Subsurface Consultants & Associates (SCA) is a worldwide leader in upstream petroleum consultancy and training services, with over 21 years of industry excellence.

SCA was founded in 1988 to provide a wide range of specialty upstream petroleum services. Our four primary services are upstream training, geoscience and engineering consulting, upstream projects and studies, and direct hire.

Upstream exploration and production training

From its founding, SCA has provided cutting-edge, technical upstream exploration and production trainingservices around the world to over 21,000 petroleum industry professionals of all experience levels.

Our goal at SCA is to provide a quality training experience that brings added success to our clients. In doing so, SCA is constantly observing and evaluating the needs of the industry.

Our goal at SCA is to provide quality upstream petroleum consultancy and training that brings added success to our clients.
We celebrated 21 years of excellence in providing upstream petroleum consultancy and training in December 2009.
Back by popular demand, SCA's twelve-week geoscience boot camp includes two field trips.
Our geoscience boot camp can make your new recruit into a contributing geoscientist in just 12 weeks.
We are the worldwide leader in upstream petroleum consultancy and training services.

Geology and geophysics training

SCA currently offers up to 80 different training courses in seven categories, including geology, geophysics, field courses, engineering, oil and gas economics, training across various areas, and management/team training.

SCA's instructors represent a diverse group of recognized authorities in their areas of specialization. Classroom training typically includes real-world examples of the concepts, insights and methodologies presented in the course.

Many of the courses provide hands-on exercises to both teach new skills and test understanding of concepts.

Geoscience boot camp

We provide an intense twelve-week training geoscience field program annually, composed of a combination of an actual interpretation and mapping project, and classroom courses. The 2010 course lasts from 23 August 2010 to 12 November 2010.

Areas covered include:

  • Structural styles in petroleum exploration and production
  • Basics of the petroleum industry
  • Applied sequence stratigraphy of clastic rock/reservoirs
  • Practical interpretation of open-hole logs
  • Applied subsurface geological mapping
  • Overview of seismic exploration
  • Seismic interpretation workshop
  • Basic petroleum engineering for non-engineers
  • Descriptive lithology analysis of cuttings and cores

There are two field trips: one, regarding modern depositional systems, is held in Galveston, Texas; the other, at Hill Country, Texas, covers structural / sequence stratigraphy.

Picture your new recruits going through a structured program that teaches them fundamental interpretation, engineering and mapping skills, as well as challenges them to complete an interpretation/mapping project involving 3-D seismic data, well logs and production information. The program is designed to quickly raise the competency level and knowledge of the participants in a short period of time.

Composed of a logical sequence of geoscience and engineering courses, the program provides an opportunity for each participant to learn the fundamental skills in finding and developing oil and gas resources. In addition, the participants get to immediately apply the learned skills in a real project situation, designing the project by hand with paper logs, paper seismic sections, hand-generated maps and volumetric calculations.

Full-service oil and gas consultancy

SCA, is a full-service oil and gas consultancy firm that can provide the technical support you and your company need. Our staff are experienced in nearly every aspect of the upstream exploration and production business, from rank wildcat/frontier activities through to enhanced recovery projects.

Upstream consulting services

Our highly skilled professionals bring insight to each project that comes from years of experience in nearly every geologic basin around the world. That insight is enhanced through the use of state-of-the-art technology.

SCA is a worldwide leader in upstream consulting services with a proven track record in finding and developing resources of oil and gas. From exploring for new fields in under-developed parts of the world, to determining the location for that next development well, SCA has the capabilities to meet your needs. Our staff have found and/or developed billions of barrels of oil equivalent in over 40 countries around the world.

SCA’s consultancy is separated into two distinct divisions to serve you better: specialty consulting, and projects and studies.

Founded on proven geoscience and engineering principles, we not only teach these principles, but we live by them each and every day in our consulting business. In other words, we practice what we preach.