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Petroleum Geoscience

Carbonate Reservoir Geology and Characterisation

Carbonate reservoirs routinely produce surprises: a well with modest matrix porosity that flows at huge rates through vugs and fractures, or a high porosity chalk that barely flows at all. Those surprises trace back to how the rock was built by organisms and then rearranged by diagenesis. Delegates start with carbonate factories, grain types and the Dunham and Embry and Klovan classification schemes, then cover platform, ramp, reef and pelagic settings. Diagenesis takes the central sessions: dolomitisation, dissolution, karst and cementation, and how each creates or destroys pore space. Pore type classification after Lucia and after Choquette and Pray links geology to rock typing. The course ends on fracture networks and how carbonate heterogeneity is captured in a model. Delegates leave able to describe carbonate rock, predict pore systems and define geologically meaningful rock types.

5 day course

Course objectives

  • Classify carbonate rocks using the Dunham and Embry and Klovan schemes
  • Interpret carbonate depositional settings from core and thin section
  • Explain how dolomitisation, dissolution and cementation modify porosity
  • Recognise karst and its signature in drilling and log data
  • Classify pore types and link them to permeability
  • Define geologically based rock types for carbonate reservoirs
  • Integrate fracture and vug systems into reservoir description

Who should attend

  • Geologists working carbonate fields
  • Development and reservoir geologists
  • Geomodellers
  • Core and thin section petrographers
  • Reservoir engineers needing insight into carbonate heterogeneity

Course outline

  1. 01Carbonate production and grain types
  2. 02Classification of carbonate rocks
  3. 03Platforms, ramps and reefs
  4. 04Diagenetic processes and environments
  5. 05Dolomitisation and karst
  6. 06Pore systems and pore classification
  7. 07Geological rock typing
  8. 08Fractures and vugs
  9. 09Modelling carbonate heterogeneity

Scheduled sessions

Scheduled sessions for Carbonate Reservoir Geology and Characterisation
DatesVenueFormatPriceRegister
26 to 30 October 2026OnlineOnlineR8,500 per delegate
2 to 6 November 2026Nairobi, KenyaClassroomUSD 1,325 per delegate
30 November to 4 December 2026Pretoria, South AfricaClassroomR19,950 per delegate
4 to 8 January 2027Addis Ababa, EthiopiaClassroomUSD 1,325 per delegate
25 to 29 January 2027Accra, GhanaClassroomUSD 1,325 per delegate
1 to 5 February 2027Maputo, MozambiqueClassroomUSD 1,325 per delegate

Carbonate Reservoir Geology and Characterisation

From R8,500

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