Petroleum Engineering Department Research Articles

SPE Board Announces Nominees: 2020 President and 2019 Directors

Shauna Noonan is the nominee for 2020 SPE President. She and six others make up the slate of nominees recommended for positions open on the SPE Board of Directors. 2020 SPE President Shauna Noonan is the chief of artificial lift engineering at Occidental Petroleum in Houston, where she directs the company’s efforts in artificial lift system performance globally. Before joining Oxy in late 2015, Noonan worked on artificial lift projects and technology development worldwide at ConocoPhillips and Chevron for more than 22 years. She has authored or coauthored more than 25 technical publications on artificial lift and is a frequent speaker at industry events. Regional Director Africa Omowumi O. Iledare is Chirota and Emmanuel Egbogah distinguished professor of petroleum economics and director of the Emerald Energy Institute at the University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria. He is professor emeritus of petroleum economics and policy research at the Center for Energy Studies, Louisiana State University. Regional Director Asia Pacific Nasir Haji Darman is the head of group research and technology in the project delivery and technology division at Petronas. In this position, he steers and drives all Petronas groupwide technology activities. Regional Director Middle East Faisal Al-Nughaimish is manager of gas drilling engineering at Saudi Aramco in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. He is responsible for the design and engineering of high-pressure/high-temperature gas wells in the country, offshore and onshore. Al-Nughaimish has held various supervisory positions in drilling and workover, reservoir management, production engineering and well services, and offshore producing. His previous work includes numerous onshore and offshore intelligent-field developments involving multilaterals, intelligent completions, and extended-reach wells. He is a board member of ARO Drilling Company. Regional Director North America Steve Cheung is the principal of SteveIOR Consultants based in southern California. In a 30-year career with Chevron, he researched and field-tested acid stimulation, interwell tracers, conformance control, chemical enhanced oil recovery, oilfield chemicals, and gravel packing. He was a troubleshooter for mature waterfloods worldwide. Since retiring from the company, Cheung has taught graduate petroleum engineering classes at the University of Southern California (USC), and serves as a course director at Petroskills. Technical Director Completions Terry Palisch is the global engineering director at Carbo Ceramics in Irving, Texas. He began his career with ARCO, during which he served 4 years in Algeria and 10 years as a senior petroleum engineer in Alaska. Palisch joined Carbo in 2004 and in his current position leads a team of technologists developing and championing new products and services and advising clients on completion and fracture optimization. Technical Director Reservoir Erdal Ozkan is the head of the petroleum engineering department at the Colorado School of Mines. He is also the director of the Unconventional Reservoir Engineering Project and codirector of the Marathon Center of Excellence for Reservoir Studies.

Experimental Measurement and Thermodynamic Modelling of Vapor-Liquid Equilibria Correlations for Prediction Azeotropic Behavior and Fitting Multicomponent Mixtures Data

Progress in Petrochemical Science Experimental Measurement and Thermodynamic Modelling of Vapor-Liquid Equilibria Correlations for Prediction Azeotropic Behavior and Fitting Multicomponent Mixtures Data Khalid Farhod Chasib* Petroleum & Gas Engineering Department, University of Thi Qar, Thi Qar, Iraq *Corresponding author: Khalid Farhod Chasib, Petroleum & Gas Engineering Department, Collage of Engineering, University of Thi Qar, Thi Qar, Iraq Submission: February 19, 2018; Published: March 09, 2018 DOI: 10.31031/PPS.2018.01.000508 ISSN 2637-8035Volume1 Issue2

Dramatic Enrollment Shifts Plague Petroleum Engineering Programs

The sharp oil price volatility during 2014–16 is now being felt by US undergraduate petroleum engineering (PE) programs, where enrollment is in steep decline after hitting record highs at the onset of the price downturn. The number of US students pursuing bachelor’s degrees in PE programs fell to 6,263 in fall 2017 from 8,712 in fall 2016 as attitudes toward the discipline continued to shift, according to data compiled by Lloyd Heinze, PE professor at Texas Tech University’s Bob L. Herd Department of Petroleum Engineering. Enrollment in fall 2015 remained elevated at 11,069, slightly lower than a peak of 11,474 in fall 2014 when the oil price crash was under way—meaning it took 2 years before enrollment numbers began tracking oil prices. “Students are starting to realize the job market is very different from when they started out as freshmen,” said Heinze, who has followed PE enrollment trends for decades. A student who is slated to graduate with a BS in PE this spring, for example, likely enrolled in fall 2014 after West Texas Intermediate (WTI) prices had spent much of the year at more than $100/bbl. In their sophomore year, WTI cratered to $26/bbl before stabilizing in the $40-60/bbl range for their junior and senior years. With fewer students in the pipeline, fewer graduates are expected in the coming years, reversing an oversupply of those trying to enter the workforce. The number of undergraduate PE degrees granted is projected to plunge from more than 2,000 in each of 2015–16, 2016–17, and 2017–18 to around 1,220 in 2018–19 and 680 in 2019–20, Heinze’s data project. At 470 and 130, respectively, master’s degrees and PhDs granted are expected to remain somewhat elevated in 2017–18 compared with their averages during the previous decade. The steadier post-grad numbers may be supported in part by fewer available jobs. One Extreme to Another Heinze noted that Texas Tech’s PE department, like many PE departments across the country, is still reeling from the “tremendous overload” of students in recent years, a problem over which it had no control. “I can tell you that even if oil prices last year were $100/bbl, we were already on track to put out more students than $100/bbl can support.” Many public university PE programs are at the mercy of how many prospective students meet published admissions requirements. That is to say, programs cannot simply deny qualified students because those programs’ faculties, resources, and even lecture halls have become overextended. As a result, average undergraduate student-faculty ratios ballooned to about 46:1 in fall 2013.

