libraries for petroleum engineering data analytics.
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GeoEnergy resource evaluation
What is covered
This course will cover best practice resource evaluation techniques so you can bring together the disciplines of geology, geophysics and reservoir engineering in a way that allows you to make decisions.
What you will learn
- How to use basic geological and engineering data to evaluate reservoir rock quality, fluid saturations and contact depths, transition zone thickness and seal capacity
- How geostatistics can be used as a probabilistic approach to modelling the subsurface
- Introduction to reservoir engineering including rock and fluid properties
- Introduction to decision making under uncertainty
- How to better understand unconventional resources including shale gas and oil, coal seam gas and tight gas.
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Transport and properties of porous media
What is covered
This course encompasses all aspects of flow and properties of porous media, natural porous reservoirs and artificial porous materials and is relevant for anyone in the chemical, environmental, mining, medical and mechanical engineering fields.
What you will learn
- The fundamentals of flow and deformation phenomena in natural and porous systems
- Methods for laboratory analysis and mathematical modelling
- How to apply this to a broad range of topics including aquifer contamination, waste disposal, hydrocarbon migration and fines migration in geological formations.
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Reservoir simulation
What is covered
If you need to forecast how a particular reservoir will respond to development, this course will give you the theoretical basis and practical fundamentals for the mathematical modelling and numerical simulation of fluid flow in petroleum reservoirs and discuss how to reduce the inherent uncertainties in the input data, using inverse modelling techniques, or ‘history matching’.
What you will learn
- The mathematical and computational concepts behind commercial reservoir simulators
- The physical laws that govern fluid flow in porous media and how to formulate single-phase and multi-phase flow in petroleum reservoirs
- How to solve governing partial differential equations using finite difference methods and interpret the potential numerical errors
- How to write a program for simple problems
- How to use a commercial reservoir simulator for studying the reservoir performance in response to different development strategies including history matching a reservoir simulation model
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Well testing and pressure transient analysis
What is covered
This course will give you the skills and knowledge to successfully undertake well testing and pressure transient analysis including concepts such as fluid flow equation and fundamental solution, drawdown and build-up analyses, gas well testing, hydraulic fractures and drill-stem testing.
What you will learn
- The various techniques of pressure transient analysis, part of the reservoir engineering discipline.
- How to use real field data and how such data is obtained in the field, including accuracy and limitations
- The basics of well test design and the modern hardware used in the field
- The risks involved in well testing and how best engineering practice will minimise such risks.
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Drilling engineering and well completion
What is covered
The fundamentals of drilling engineering and well completion are at the heart of this course. We look at the drilling process, concepts and types of well completion design, equipment and performance, and specialised components you may need to be familiar with.
What you will learn
- How to effectively describe petroleum well drilling and completion principles, including key features of various components, and how to use these descriptions for design, design analysis and evaluation
- Key design parameters, and how to estimate them appropriately, solving problems through analysing, evaluating and synthesising information
- How to formulate an optimum solution and decide what data / information is relevant from a range of sources, how these relate to each other and how to identify inconsistencies
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Production and facilities engineering
What is covered
This course will look at the principles and applications of various techniques for designing, estimating and maximising production performance in a cost-effective manner. It will also look at how these techniques could be applied in a practical field development project to identify the best way of exploiting petroleum reserves, as well as maximising ultimate production.
What you will learn
- The main terminology, concepts, and techniques that apply to production engineering founded on a theory-based understanding of mathematics and the natural and physical sciences
- How to analyse petroleum production systems validated against national and or international standards
- How to apply a critical-thinking and problem-solving approach to the main principles of production engineering
- How to use commercial software to complete, analyse, and optimise an artificial lift design
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Formation damage and productivity enhancement
What is covered
Formation damage in injection and production wells, its prediction, mathematical and laboratory modelling, prevention and mitigation are the focus for this course. Training exercises and field examples make this a very practical course for those involved in oil-production processes.
What you will learn
- Key aspects of formation damage in different processes of oil production
- The reservoir physics of main formation damage mechanisms
- How to describe the purpose of damage removal, prevention and mitigation, of well stimulation
- The concepts and equipment required for water management in onshore and offshore developments
- How to analyse mathematical models for formation damage in different processes of oil production
- How to apply a critical-thinking and problem-solving approach towards the principles of damage-free oil production technologies.
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Unconventional resources and recovery
What is covered
This course will provide an overview of the key issues and methods relevant to the exploration, assessment and development of unconventional reservoirs. The course will focus on application of geomechanics in CSG, tight gas and shale gas, deliverability and production forecasting, field development planning and reserve estimation/economics of unconventional reservoirs.
What you will learn
- How to understand and describe unique geological characteristics of unconventional resources including earth stresses, basic rock mechanical properties, fracturing mechanics, well-bore stability and hydraulic fracturing
- Key properties of coal seam gas (CSG), tight gas and shale gas reservoirs based on log and general reservoir characteristics
- How to understand, describe and apply key reservoir engineering concepts to CSG, tight gas and shale gas reservoirs
- How to determine recoverable and unrecoverable resources for unconventional reservoirs
- The social impact and technical risk assessments required for developing unconventional reservoirs