Hamza Aljamaan, MSc

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Khalid Al-Noaimi, PhD

I study the effect of adding non-condensable gas to steam for oil recovery by gravity drainage for heavy oil in naturally fractured carbonate rock. I hope to gain an understanding of the role that non-condensable gas has on increasing the oil recovered during steamflooding and the forces that control the displacement flow patterns in the porous medium. I am also interested in the differences between isothermal and non-isothermal injections profile within the rock during steamflood process.

Salem Aldousary, MSc

Mohammed Alshakhs, MSc

Amar Alshehri, PhD

I study spontaneous, countercurrent imbibition processes in low permeability rocks using X-ray CT scanning. I will conduct core-flood experiments by injecting diluted surfactant solutions mixed with some salts into a system made of carbonate rocks surrounded by fractures. X-ray CT images will be collected to quantify fluid saturations and the improvement in oil recovery. By doing so, I hope to gain an understanding of oil trapping mechanisms in carbonate rocks and how to overcome them.

Saman Aryana, PhD

I am interested in understanding and modeling multiphase flow phenomena particularly CO₂/brine drainage processes. My experimental program includes CT scan imaging of displacement experiments using analogous fluids in homogeneous sandstone cores. My modeling efforts are focused on deriving and validating nonequilibrium constitutive relations. My work also explores the impact of incorporating these effects in large-scale reservoir simulation.

Mohammad Bazargan, PhD

I study in-situ combustion to propose a reaction kinetics-PVT model to simulate the ISC process. I will use data from our kinetic cell to develop reaction schemes with pseudo components to match the kinetic cell result. Reaction schemes and the PVT model are verified using the combustion tube test result.

Markus Buchgraber, PhD

The purpose of my research is to gain a better understanding of gas trapping during CO₂ sequestration. By using micromodels and performing CO₂-water drainage and imbibition experiments I'm looking for a better understanding of dissolution and residual trapping mechanisms. The results, hopefully, contribute to an optimization of CO₂ sequestration projects, e.g. WAG CO₂ sequestration or for injection sites with a strong aquifer flow.

Bo Chen, PhD

I study in-situ combustion kinetics experimentally using a microwave heating method, which has several advantages compared to the conventional electric furnace heating method, and the method reduces the experimental time exponentially. We expect to build a sophisticated microwave heating system in which the experiments are comparable to the conventional heating kinetic cell, and experiments will be conducted using different crude oil samples to build kinetic mechanism models for ISC simulations.

David Emilio Delgado, MSc

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Guenther Glatz, MSc

My research aims to add knowledge concerning the combustion kinetics of a Central European crude oil using kinetic cell experiments and isoconversional interpretation techniques to better understand existing combustion projects and to optimize it in future. In addition a great deal of effort is spent on investigating to which extent the isoconversional principle (at a constant extent of conversion, the reaction rate is only a function of the temperature) can be applied to generate a valid fingerprint of oil combustion behavior. For this purpose an interpretation software is written that will be linked to the lab apparatus to perform on-the-fly data interpretation, quality checks, and so on.

Yangyang Liu, PhD

My research interests include: surface characterization of coal using different spectroscopy techniques, such as FTIR, SEM, and XPS; Grand Canonical Monte Carlo calculations to predict adsorption isotherms; molecular modeling of coal-CO₂ interactions. I am trying to understand CO₂/CH₄/H₂O adsorption in coalbeds to help with CO₂ storage and enhanced methane recovery.

Monrawee Pancharoen, PhD

I model the foam displacement process using a local equilibrium method and a full physics model. I expect to gain a better understanding of the physics of foam mechanisms in the reservoir and develop a semi-empirical model that describes foam much more accurately.

John Pangan Lagasca, MSc

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Chanya Thirawarapan, MSc

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Dr. Anthony R. Kovscek

Principal Investigator

Dr. Louis Castanier

Technical Manager

Prof. William Brigham

Founder of the group. Bill passed away February 15th, 2004.

Cindy Ross,
Research Associate

I study the effects of production methods (such as hot water imbibition and in-situ combustion) on reservoir rocks and provide analytical and geological support for SUPRI-A. I collect the following data: image analysis (typically pore structure), FTIR (composition), microprobe (composition), SEM (elemental composition, images, and texture characterization), mercury porosimetry, petrography (mineral composition and texture), silica analyses, and ICP (elemental composition). I analyze these data types as well as conventional core analyses, XRF (oxide composition), XRD (mineral composition), and wireline log data.

Bolivia Vega,
Research Associate

My work is currently focused on experimental investigation of enhanced oil recovery methods (such as CO₂ or hot water injection) targeted at low permeability resources. My research explores the impact of different variables related to the recovery method (such as temperature, injection mode, miscibility conditions, injected fluid) and/or rock properties and how these are altered (wettability, porosity and permeability) and how they affect the effectiveness of the total oil recovered. Experiments usually involve CT scan imaging of the samples during the processes and the use of simulator-based models to represent and duplicate experimental results.

RENBAO ZHAO,
Research Associate

TBA

Yolanda D. Williams

The master and commander of our administrative area

Christophe Duchateau

My work is actually focused on the experimental investigation of multiphase flows in porous media. The principal studied case is CO₂/water flow in micromodels (two-dimensional webs of channels etched on a silicon wafer and covered by a transparent plate). This work is performed either for the general comprehension of flow stability/instability transitional conditions and to improve the models used to describe or predict the comportment of CO₂ geological sequestration processes.

Anna Nissen

My work focuses on mathematical modeling and numerical methods for enhanced oil recovery processes, such as steam flooding and in-situ combustion. In order to use computational resources in an efficient way, a sequential approach using streamlines is developed for hot water and steam flooding. In-situ combustion contains multi scale processes where the fine scale physical phenomena need to be upscaled in both space and time for numerical simulations to be tractable. An efficient methodology that captures the effect of the kinetics on the time scale of the fluid flow is considered.

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