MODELING INFLOW PERFORMANCE RELATIONSHIP FOR THREE PHASE FLOW IN BOUNDED RESERVOIRS.

14Dec 2017 MODELING INFLOW PERFORMANCE RELATIONSHIP FOR THREE PHASE FLOW IN BOUNDED RESERVOIRS. Ramadan Emara. Mining and Petroleum Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Al Azhar University. Petroleum and Natural Gas Technology Department, Faculty of Engineering, The British University in Egypt.

SPE Board Announces Nominees 2019 President and 2018 Directors

Sami Al-Neaim is the nominee for 2019 SPE President. He and eight others make up the slate of nominees recommended for positions open on the SPE Board of Directors. Sami Al-Neaim has been with Saudi Aramco for 30 years, where he has worked in reservoir engineering, production engineering, research and development, and at the upstream computer center. He currently serves as manager, Petroleum Engineering Application Services, where he has full responsibility for providing technical information technology support to all upstream operations, including exploration, drilling, production, reservoir engineering, and facility design. A current area of focus is reservoir simulation of giga cells and giga models using Saudi Aramco’s GigaPOWERS simulator. Al-Neaim has a long history of service to SPE and is currently a member of the SPE Middle East Board of Directors. He has won several local, regional, and international awards, including the SPE Regional Service Award for the Middle East in 2010 and the SPE Distinguished Service Award and SPE Distinguished Member in 2011. He currently serves on the society’s DeGolyer, Rand, and McConnell Awards Committee and the 2017 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition Executive Advisory Committee. He has published a number of technical papers, holds several patents related to well performance, and teaches petroleum engineering at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM). Al-Neaim serves on the petroleum engineering departments’ advisory boards at KFUPM and King Saud University. He is a key figure in the Saudi and Middle Eastern energy and media sectors, having published more than 300 articles on oil and gas and energy in Saudi newspapers. Al-Neaim obtained BS and MS degrees from KFUPM, and a PhD degree from the University of Texas at Austin, all in petroleum engineering. He completed the Wharton Executive Management program at the University of Pennsylvania and the Advanced Asian Business and Culture Program from the Center for Global Business Studies at Pennsylvania State University.

Technology Focus: Multilateral/Extended-Reach Wells (May 2017)

Technology Focus In a previous issue of JPT, I read an interesting comment. A petroleum engineering department had visitors. One of them was asked to draw a well on the chalkboard, and she instinctively drew a horizontal well. She obviously considered horizontal wells as common. This illustrates that, during the last decade, wells such as horizontal wells, long-reach wells, and multilateral wells came to be considered mature technologies. Another aspect is that the technical level has increased significantly during this development. Currently, in well engineering, there are also many activities designed to stretch limits, improve processes, and make solutions more competitive economically. The main objective of multilateral and extended-reach wells is improved field recovery. Multilateral wells expose more reservoir and improve reservoir drainage, whereas long-reach wells often increase drainage from existing platforms. Up to 80% of long horizontal wells may have inflow-control tools. The most common is the inflow-control-device orifice to control the water/oil contact, but more-advanced autonomous systems are being developed with more-precise control functions. A related group of tools includes water-stop mechanisms. Water production is a considerable challenge for the oil industry, from production, cost, and disposal perspectives. At present, there exist many useful completion technologies for inflow control and for workovers and stimulation purposes. New and improved functionalities open up for more-detailed reservoir analyses that ultimately will result in higher field recovery. The featured papers all show improved solutions for constructing multilateral and long-reach wells. They show the dynamics of a continuous striving for improvements. These well types are very important tools in the search to maximize recovery from petroleum fields. Recommended additional reading at OnePetro: www.onepetro.org. SPE 180445 Increasing Performance of Multilateral Wells Using Oil Fingerprinting by M.D. Jensen, ConocoPhillips, et al. SPE 183422 Korchagina P-108: Breaking ERD Records Offshore North Caspian Sea—A Case Study by Vasily Zvyagin, Lukoil, et al. SPE 184608 Reducing Well Costs and Extending Field Life With Intelligently Controlled Trilateral and Quadrilateral TAML Level-5 Multilaterals by Mark Glaser, Halliburton, et al.

