Research Projects

The Department's research efforts focus on those technologies that will improve the recovery efficiency of both oil and natural gas from difficult-to-produce reservoirs in West Virginia and the world. Because natural gas has the potential to make a significantly larger contribution to both our nation's energy supply and its environmental goals, a major research emphasis will be placed on natural gas production and transportation, as well as environmental protection and remediation. The Department focuses its work on producing more fuel from fewer wells, with fewer spills from wells and pipelines.

Moreover, the Department fosters continued progress in science and technology development for finding and extracting recoverable oil and natural gas resources. These reservoirs are located in deeper and more remote locations, in more challenging geological formations, in difficult terrain, in smaller pockets, under sensitive wetland and tundra, and far out at sea.

Drilling Engineering Research Projects

• Horizontal Drilling
• Drilling Fluids

Formation Evaluation Research Projects

• Well Log Interpretation
• Well Testing
• Permeability, Porosity, and Saturation Prediction

Natural Gas Engineering Research Projects

• Gas Storage Deliverability
• Modeling of the Gas Storage Performance
• CBM
• Detection of Natural Gas Pipeline Leaks with Aerial
• Surveys

Production Engineering Research Project

• Stimulation, Restimulation & Hydraulic Fracture Modeling
• Development of Data Driven Computer Applications for Optimization of Upstream Petroleum Engineering Operations... Faculty-Shahab Mohaghegh and Sam Ameri
• Petroleum Engineering Virtual Intelligence Consortium... Faculty-Shahab Mohaghegh
• Petroleum Technology Transfer Center / Appalachian Basin Technology Transfer and Regional Resource Center... Faculty-Kashy Aminian and Sam Ameri

Reservoir Engineering Research Projects

• Secondary & Enhanced Oil Recovery
• Reservoir Characterization and Modeling
• Improving Recovery Efficiency from Low Permeability Formations
• Enhancing Reservoir Management in the Appalachian Basin by Identifying Technical Barriers & Preferred Practices... Faculty-Kashy Aminian and Sam Ameri
• Identification & Demonstration of Preferred Upstream Management Practices (PUMP) for the Oil Industry... Faculty-Shahab Mohaghegh and Sam Ameri
• Reservoir Characterization of Upper Devonian Gordon Sandstone, Jacksonburg-Stringtown Oil Field... Faculty-Khashayar Aminian, Huseyin I. Bilgesu, Samuel Ameri, M. Hohn, K. L. Avary, and R. McDowell
  
  Shallow sandstone and carbonates reservoirs in central and western portion of the Appalachian basin have produced oil for nearly 40 years from. These mature reservoirs are characterized by thin pays that yield high initial flow rates that decline over time, leaving 70-80 percent of the original oil in place in the reservoir following primary efforts. Production from individual well is extremely varied, reflecting the heterogeneous nature of the typical reservoir due to original deposition of reservoir rock, and later alteration by tectonic events and diagenesis. The challenge for Appalachian oil producers and researchers is to develop a method of reservoir characterization that adequately defines the internal architecture of these complex oil reservoirs. This effort is further complicated by lack of high quality data commonly available in less mature oil producing regions.
  
  The Jacksonburg-Stringtown oil field was chosen for this study because of its size, past production, and future potential; because the current operator is actively enlarging their secondary oil recovery in the field; and because the environment of deposition of reservoir rock is the same as numerous oilfields in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, creating an opportunity to transfer technology to other operators and to have a significant impact on future oil production in the Appalachian Basin.
  
  The main challenge in reservoir characterization is to describe the reservoir heterogeneity. Innovative techniques will be developed to define, quantify, and explain reservoir heterogeneity at various scales. The effort begin with data collection, not an easy task in mature areas, particularly for a field that is now 102 years old. Standard subsurface geologic correlation and mapping will be employed to create a stratigraphic framework of reservoir and delineate initial compartmentalization of the reservoir. The discontinuities and compartments in the reservoir will be correlated with the trends of initial production, primary production, and recovery efficiencies. The scales and patterns of variability of geologic facies and their related petrophysical properties will be predicted from outcrop studies. The complex relationship among permeability, porosity, fluid saturations, depositional environments, lithology, pore type characteristics, and well log data will be studied and an effective methodology will be developed to predict porosity and permeability distributions.
  
  Geological and petrophysical characteristics will be incorporated in the flow unit model which is the most realistic approach for reservoir simulation. Flow units will be defined based on the permeability and porosity distribution for the various reservoir facies. Innovative statistical methods will be used to group different facies or sub-facies to form flow units for simulation purposes. A model which integrates detailed geological, geophysical, geostatistical, and engineering information to describe reservoir heterogeneities and flow units will be used as the input into the reservoir simulator to match the pressure-production performance of the reservoir. The traditional field scale reservoir simulation approach will not be employed since field scale model encompasses a large area and requires use of large grid-blocks that will average out details of heterogeneity needed to address issues of recovery efficiency.
  
  Research will be conducted by an experienced, multidisciplinary that is recognized as premier team in the basin, one that has performed well in the past, delivering high quality product on time and within the budget.