Be a Good Geoscientist First, and the Rest Will Follow

Abstract

Abstract This paper seeks to demonstrate the application of learnings from the oil and gas industry, specifically in the field of geoscience, as they relate to applications within the growing industry of Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS). Additionally, this paper will highlight how current educational programs are already geared to produce a talent pipeline for young professionals beginning their careers in the CCUS field or for later career professionals who are looking to transition into CCUS. To demonstrate the stated objectives, the fundamental theories and knowledge required to operate as a successful geoscientist in the oil and gas industry will be presented. This will include a discussion of basic skills and working knowledge as well as an introduction to various software utilized extensively within the oil and gas industry. This provides context illustrating where the geoscience community has been and the prior focus of many geoscience education pipelines. Then, a comparison of the oil and gas workflows to CCUS workflows will be made to demonstrate that the skills and techniques are aligned. Example workflows from our experience developing CCUS projects will be presented with a focus on the geologic characterization, such as generating subsurface geologic and structural models and developing reservoir models to predict plume migration. It will be made clear that the fundamentals of these workflows and the skills necessary to implement them are essentially the same. Both oil and gas and CCUS workflows utilize the same basic knowledge and geologic understanding (e.g., reservoir porosity, permeability, volumetrics), the same data (e.g., geophysical well logs, seismic reflection surveys, geologic core analysis) and even the same software. This demonstrates the direct application of knowledge and workflows that were previously gatekept by the oil and gas community and highlights their significance in ability to be applied to new opportunities. The discussion presented in this paper clearly identifies the overlap of experience gained throughout the detailed history of oil and gas exploration and its direct application to the burgeoning world of CCUS from the perspective of geologic characterization. The examples provided herein also demonstrate that the pipeline for creating new talent already exists with emphasis on learning the fundamentals of geoscience, and the specific application of those skills can be enacted seamlessly within the CCUS community.