Nuances of individual lecturers and its impact on students’ information behaviour and creativity

The paper reveals one of the themes that emerged from a research work at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. The research was on the information behavior of Nigerian undergraduates in the world of Web 2.0, using a specialized university as a case study. Of the themes that emerged, of interest in this paper are the nuances of individual lecturers and its impact on students‟ information behavior and creativity. The research work employed mixed methods of qualitative and quantitative research. However, the aspect of data gathering that revealed the essence of this article are dialogue journaling on WhatsApp Messenger with 77 third year students of petroleum engineering department on group assignments and large group discussions with 15 of the 77 students. Kuhlthau‟s Information Search Process (ISP) Model was employed as a lens in studying the student‟s information behavior in the process of writing assignment while Blooms Taxonomy was used to rank the assignment as either Lower Order Thinking Skills (LOTS) or Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS). The assignment was ranked LOTS because students were requested to read and summarize certain chapters of a textbook. The time allotted for the group assignment was about a week which did not give room for students to collaborate effectively, thereby undermining the pedagogy of group assignment. Due to the poor conduct of the assignment, students did not seem to conform to the Kuhthau‟s ISP model. Also, students expressed how some lecturers expect them to regurgitate what they have been thought without giving room for individual language, expression, and creativity, hence inhibiting their ISP process. Rather than employing Kuhlthau‟s ISP model to explore students information seeking process, the research recommends Theory of Change by Quality Education in Developing Countries (QEDC) (2008) and the theory and practice of critical education by Shor (2012). Keywords : Nuances of lecturers, Information behavior, creativity, Kuhlthau‟s ISP model, Theory of Change

Colloidal extracellular matrix gels for filling and remodeling osseous defects

Event Abstract Back to Event Colloidal extracellular matrix gels for filling and remodeling osseous defects S Connor Dennis1, Jon Whitlow2, Michael S. Detamore1, 2 and Cory J. Berkland1, 2, 3 1 University of Kansas, Bioengineering, United States 2 University of Kansas, Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Department, United States 3 University of Kansas, Pharmaceutical Chemistry Department, United States Introduction: Injectable osteogenic gels present an appealing strategy for bone tissue engineering. Current grafting procedures offer surgeons a limited ability to reconstruct critical-sized bone defects[1]. Self-assembling glycosaminoglycan (GAG) and hydroxyapatite (HAP) colloids coupled with native extracellular matrix (ECM) microparticles introduce a platform of viscoelastic and osteoinductive gels. The present study not only characterizes the mechanical properties of the ECM-based colloidal gels that facilitate surgical placement, but also evaluates the in vivo osteogenic potential of the gels and their capability to deliver therapeutic doses of osteoinductive cytokines. Materials and Methods: Colloidal mixtures of nanoparticle HAP and hyaluronic acid (HA) polymers were formed under a variety of weight ratios. Decellularized cartilage (DCC) derived from porcine articular cartilage was cryogenically micronized and subsequently decellularized following a previously established protocol. Human demineralized bone matrix (DBM) was purchased from a supplier and cryogenically micronized. DCC and DBM microparticles were incorporated in HA-ECM suspensions and HA-HAP-ECM colloids. A controlled stress rheometer was used to characterize the rheological properties and viscoelastic recovery kinetics of HA-ECM suspensions and HA-HAP-ECM colloids in comparison to HA-HAP colloidal gels. In vitro cell viability assessments on the suspensions and colloidal gels were conducted with rBMSCs. Selected formulations were implanted in vivo in critical-sized rat calvarial defects. In a subsequent in vivo murine study, the same HA-HAP-ECM formulations were loaded with cytokines VEGF-165 and BMP-2 and implanted in critical-sized calvarial defects. Histological and microCT analysis (Fig. 3) were conducted to analyze the extent of endochondral (EC) ossification within defect sites. Results and Discussion: Rheological analysis revealed that HA-HAP colloids containing higher molecular weight HA polymer increased elastic properties of gels due to polymer-particle flocculation. Addition of ECM to these gels led to an unexpected increase in the storage modulus, viscoelastic recovery, and yield stress of the HA-HAP colloids (Fig. 1). In vitro studies (Fig. 2) of HA-HAP-ECM colloids evidence the activation of transcription factors indicative of EC ossification[2]. However, they only partially regenerated critical-sized defects in rat calvaria in vivo after 8 weeks. Further in vivo study confirms the ability of the HA-HAP-ECM gels to deliver both VEGF-165 and BMP-2, resulting in increased EC ossification within defects. Articular chondrocytes have a quiescent phenotype regulated by factors that inhibit proliferation and differentiation, and since EC ossification requires chondrocyte proliferation, DCC from hypertrophic growth plate cartilage rather than articular cartilage may further enable EC ossification[3]. Conclusion: The major finding of this study is the formulation of ECM-based colloidal gels that display viscoelastic features rendering them viable biocompatible bone tissue defect fillers. The colloidal gels prove to effectively induce EC ossification in vitro and in vivo, though complete regeneration of the defects was not observable within 8 weeks. The gels are also suitable vehicles for angiogenic and osteogenic cytokines that promote tissue regeneration. Future work to improve the regenerative ability of the implant include reformulation of the colloidal gel and the use DCC from alternative cartilage tissues such as hypertrophic cartilage. Dr. Cory Berkland; Dr. S. Connor Dennis; Dr. Michael Detamore

