Oil and Gas for Lawyers
This course has a focus on explaining the upstream and midstream operational and commercial activities that attorneys support. Emphasis is added on mineral rights and leasing, joint operations, procurement, purchase and sale considerations, and due-diligence issues. (Does not qualify for CLE).
Course Agenda
Timing: 8:00 AM -4:00 PM with 45 minutes for lunch.
- Oil and gas characteristics and uses (examine oil samples)
- Sectors of the industry
- Industry participants
- World oil and gas markets
- Liquefied natural gas
- U.S. unconventional activities
- Questions using electronic response cards
- Organic source
- Sedimentary rock basins and rock types important to oil and gas (examine with magnifiers)
- Porosity and permeability (physical demonstration)
- Unconventional shale and tight rock characteristics
- Oil and gas formation
- Oil and gas migration and traps (physical demonstration)
- Changes over geological time
- Total petroleum system
- Conventional vs. unconventional development
- Geological and geophysical methods/tools used by geoscientists
- Seismic acquisition
- Exploration decision factors
- Questions using electronic response cards
- Ownership of oil and gas rights in U.S. vs. rest of world
- U.S. land survey systems and relevance to oil and gas
- U.S. ownership distribution (private, federal, state, Indian and private)
- Severance of mineral rights from surface rights
- Ownership of oil and gas production (Rule of Capture)
- State regulatory agencies and conservation laws
- Vertical and horizontal well spacing examples
- Elements of an oil and gas lease
- Joint ownership
- Pooling and unitization
- Brief overview of federal leasing
- Questions using electronic response cards
- Well planning
- Wellsite preparation and rig mobilization
- Video segments (with downhole animations) explaining the structure and functions of a drilling rig and showing the step-by-step drilling of a horizontal well
- Video and animations showing hydraulic fracturing
- Well completion (flowback, tubing, packer and christmas tree)
- Advanced methods (microseismic, batch drilling, rig skidding/walking, and zipper fracs)
- Brief overview of offshore drilling
- Questions using electronic response cards
- Optional instead of questions: Interactive exercise if group size is between 20-30
- Oil and gas reserves
- Questions using electronic response cards
- Course evaluations: copies of all evaluations provided to company
- Reservoir characteristics
- Exploration and development economics
- Well evaluation tools (wireline logs, production tests and well cores)
- Modeling, simulation and development considerations
- Conventional reservoir drive
- Artificial lift
- Example production site layout
- Production processing facilities
- Depletion stages and enhanced recovery
- Offshore production and platforms