Petroleum Geoscience Students conducted Field-Seminar in Europe
MUSCAT A group of Omani students and their professor of the Department of Petroleum Geoscience at the German University of Technology in Oman (GUtech) conducted a one week field-seminar near the largest onshore oil field in Europe, the Wytch farm oilfield, located on the south coast of the UK. “This is the most famous area in the world for teaching petroleum geology in the field. Our main objective was to explore the main processes that lead to the formation of an oil accumulation and to teach the students the so-called ‘play evaluation’,” said Professor Dr. Wiekert Visser, Head of the Department of Petroleum Geoscience at GUtech. The field work was lead by Professor Wiekert and has been held on an annual basis, as part of the three-year Master’s programme. The Southern coastline of the UK, especially the regions Devon and Dorset are renowned for their teaching possibilities in oil and gas exploration geology.
Such quality of teaching in petroleum geological is very hard in Oman because of the mountain building has distorted many primary rock quality features which are important for petroleum geology. “In the South of the UK the geological structure is very simple compared to Oman,” said Professor Wiekert. Besides GUtech, many oil companies and universities visit the Dorset coast for petroleum geological training. “During the seminar we worked together in small teams, and learnt how we can use observations on source, reservoir and seal rocks and structure in the field to derive the history of the rocks, which then helps to predict the potential for petroleum exploration” said Haifa Al Salmi, Assistant Lecturer at the Department of Petroleum Geoscience. At the end of the week long field excursion, the teams had to present their petroleum exploration concept to a senior explorationist.