Techbits: Education Forum: It Is More About Head Content Than Head Count

Techbits SPE recently sponsored a forum on the need to ensure an appropriately educated upstream engineering workforce in 2020 and beyond. Titled 2020 Foresight: Ensuring Excellence in Petroleum Engineering Education, the session took place in August in Idaho. Attendees concluded that the current petroleum engineering educational systems are not sustainable to produce the talent that the oil and gas industry will need in 2020 unless the industry and academia make this issue a priority and collaborate on ways to resolve the anticipated underlying gaps. The idea for the forum grew out of a series of colloquia on petroleum engineering education dating back to 1991. Past colloquia were geared toward aligning education with meeting the industry’s needs, as well as developing continuous improvement processes and refining program assessment methods. Over time, the SPE Board of Directors has become concerned about potentially significant problems developing in the global petroleum engineering education system and the ability of the system to sustainably produce the talent that industry will need in the next decade. The SPE Board sanctioned the forum in an effort to bring academia and industry representatives together to collaborate and propose solutions to the issues. Forty-seven participants from 10 countries on five continents representing academia (57%) and industry (43%) spent a week analyzing the current and future engineering resourcing environments. The group identified the following key issues to help define the business imperative toward making petroleum engineering education more sustainable. Although regional pressures exist near term in sub-Saharan Africa, the United States, and the Middle East/North Africa region, there may be a talent gap rather than a people shortage in the industry by 2020. Gaps in both technical and nontechnical skills were identified as barriers for an effective petroleum engineer in the future. This may make a degree in petroleum engineering with relevant course work even more valuable to some companies, where new petroleum engineering hires can contribute earlier than graduates from other engineering disciplines without the domain-specific training. Petroleum engineering faculty demographics are of significant concern and the feeder pool of PhDs being attracted to academia is currently inadequate. The number of current faculty vacancies was cited as a leading indicator. For example, nearly two-thirds of the US faculty will qualify for retirement in the next 10 years. Although demographic data was only available for US petroleum engineering departments, faculty from other regions attending the forum anecdotally agreed that the situations in their countries or regions were similar or more challenging. A root cause of the faculty shortage is that petroleum engineering PhD faculty compensation and benefit packages are not competitive with industry packages.

Industry/Research Collaboration Advances Oil and Gas Technologies

R&D on Campus - Universities are working hard to anticipate the demand for new technologies and techniques as oil and gas exploration delves into deeper waters, harsher climates, and unconventional fields. Numerous universities are teaming up with the industry on projects such as modeling software, heavy oil technologies, fines migration, drilling technologies, and foam to enhance oil recovery and production. Through these research collaborations, more efficient methods are being developed to meet the increasing global consumption of oil and gas. Petroleum Engineering Department, Colorado School of Mines, US The Petroleum Engineering Department at the Colorado School of Mines has a large undergraduate and graduate enrollment and a healthy mix of multidisciplinary research efforts including the Unconventional Natural Gas and Oil Institute; the Marathon Center of Excellence for Reservoir Studies; the Fracturing, Acidizing, Stimulation Technology Consortium; the Energy Modeling Group; the Unconventional Reservoir Engineering Project; and the Physics of Organics, Carbonates, Clays, Sands, and Shales Consortium. One area of focus is the Routes to Sustainability for Natural Gas Development and Water and Air Resources project in the Rocky Mountain Region. For this project, the Petroleum Engineering and the Civil and Environmental Engineering departments are working with their sister school, the University of Colorado at Boulder, and seven other institutions in a Sustainability Research Network (SRN) funded by a 5-year grant from the US National Science Foundation. The mission of the SRN is to provide a logical, science-based framework for evaluating environmental, economic, and social trade-offs between the development of natural gas resources in the Rocky Mountain Region and the protection of water and air resources. The SRN plans to give the results of these evaluations to the public in a way that will improve policies and regulations governing oil and gas exploration. “Our goal is to find the balance between maximizing the development of natural gas and oil resources for the benefits of short-term reduction of CO2 emissions from power generation and transportation, national energy independence, and national job growth, while minimizing damage to water and air resources and risks to human health,” said Joseph N. Ryan, faculty director of the research project.

