CPGE: Research Accomplishments

CPGE Research Accomplishments

Reservoir Engineering

Development of a well treatment to restore the productivity of gas-condensate wells damaged by liquid buildup near the well
Development of the following computer codes: IPARS, UTCHEM, UTCOMP, UTACID, UTDUAL, Front Tracking simulators, UTSTREAM, UTINPUT, Expert System for acid gas treating, ASSESS, ParSim1, and ParSim2
Improved oil recovery efficiency by gas injection for reservoirs above the minimum enrichment for miscibility (MME); development of screening procedure to identify when miscible gas floods should be enriched above the MME to maximize recovery
Developed Windows based code to determine minimum miscibility pressure or minimum enrichment for miscibility for any gas-oil system; the new method is robust, very fast, and accurate
Developed coning model for two-phase flow that includes capillary pressure and relative permeability effects on recovery
Developed methodology for modeling large-scale flow through naturally fractured reservoir with power-law fracture statistics
Developed simple, general models for gravity override in gas-injection IOR processes, including continuous foam injection and injection of alternating slugs of liquid and gas
Determined optimal injection strategies for foam injection to overcome gravity override
Identified two distinct foam-flow regimes; showed their generality with various porous media, foam formulations and gases; showed implications for these regimes for use of foam for IOR, acid well stimulation and environmental remediation
Developed first "population-balance" foam simulator incorporating new findings on foam generation by mobilization of liquid films at a critical pressure gradient
Showed that foam in porous media can have anomalous rheology, including "negative viscosity"
A new numerical approach for implementing dual porosity modeling in previously developed reservoir simulators
Development of scaling groups for dual porosity modeling of matrix-fracture transfer during waterflooding of naturally fractured reservoirs
Implementation of full-tensor permeability modeling of discrete natural fracture networks in a dual porosity simulator
Development of efficient methods for stochastic modeling of large complex reservoirs
Implementation of dual porosity modeling in a chemical flood simulator
Development of a fully implicit compositional reservoir simulator for massively parallel computers and clusters of PCs
Establishment of a cluster of PCs laboratory for parallel and distributed computing funded by Intel Inc.
Carried out the largest compositional reservoir simulation run, to date, with four million gridblocks using a 128 processor IBM SP2 parallel computer
A 2D succession-of-states front tracking model for in-situ combustion and steam injection processes
A simple gravity override predictive model for steam drives
Method to determine minimum miscibility pressure for any number of components
Development of first field apparatus and first theoretical analysis of flow (minipermeameter)
First clear-cut delineation of the difference between channeling and fingering
Development of quantitative methods to image fluids in porous media using computerized tomography (CT) scanning for improved oil recovery and groundwater remediation
Development of quantitative methods to image fluids in porous media using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) for improved oil recovery and groundwater remediation
New way to estimate a semi-variogram that increases precision with fewer data points
Identification of viscous forces as a source of mixing in permeable media flow
First intensive simulation of flow through a geologically realistic medium
Identification of viscous forces as a trapping mechanism in secondary migration; new classification scheme for traps
Development of a higher-order TVD scheme and its implementation in our EOR simulators
Developed first simple, theoretically based simulator for field-scale study of foam improved oil recovery (IOR) and a simple method to predict vertical sweep efficiency in field application and optimal design criteria, and showed how properly designed process could achieve both good injectivity and good sweep efficiency
Identified foam collapse at a critical capillary pressure as a crucial mechanism in foam application; developed fractional-flow model for foam IOR and acid diversion and using this model suggested design improvements for field application
Developed model for foam generation and trapping that led to improved guidelines for field application
Developed nuclear magnetic resonance imaging technique to image aperture map of natural fractures directly and nondestructively
Developed physically based, numerical model for forward modeling of natural fracture network development; demonstrated model can reproduce many commonly observed natural fracture pattern features
Development of oilfield tracer technology for characterizing reservoir heterogeneity and wettability
Development of enhanced oil recovery models using horizontal wells
Measurements of three-phase relative permeabilities for both CO₂ oil/aqueous phases and surfactant/oil/aqueous phases and correlations as a function of capillary number
Development of parallel algorithms (nonlinear solvers and multi-block discretizations)
WID-UTCHEM: A PC based program that simulates the impact of growing injection well fractures on water flood performance
Better models that make it possible to simulate phase behavior of mixtures of polar molecules and hydrocarbons for compositional simulators
Developed use of interfacial tracers to measure interfacial area in rocks

