(Follow links to find lists of publications)
Basin Studies
The main objectives of the Petroleum Studies Group are to engage in research to advance petroleum studies, basin modeling, and work towards development of predictive and more reliable interpretation and modeling techniques.
The Petroleum Studies Group with the Petroleum Studies Workstation Laboratory provides a valuable resource to students, natural resource administrators, and petroleum industry professionals. Students are exposed and trained on the latest interpretation and modeling software. This environment also provides a forum for testing and evaluation of interpretive and modeling software products.
Industry professionals are able to outsource interpretation and modeling projects to an environment that has hardware and software which rivals that used by the largest petroleum companies. Thus, the group provides an invaluable economic and productive resource for industry.
Faulted Reservoirs
Research focus:
Fluid-Flow Properties of Faults and Field-Scale Studies of Faulted Reservoirs
Research Goals:
1) to determine values and spatial distributions of fluid-flow properties of reservoir-scale faults using field and laboratory measurements together with theoretical models and inverse methods, and
2) to develop a field-based mechanistic understanding of the linkage between host-rock lithology, fault development, fault structure and fluid-flow characteristics of faults.
- Integrated Reservoir Investigations Group (IRIG) (see Migration and Entrapment, below)
Fluid Flow Modeling
Migration and Entrapment
The Integrated Reservoir Investigations Group studies the reservoir-scale migration and entrapment of hydrocarbons. Its purpose is to better predict where hydrocarbons are, thereby improving development and production efforts and reducing costs. By integrating geological, geophysical, geochemical and engineering analyses and field data with modeling results, IRIG is finding answers to such problems as how potential reservoirs are bypassed during charge, how oil and gas are segregated in the field and how leaky compartments can be predicted.
Petroleum Geochemistry
At GERG, petroleum geochemistry research is focused in two primary technical areas:
1) Offshore Coring Studies - research related to oil and gas seeps in the Gulf of Mexico and other offshore basins globally, and
2) Regional Studies - basinal studies of oil and source rock occurrences with the objective of better understanding petroluem systems.
Reservoir Characterization
- Integrated Geological-Engineering Model for Reef and Carbonate Shoal Reservoirs Associated with Paleohighs: Upper Jurassic Smackover Formation, Northeastern Gulf of Mexico
- Wayne Ahr and Tom Blasingame of the Departments of Geology & Geophysics and Petroleum Enigineering have teamed up with specialists from Alabama and McGill Universities and three independent oil producers-to conduct integrated, interdisciplinary research to characterize and model the reef and carbonate shoal reservoirs in the onshore Appleton and Vocation Fields in Monroe and Escambia Counties, Texas. Descriptions of reservoir architecture, pore structure and rock-fluid interactions, and a geoscientific and engineering digital database will be used to develop geologic models for improved computer simulation of the various reservoir types.
- The simulation studies, combined with well performance analysis, will allow for prediction of fluid flow in the reef-shoal reservoirs. Seismic data will be integrated with the reservoir models for identification of reservoir properties using seismic attributes. The improved knowledge of the reservoirs and the focused field-wide reservoir management applications to these fields will improve recovery and should increase the life of these and similar domestic carbonate reservoirs in this and analogous sedimentary basins. The University of Alabama will provide $542,000 in cost sharing for the 36-month project, and DOE will provide federal funding of $754,000. Total = $1.3 million
Seismic Interpretation
Seismic Processing
Objective: To demonstrate that an automated seismic data processing system is feasible and can extend the seismic resolution window.
The CASP research program focuses on one of the last frontiers in oil and gas exploration and production: Automization of seismic data processing. The researcher team at CASP believe that a clever integration and application of (1) high-order statistics, (2) scattering theory, and (3) optimization theory will help the oil and gas industry cross this last frontier.
Sequence Stratigraphy
PROGRAMS
COOPERATIVES