Deja vu All Over Again?

Guest editorial For many years, professor Lloyd Heinze of the Texas Tech University Petroleum Engineering Department has been collecting US petroleum engineering enrollment data from all of the department heads in the country. These data have always been enlightening, but the current trends are more than enlightening, they are cause for concern. Fueled by the strong demand for petroleum engineering graduates at all degree levels for the past several years, petroleum engineering enrollment in the US, particularly at the undergraduate level, is increasing in a manner similar to the period between 1976 and 1982. The enrollment data in Fig. 1 is alarming, and each university needs to understand the industry situation to determine its proper course of action. In our opinion, engineering departments cannot continue increasing enrollment at the current rate or they most likely will experience a sudden decline, as they did in the mid-1980s. At some point in the near future, enrollment needs to level off and grow at a much lower rate, if at all. Those of us who have been in the business since the 1970s remember the enrollment “mountain” shown in Fig. 1 that peaked in 1984. For those of us in academia, the most significant part of this mountain was the incredibly fast rate at which enrollment declined, causing considerable stress in all departments and the closures of some departments. For petroleum engineering students graduating in those years, the implications were dire, for there were no jobs in the industry for a large number of them. A closer examination of the past few years helps to understand where the growth is occurring. Fig. 2 shows bachelor of science degree enrollments in petroleum engineering departments in the US. Of particular interest is the change that has occurred in just the past year.

Generating Electricity From Produced Water

Technology Update There are 823,000 oil and gas wells in the United States that coproduce hot water with their hydrocarbon output. This equates to approximately 25 billion bbl of water annually that could be used as fuel to produce up to 3 GW of clean electrical power. Not only would electricity generated from produced water add much needed electrical power, the life of many of these wells also would be extended and additional oil and gas produced. A recent project funded by the National Energy Technology Laboratory of the United States Department of Energy conducted field demonstrations to determine the potential of generating electricity from hot produced water. Participants included Gulf Coast Green Energy (GCGE), ElectraTherm, Den-bury Resources, the Southern Methodist University (SMU) Geothermal Laboratory, the Texas A&M University petroleum engineering department, and Dixie Electric Cooperative. The primary goal of the project was to prove the feasibility of interfacing the ElectraTherm Green Machine, a waste heat-to-power generator, with a producing oil or gas well. The project’s subsidiary goals were as follows: Demonstrate the ability to produce electricity from waste heat in the produced water. Show that producing electricity from produced water does not interfere with normal well operations. Demonstrate how small oil and gas producers might increase their profitability by adding an income stream from power generation. Determine the economic viability of generating electricity from waste heat in the produced water. Determine whether the kWh output of electricity from the produced water has practical applications. Identify the environmental impact of generating fuel-free, emission-free electricity from waste heat in the produced water. It was important to hold a field trial to determine the extent of known factors that could not be identified or quantified in laboratory and bench scale runs. In addition, a field trial was necessary to identify potential corrective measures for new equipment designs and future produced water projects. The site chosen was a producing oil well, Denbury’s Summerland No. 2 well, near Laurel, Mississippi. In production for 5 years, the well has a high water cut and high produced water temperature. The well produces 100 BOPD and 4,000 BWPD from a depth of 9,500 ft with an electric submersible pump. The temperature of the produced water exiting the “knockout” tank at 120 gal/min is 204°F. The site has an ambient temperature range of 60°F to 105°F.

Technology Focus: Heavy Oil (March 2012)

