The Department of Engineering, NCT, organized an outcome based lecture titled ‘Petroleum Exploration Techniques and Geology of Oman’ to 2 nd year Diploma in Oil and Gas Students, on 4 th March 2020 at 9 a.m. The lecture was given by Dr. Henk, Consultant Geologist, Shuram Oil & Gas. The event started with formal invitation greetings and introduction to HOS, HOD, staffs of Oil & Gas & ILC team, followed by technical lecture at class room.

The session covered basically three parts petroleum systems, plate tectonics and petroleum geology of Oman. A brief on fundamental concepts of porosity and permeability and theories of formation of oil and gas, source rocks, reservoir rocks, anticline, faults, salt domes, pinch outs and unconformity, Paleozoic Arabian plates were dealt one by one.

In the second part of the lecture, the speaker covered plate tectonics, and what makes the mountains and earth’s crust to move? the radioactive heat decays, volcanic eruptions, etc. The third part was on how Omani tectonic plates are so special? and Arabic tectonic plate extending below to Iran, and how Omani & Indian tectonic plate slide lateral ways. Factual details of Sur, Duqm, Mazirah Zone and geological cross section of North Oman from Fahud to Adam, its depression, snowballing earth events were also presented.

The student also witnessed first time the color coding and analysis used for understanding Paleolithic age of oil and gas presence. Not only, had the students got the facts, the technical insights dealt in the session created interested in them the subject itself, like lateral distance between the source and reservoir rock and the vertical migration of oil approx. 2-6 km, the focus for drilling engineers-the earth crust diameter of 40 to 100 km against the real diameter of Earth 6400km, the rate of movement of tectonic plates 3cm per year, etc. What turned very fruitful for the students of oil and gas is the expertise in simplicity.

In fact, the students witnessed both the blend of technical language and non-technical language used in oil and gas industry, the norm of the present days for better understanding. Dr.Henk, actually presented the concepts in lucid way with simple relatable examples like, comparison of porosity to that size of a micron, comparison of depositional basins to kind of depression. All students gave a very positive feedback on the session and wished such events are organized in future too.