This three-day workshop builds on the success of the first AAPG Carbonate Reservoirs of the Middle East GTW, held in Abu Dhabi, UAE in 2015. It is dedicated to addressing the hydrocarbon bearing carbonate reservoirs of the Middle East, in the context of a changing oil market within a more challenging exploration and development environment. These challenges include the shift from traditional anticlinal traps to stratigraphic traps, and development strategies for dealing with maturing, long-producing, giant fields.

The modern carbonate-evaporite depositional environments along the Abu Dhabi shoreline and offshore Abu Dhabi belong to the few areas of the world where the geoscientist can observe the interplay between carbonate and evaporite sedimentation.

Supratidal (sabkha) to intertidal and shallow subtidal (microbial mat and peloid-skeletal tidal-flat) environments will be studied in the vicinity of Al-Qanatir Island.

Al-Qanatir Island

In the vicinity of the road to Al-Qanatir Island participants will be able to study a complete and undisturbed lateral facies succession from the upper supratidal to the lower intertidal and shallow subtidal:

• Upper supratidal stranded beach ridges
• Topographic highs, some cm above the adjacent upper sabkha environment
• Upper sabkha (upper supratidal)
• Surface covered by polygonally-cracked halite crust
• Middle sabkha (middle supratidal)
• Surface covered by finely-crystalline, whitish anhydrite polygons
• Lower sabkha (lower supratidal)
• Surface covered by shiny, sparkling gypsum crystals
• Upper to lower intertidal microbial mat
• Crenulated or crinkled microbial mat above gypsum mush facies
• Blistered and pinnacle microbial mat
• Polygonal and tufted microbial mat
• Lowermost intertidal to shallow sub-tidal
• Peloid-skeletal tidal-flat

Many of these depositional environments and facies successions correspond to those observed in cores from the subsurface of the Arabian Peninsula.

The main objective of this field trip is to offer participants the opportunity to study the structural style and fracturing of carbonate rocks analogous to reservoir units of the globally important UAE Oil Province. The clear exposure of these carbonate rocks in this tectonically complicated area provides a significant opportunity to study and explain the structural style and deformation history of the region. Although the carbonate rocks exposed in Jebal Hafit area are of Early Eocene–Miocene age (Rus, Dammam and Asmari Formations), the emphasis here is to study fractures pattern and fracturing mechanism with relation to the paleostress and the link to fractures conductivity.

The selected stops will demonstrate the stratigraphic relationship of the rock units and their fracture systems that have been developed during long geological deformation. There are significant similarities between these exposed rocks and those units seen in the Abu Dhabi Oil Fields by means of reservoir characteristics and fracture system and fracture related diagenesis (cementation/host rock alteration) with its impact on sealing potential.

Jebal Hafit, an elongated asymmetrical, double‐plunging, NNW‐SSW trending anticline with an elevation reaches up to ~ 1140 m high, is situated at the border between Oman and UAE. It extends ca 30 km in the direction NNW–SSE with average width of 4 to 5 km.

Cross disciplinary workflows play an important part of successful characterization of shale reservoirs. This course discusses how the artificial kerogen maturity of organic-rich Green River shale affects the petrophysical, micro-structural, geochemical and elastic properties.

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Unger Field, discovered in1955, has produced 8.6 million barrels of oil from a thinly (several ft) bedded, locally cherty dolomite containing vuggy and intercrystalline porosity.

Projects in several shales will be discussed, including Marcellus, Eagle Ford, Haynesville, Fayetteville, Montney, and Barnett, as will several seismically-detectable drivers for success including lithofacies, stress, pre-existing fractures, and pore pressure.

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This presentation will look at well placement vertically in the pay, well azimuth and well trajectory with explanations of how geology and post-depositional effects can make the difference between a successful well and a failure.

The Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas is one of the more exciting shale plays in the United States at the current time.

This study will focus in the combination of λρ – μρ inversion with clustering analysis techniques in order to discriminate brittle zones in the Barnett Shale.

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This e-symposium will provide information on which tools, processes, and procedures all geoscientists, engineers, and technical professionals working in shale plays need to understand and implement.

The Mississippian-Devonian Bakken Petroleum System of the Williston Basin is characterized by low-porosity and permeability reservoirs, organic-rich source rocks, and regional hydrocarbon charge.

This e-symposium covers how to conduct an interdisciplinary evaluation of mature fields to determine the best approach to recover remaining reserves.

Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to describe geomechanics in shale reservoirs and discuss differences between plays.

Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to describe faults and fractures in carbonates, black shales, and coarser clastics as they occur in the northern Appalachian Basin.

The presentation describes a well established fracture modeling workflow that uses a standard 3D seismic, conventional logs, image logs and data from one core to build predictive 3D fracture models that are validated with blind wells.

This esymposium takes a close look at workflows associated with resource plays, and analyzes where integration must occur between disciplines, data, and workflows at all phases of the process.