Technology Focus The rapid growth in interest and in development activities related to unconventional oil and gas resources, including heavy oil, is clearly evident throughout the industry. One outcome has been a tremendous increase in the number of SPE papers written this past year on various topics associated with development and recovery optimization of heavy-oil reservoirs. Another is that petroleum-engineering departments at many more universities worldwide are actively engaged in teaching courses and performing research related directly to viscous- and/or heavy-oil recovery. One topic in particular has gained more attention: development and application of enhanced thermal-recovery methods that use various solvents as a means to improve recovery and to reduce operating costs significantly relative to conventional thermal projects. Continued knowledge development in this subject area through a combination of reservoir-scale physics and chemical-process analysis, simulation-capability advancement, laboratory testing, and field-piloting work is needed to enable operators to design and implement these methods effectively and commercially, especially for viable development of thinner, lower-quality heavy-oil reservoirs. One synopsis paper and a reading paper were selected to provide further insights regarding the potential and the challenges associated with the use of solvent-recovery techniques in such applications. The other papers were chosen to illustrate the variety and significance of the challenges operators may encounter in assessing and/or pursuing the development of heavy-oil reservoirs under different settings and conditions. These include various problems that had to be dealt with during testing of a heavy-oil well in an offshore location; the many planning issues, design tradeoffs, and performance considerations associated with the sequencing and conversion of a heavy-oil-field development from cold to hot production; the difficulties experienced in planning and conducting pilot operations in a high-viscosity oil field overlain by thick permafrost in the Russian Arctic; and the ability to achieve adequate recovery with steaming of fractured carbonate reservoirs. Recent literature also describes several interesting technology developments, modeling studies, and field-trial activities related to the use of in-situ combustion and electrical-heating methods as alternative heavy-oil-recovery techniques. Several additional papers present results from investigations of CO2 injection into heavy-oil or bitumen reservoirs to achieve both improved oil recovery and greenhouse-gas sequestration, while many others describe new developments and/or field experiences involving waterflooding and polymer flooding of heavy-oil reservoirs. The many papers written on these topics can be sourced through OnePetro. Recommended additional reading at OnePetro: www.onepetro.org. SPE 146671 A Semianalytical Approach for Estimating Optimal Solvent Use in a Solvent-Aided SAGD Process by Subodh Gupta, SPE, Cenovus Energy, et al. SPE 149917 Approaches to Development of High-Viscosity Oil Fields in Arctic Conditions by Example of the Russkoe Field by I. Edelman, OJSC TNK-BP Management, et al. SPE 150692 A New Perspective on Tracking Energy Transfer in SAGD Derived From 3D Numerical Field-Scale Simulations by C.C Ezeuko, SPE, University of Calgary, et al. SPE 144524 Recovery Mechanism of Steam Injection in a Carbonate Reservoir by Guo-Qing Tang, SPE, Chevron, et al. SPE 148966 Analysis of the First CHOPS Pilot for Heavy-Oil Production in Kuwait by Tirtharenu Sanyal, Kuwait Oil Company, et al. SPE 148917 Effect of Methane Coinjection in SAGD—Analytical and Simulation Study by Jyotsna Sharma, SPE, University of Calgary, et al.

New Global Awards Launched for Petroleum Engineering Faculty

Talent & Technology At the 2010 SPE Colloquium on Petroleum Engineering Education, discussion focused on the challenges that petroleum engineering faculty face. Fig. 1 illustrates the trend of the increasing ratio of student to faculty in US petroleum engineering schools over the past two decades. Although the data are not available, we believe that similar trends exist internationally. A survey of US petroleum engineering faculty demographics (Fig. 2) shows that 30% are over age 60, 38% are age 50-59, and 32% are under age 50. While some professors may continue to teach past the traditional retirement age of 65, this data indicates that about 30% or more of current petroleum engineering faculty may retire in the next five years. As a result of the colloquium’s findings, a task force was commissioned by the SPE Board of Directors Subcommittee on Educational and Professional Activities to look into the recommendations on attracting, developing, and retaining faculty worldwide. The task force used survey methods and focus groups to determine root causes for the petroleum engineering faculty shortage and to make recommendations in three areas: What universities can do What the industry can do What SPE can do Based on survey results, some of the root causes of the problem appear to be: Competition with the industry with respect to compensation Lack of a pathway for petroleum engineering PhD candidates Insufficient research funding/sources to support new faculty The industry and petroleum engineering departments share a symbiotic relationship as students with petroleum engineering degrees are uniquely qualified for work in the energy industry. Unlike other disciplines, petroleum engineering graduates work primarily in the petroleum industry. The industry also expects them to be able to contribute immediately upon employment. Without good instruction, new graduates may not be adequately trained. Fig. 3 illustrates the cyclical nature of the number of bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD degrees in petroleum engineering granted in the most recent 40 years in the United States. Although there is a concern that history will repeat itself in that the steep rise in undergraduate enrollment will be followed by an equally steep decline, a comparison of the trend of petroleum engineering freshmen enrollment between the 1973–1992 period and the 2001–2020 period shows striking differences in the influx of freshmen (Fig. 4).

