Mineral and petroleum geoscience

Course details

  • Duration: 5 Half days of Live Remote Sessions
  • Time:  13.00 – 17.00 (GMT)
  • Fees:   TBC   

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22 February 2021  (parallel session)

There are some notable similarities between mineral and petroleum projects. Both are based on depleting resources and therefore companies are under constant pressure to replace reserves. The products are commoditised and globally traded on both spot and futures markets as well as being based on long-term contracts (iron ore, coal and gas supplies). These are products that have low demand elasticity, are capital intensive, require long development lead times and are associated with high technical and commercial risk. The sessions addresses the similarities of natural resource projects, whether minerals or petroleum, while identifying their key differences.

This parallel module will be of benefit to professionals from financial services sectors who need to identify the investment opportunities that are being offered across the whole spectrum of the mining cycle.  For delegates who are familiar with the principles behind Cash Flow modelling but are interested in the complementary concepts associated with quantitative finance then this parallel module might be more useful.

mineral and petroleum geoscience


Mineral and Petroleum Geosciences (Parallel session)

Time
Session
Contributors
12.30-13.00
 

MS Teams Overview and Group Introductions 

 CPD/ Dennis Buchanan
13.00-14.00
 
 

1A. The origin of mineral deposits and their classification. Terminology. Strategic minerals. Chemical composition of the Earths crust. Geochemically abundant and scarce metals. Mineralogical barrier. Relationship between value and tonnage. Diversity – REE, Battery Metals.

Dennis Buchanan
14.00-15.00
 

2A. Petroleum fiscal regimes Concessionary system - Tax & Royalty Distribution from a Barrel of Oil. PSC Distribution from a Barrel of Oil. Production profiles and decline curves. Economic limit.

 Colin Howard
15.00-16.00

3A. Quantifying Uncertainty in Hydrocarbon Production Forecasts. Description of the approaches used in calculating recoverable reserves and their associated uncertainty based on monte-carlo simulation or geostatistics

  

Olivier Dubrule
16.00-17:00
 
 
 
 
 
 

4A. Coal and Hydrocarbons. Organic chemistry. Hydrocarbon formation. Coalification process and petrography. Coal classification, specifications, analysis and heating values. Coking coal properties. Coal seam gas and safety. Fischer-Tropsch Process. Coal versus gas.

 
Dennis Buchanan
 
 
 
 
 
 
Professor Dennis Buchanan (Course Director)

Emeritus Professor of Mining Geology & Senior Research Fellow, Imperial College London 

Professor Buchanan works jointly between the Department of Earth Science and Engineering and the Business School at Imperial College London and will act as the Course Director.   

Professor Buchanan's current research interest lies in addressing the underlying technical principles applying to mineral projects and demonstrating how these influence financial modelling. He has 36 years’ experience teaching mining geology, mineral exploration and mineral project appraisal and is responsible for the MSc in Metals and Energy Finance.  This is a joint degree between the Department of Earth Science and Engineering and the Business School at Imperial College. Professor Buchanan has worked as a Mining Geologist in both gold and platinum mines in South Africa and had wide experience as a consultant to industry, as an expert witness and in designing and delivering short courses for industry

 

Olivier Dubrule
Professor of Petroleum Geostatistics and Machine Learning, Imperial College London 

Olivier Dubrule obtained a PhD Degree in Petroleum Geostatistics at Ecole des Mines de Paris in 1981.  After managing the Total Geosciences Research Centre (Aberdeen, UK) and the Total Research Centre – Qatar (Doha, Qatar), Olivier became Total Vice-President of Geosciences Training and Technical Image in Pau (France) in January 2012. Since November 2014, Olivier has been a Visiting  Professor of Petroleum Geostatistics and Machine Learning at Imperial College. Olivier is the author of AAPG Course Notes Series #38 "Geostatistics in Petroleum Geology", of SEG/EAGE course notes “Geostatistics for Seismic Data Integration in Earth Models”, translated in Farsi and Russian. He was the 2004-2005 President of EAGE (European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers).

Colin Howard
Director, CTH Resource Economics Ltd

Colin Howard is a consultant petroleum economist, specialising in the evaluation, fiscal modelling and risk analysis of hydrocarbon projects. Prior to establishing his own consulting business, he worked with Schlumberger Plc, providing software support to international oil and gas companies. He holds MSc degrees in structural geology from the University of Pennsylvania and in Mineral Project Appraisal from Imperial College London. He has extensive experience in modelling a wide variety of hydrocarbon tax regimes and production sharing contracts throughout the world, as well as presenting professional training courses. Clients include Royal Dutch Shell, BP, BG Group, Hess Corporation, and Sonatrach, Algeria.

 

Very satisfied with this course – I now have the key tools to work with as I progress my project"

It provides tools for evaluating mineral projects and critical business decision making "

General information