Production Engineering

New method to determine multiphase flow profiles by combining temperature and flowmeter logs
New multiphase flow interpretation method for production logs based on statistical analysis
Experimental evaluation of acid fracture conductivity and development of a fundamental model of acid fracture conductivity
First demonstration of deep acid propagation in natural fracture networks
Development of a widely adopted PC program (UTRTM) for real-time monitoring of acidizing treatments
Development of an integrated software package (UTMAST) for diagnosis, design, and evaluation of sandstone acidizing
Discovery of viscous skin effects that occur in acidizing of gas wells
Development of a model of acid placement in horizontal wells that has been incorporated in the StimCADE model
Comprehensive design model to find optimal acid formulation and injection conditions for carbonate acidizing
New method to determine multiphase flow profiles by combining temperature and flowmeter logs
Developed the concept of the Electrical Submersible Jet Pump, for application to deep sub-sea production; currently being licensed by the University to Weatherford Company; patent application filed by UT
Comprehensive design model to find optimal acid formulation and injection conditions for carbonate acidizing
A new process for fines stabilization using polymerizable thin films
Development of a downhole tool for ultrasonic cleaning of oil and gas wells
Developed the first PC-based, interactive, Advanced Gas-Kick Control Simulator
Developed the most commonly used correlation for estimating the gas fraction in an annular gas-liquid mixture in pumping wells
Developed the concept of the "Decentralized Gas Anchor," which has been applied in over 150 pumping wells subject to gas interference (natural and/or CO₂ floods) and resulted in increases in liquid production from 25 to 50% or reduction in run times of 50 to 75%
Exact well-testing solution that includes borehole temperature effects and any inner boundary condition
Improved interpretation methods for radioactive tracer logging - experimental and theoretical studies first demonstrated tracer behavior in laminar flow; developed new methods for more accurately running and interpreting r/a tracer logs
New theory of the optimal rate in carbonate acidizing when wormholes form
Application of ultrasonics to measurement of two-phase flow first studied here
Developed first simple model for foam diversion in matrix-acidization treatments; illustrated how to extrapolate laboratory data to predict diversion in the field
Created computer simulator for foam-acid diversion treatments, including compressibility and gas trapping
Gathered data on high-temperature foams for acid diversion, and showed common features and trends with lower-temperature foams
Demonstrated the impact of non-planar fracture propagation on hydraulic fracture width, length and treating pressures
A new solvent method for stimulating gas condensate wells
UTDAMAGE: A PC based program to design drill-in fluids that minimize near-wellbore damage
WID: An injection well simulator; injectivity decline and fracturing induced by thermal stresses and plugging by particles and oil droplets
Developed methods to specify the quality of water treated for reinjection
UTMULT: An inflow performance simulator for multi-lateral wells of arbitrary trajectory, skin and reservoir boundary conditions
Developed an economic analysis model of intelligent well completion
Developed a theoretical model with experimental support for acidizing in naturally fractured carbonate formations (UTAcidFrac)
Developed a PC based program (UTMWP) for multilateral well deliverability based on a semi-analytical model
Demonstrated the benefit of gas assisted acidizing in carbonate formations

Drilling Engineering

DRILLER: A PC-based 3D wellbore stability program to help drilling engineers design drilling mud systems for complex well trajectories
Models/experiments for how shales react with water and solutes and its consequences for wellbore stability
Incorporated thermal and chemical stresses in the world's most advanced wellbore stability model (DRILLER)
Fibrous additives for minimizing mud-induced formation damage in fractured reservoirs
Demonstrated that gas leakage after cementing is caused by cement shrinkage
OILMUD - A PC-based computer program for predicting the density and static pressures of oil based drilling fluids in deep, hot wells

Formation Evaluation

Developed correlations for the high frequency electrical impedence of rocks as a function of saturation, clay content and grain size
Models and data for the mechanical and acoustic properties of unconsolidated sand
Developed a novel quantitative method to extrapolate petrophysical variables laterally away from existing wells by making use of existing 3D seismic data
Developed a numerical technique to simulate the nuclear magnetic resonance response of porous media
Developed a numerical technique to estimate multi-phase flow parameters in active hydrocarbon fields from measurements acquired with in-situ permanent sensors
Developed a novel technique to simulate the invasion of mud filtrate into horizontal and highly deviated wells
Developed new methodology for subcritical fracture propagation testing of sedimentary rocks
Developed a 3D, elastic reservoir compaction and surface subsidence model for arbitrarily-shaped reservoirs
Developed a 3D, layered elastic half-space model for hydraulic fracture interpretation from downhole and surface tiltmeter data
Established a theoretical basis for the shape of natural fracture length distributions
Derived a theoretical relationship between natural fracture length and aperture for subsurface reservoirs
Derived an improved relationship for calculating in-situ stress from acoustic logs
Explained natural fracture spacing as a function of measurable fracture mechanics properties of rock

Subsurface Environmental Engineering

Development of surfactant remediation models for contaminated aquifers
Development of new surfactants for soil cleanup
Development of partitioning tracer methods for detecting and measuring the volume of organic liquids in contaminated soils and oil saturation in oil reservoirs
Development of analytical solution and characterization of transport for variable-density flow applicable to hazardous waste disposal prediction near salt domes or in coastal aquifers
Improved interpretation of low-permeability well tests for characterization of potential hazardous waste disposal sites, especially radioactive sites
Developed new design criteria and API manual for free-hydrocarbon remediation of aquifers by skimmer-, single-, and dual-pump wells
Developed novel approaches to removing metal contaminants from soils
Extended foam technology developed for petroleum applications to environmental remediation
Showed how foam generation proceeds at low pressure gradient, and advantages for foam environmental remediation processes