A parallel computing approach to fast geostatistical areal interpolation

Areal interpolation is the procedure of using known attribute values at a set of (source) areal units to predict unknown attribute values at another set of (target) units. Geostatistical areal interpolation employs spatial prediction algorithms, that is, variants of Kriging, which explicitly incorporate spatial autocorrelation and scale differences between source and target units in the interpolation endeavor. When all the available source measurements are used for interpolation, that is, when a global search neighborhood is adopted, geostatistical areal interpolation is extremely computationally intensive. Interpolation in this case requires huge memory space and massive computing power, even with the dramatic improvement introduced by the spectral algorithms developed by Kyriakidis et al. (2005. Improving spatial data interoperability using geostatistical support-to-support interpolation. In: Proceedings of geoComputation. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan) and Liu et al. (2006. Calculation of average covariance using fast Fourier transform (FFT). Menlo Park, CA: Stanford Center for Reservoir Forecasting, Petroleum Engineering Department, Stanford University) based on the fast Fourier transform (FFT). In this study, a parallel FFT-based geostatistical areal interpolation algorithm was developed to tackle the computational challenge of such problems. The algorithm includes three parallel processes: (1) the computation of source-to-source and source-to-target covariance matrices by means of FFT; (2) the QR factorization of the source-to-source covariance matrix; and (3) the computation of source-to-target weights via Kriging, and the subsequent computation of predicted attribute values for the target supports. Experiments with real-world datasets (i.e., predicting population densities of watersheds from population densities of counties in the Eastern Time Zone and in the continental United States) showed that the parallel algorithm drastically reduced the computing time to a practical length that is feasible for actual spatial analysis applications, and achieved fairly high speed-ups and efficiencies. Experiments also showed the algorithm scaled reasonably well as the number of processors increased and as the problem size increased.

A Mechanistic Model for Predicting Frictional Pressure Losses for Newtonian Fluids in Concentric Annulus

A mathematical model is introduced estimating the frictional pressure losses of Newtonian fluids flowing through a concentric annulus. A computer code is developed for the proposed model. Also, extensive experiments with water have been conducted at Middle East Technical University, Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering Department Flow Loop and recorded pressure drop within the test section for various flow rates. The performance of the proposed model is compared with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software simulated annulus flow section and various criteria such as crittendon, hydraulic diameter and slot flow approximation as well as experimental data. The results showed that the proposed model and experimental results are in good agreement for almost all cases when compared with the other criteria and CFD software. Also, the proposed model could estimate the frictional pressure losses for both laminar and turbulent flow regimes within an error range of ±10%.

Conversations: Discover Who You Are

President's column In the past decade, an increasing number of organizations have been creating networks, mentoring programs, and coaching and leadership training for women in the workplace. Today, women represent a significant portion of the educated talent pool in most of the developed and emerging world in a broad range of industries, lead countries and companies, and hold an unprecedented amount of power in their hands and minds. The oil industry is not an exception. From field technicians to engineers and geologists, and to vice presidents and presidents, women are making huge contributions to this historically male-dominated industry. According to the US Labor Department, the women in the US workforce, for the first time surpassed the men by 800,000 in January 2010. Canada achieved this milestone in 2007. And as I am writing this column, four female astronauts are orbiting the earth on the space station, another historical milestone, and a giant step for womankind! While there have been remarkable gains, the number of women in the science and technology industries is less impressive. For example, the share of women employed in the US oil and gas industry stands at a mere 17.5% according to a recent report by Catalyst. Another recent study conducted in the US, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the Letitia Corum Memorial Fund, the Mooneen Lecce Giving Circle, and the Eleanor Roosevelt Fund, shows that while the number of women in science and engineering is growing, men continue to outnumber women, especially in the leadership roles. The study also reveals that fewer women than men major in science and technology fields. By graduation, men outnumber women in nearly every science and engineering field, earning only 20% of bachelor’s degrees awarded. The number of women declines further at the graduate level and even more in the transition to the workplace. The same study points at evidence that social and environmental factors contribute to the underrepresentation of women in science and engineering. Many associate science and technology fields with “male” and humanities and arts fields with “female.” The striking disparity between the numbers of men and women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics has often been considered as evidence of biologically driven gender differences in abilities and interests! Such perceptions adversely affect women’s decisions to pursue interest in science and technology areas. As I travel the world and speak to SPE members, I have been asked whether our industry provides opportunities for a woman to develop a meaningful professional career. The question is even more alarming when it is posed by female students who are already enrolled in petroleum engineering departments or female young professionals who have been employed and engaged in the industry for some time. We have a challenge to address, one that can seriously limit the industry’s access to a significant talent resource, adversely affect its image, and consequently threaten its ability to grow. I suggest that both women in the industry and the industry itself have important roles to play in resolving these issues.

Hole Cleaning Performance of Light-Weight Drilling Fluids During Horizontal Underbalanced Drilling

Abstract Hole cleaning is a major consideration at both the design and application stages of a drilling operation. If the fluid velocity is lower than a critical value at horizontal or high inclinations, a stationary bed develops which may cause various problems, such as high drag, higher probability of stuck pipe and higher hydraulic requirements, etc., if not removed properly. Therefore, this becomes important and essential to identifying critical velocity. This study aims to estimate the critical fluid-flow velocity for preventing the development of a stationary bed using empirical correlations that can be used easily at the field. Also, a rough estimation of bed thickness is introduced if the flow velocity is lower than the critical velocity. For this purpose, extensive cuttings transport experiments with water, called the Cuttings Transport Flow Loop, were conducted by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering Department at Middle East Technical University (METU) in order to determine various inclinations, flow rates and rate of penetrations. The inner pipe is subject to a sagging, therefore more realistic annulus representation is achieved. Observations showed that a stationary bed can be developed even when the inclination of the wellbore is down to 50°. Results showed that the critical velocity could be estimated using the proposed correlations with reasonable accuracy when compared with the experimental results. Also, for flow velocities less than the critical values, the thickness of the stationary bed can be detected mostly within an error range of ±15%.

Tap into the Talent Pipeline: Number of New Graduates in Petroleum Engineering Increases, Opening Window of Opportunity for Addressing Talent Shortage

Guest editorial During the last 3–5 years, one of the top priorities and challenges for the oil and gas industry has been trying to find the next generation of petroleum engineers, driven by the increasing demand for oil and gas and the aging workforce. And a related concern is how the industry will transfer the knowledge from its experienced professionals to the new entrants. Responding to the looming “big crew change” that will result from the retirement of so many petroleum professionals in the next few years, universities have increased enrollment in petroleum engineering departments. US petroleum engineering departments are now producing more graduates than at any time in the last 20 years (Table 1, Fig. 1). Similarly, the number of graduates in petroleum engineering has increased worldwide. Petroleum engineering department heads at US universities have shared enrollment data that indicate total enrollment has leveled off. Many universities are capping enrollment as a result of restrictions on space and the number of professors who are teaching. We expect the number of total graduates in 2011 and beyond to hover around 1,000–1,200. No one counted on a global economic recession that has caused many experienced professionals to postpone their retirement, delaying the long-anticipated “brain drain.” With lower revenues, companies have reduced or put a hold on recruiting new graduates. The result is that the number of jobs being offered to new graduates is being reduced just as the pool of graduates has been enlarged. In 2009, more than 90% of petroleum engineering graduates of US schools were offered jobs or went to graduate school. According to feedback from the US department heads, the 50 oil and gas companies that recruited on campus in 2008 and 2009 are estimating that they will hire only approximately 70% of available graduates in 2010, leading to an estimated 300 graduates needing jobs. Company reports and information from WorldWideWorker.com, which provides the job board for SPE student members, also confirm that global hiring plans for new graduates are expected to be substantially lower in 2010.

Comments: Academic Leaders

Editor's column With sadness, we note the loss of two members who mentored countless students and colleagues during their distinguished careers on different sides of the globe. Kermit Brown, a longtime professor at the University of Tulsa and the University of Texas, died on 10 December at the age of 86. Ion Cretu, a professor and leader in the Romanian scientific community, died on 15 November. He was 76. Colleagues speak warmly of both men and the influence they had on them and others in the profession. Brown was honored at last year’s SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition with the JPT Legends of Production and Operations award. He was a noted authority on artificial lift and changed the way the industry viewed that technology, and contributed to the industry as an educator, researcher, and consultant in a career that spanned more than 50 years. He wrote portions of the Gas Lift Manual that transformed the way that technology was used and became the gas-lift authority in the industry. His book on nodal analysis is still widely used by those both inside and outside academia. It was at the University of Tulsa that Brown had his biggest impact. Colleagues say he changed that school’s petroleum engineering department forever through his bold and innovative leadership. He started a doctoral program there, and he created a research model that other universities would later adopt. Brown developed a consortium in which oil companies would contribute a small amount of money each year and university faculty and students would conduct research of specific interest to the industry. The program put the department closer to the needs of oil and gas companies, benefiting students greatly in the process, and reduced the school’s reliance on government funding. Thorough his leadership, the University of Tulsa began its first research program, called the Tulsa University Drilling Research Project. Cretu began working in 1958 with the Oil, Gas, and Geology Institute in Bucharest and then for the Petroleum-Gas University of Ploiesti as a lecturer, associate professor, and, beginning in 1978, as professor in the Department of Hydraulics, Thermotechnics, and Reservoir Engineering. He held numerous positions at the university during his academic career, including head of the department, vice dean and dean of the Well Drilling and Reservoir Exploration Faculty, and vice rector of the school. He supervised more than 45 doctoral trainees at the university. He was well known in the Romanian scientific community, was widely published, and was active in the International Association of Hydraulic Research, the Romanian National Committee of World Oil Congresses, and the Scientific Council of the Ministry of Geology. Cretu also served as president of the SPE Romanian Section.