Research Projects

Research Title:
Synopsis:	The objective of my current research work is to explore, evaluate, and exploit the computational power of the emerging massively parallel computational architecture such as GPU's and FPGA's for designing an efficient Multigrid solver/preconditioner for the system of PDE’s that arises from discretizing the governing equations of subsurface fluid flow in hydrocarbon reservoirs. The ultimate goal is to design and implement a highly scalable geometric/algebraic Multigrid algorithm capable of efficiently handling highly heterogeneous and anisotropic structured/unstructured 3D reservoir models using the computational power of the newly emerging massively parallel architectures
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	SUPRI B
E-mail:	amanea@stanford.edu

Amit Suman - Member

Research Title:	Application of particle swarm optimization for joint inversion of production and time lapse seismic data of Norne field
Synopsis:	My research and interests include reservoir history matching, joint inversion of production and time-lapse seismic data, reservoir simulation, Geo-statistics and rock physics . I am currently working on joint inversion of production and time-lapse seismic data for reservoir model updating.Sensitivity analysis for history matching of production and time lapse seismic data.
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	SCRF: Stanford Center for Reservoir Forecasting
E-mail:	asuman@stanford.edu

Amar Alshehri - Member

Research Title:
Synopsis:	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.
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	SUPRI A
E-mail:	alshehaj@stanford.edu

Blair Burgreen - Member

Research Title:
Synopsis:	I am working in the East Coast Basin of the North Island, New Zealand on a multi-component project conducted at the outcrop, basin, and regional scale. Focusing on the Raukumara Region of the East Coast Basin, I am examining the stratigraphic architecture of turbidites in a forearc setting, quantitatively modeling the basin history and petroleum system development across several 2D transects of the basin, and conducting a large-scale provenance study of basin fill using U-Pb dating of detrital zircon.
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Geological & Environmental Sciences
Office Location:	Braun Hall (GeoCorner) The Maze
Research Group:	BPSM: Basin and Petroleum System Modeling
E-mail:	bburgr01@stanford.edu

Carla Kathryn Co - Member

Research Title:	CHARACTERIZATION OF GEOTHERMAL FEEDZONES
Synopsis:	The overall objective of this study is to establish methods for characterizing geothermal interwell producer-injector connectivity using various data sets. Examined data sets include tracer returns, downhole temperature, and borehole imaging logs.
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	Stanford Geothermal Program
E-mail:	carlakdc@stanford.edu

Cheolkyun Jeong - Signatory Member

Research Title:	STOCHASTIC SEISMIC RESERVOIR CHARACTERIZATION USING McMC
Synopsis:	Within obtained data, not only finding out the most likely model but quantitatively assessing a range of uncertainty is very important for decision making. However, often seismic reservoir characterization methods apply deterministic optimization approach and focus on finding the best fit model with obtained data. These deterministic workflows suggest multiple optimized models for quantifying uncertainty; however, it could reduce the range of uncertainty significantly. My research apply a McMC method to sample posterior distribution for all possible models consistent with given data. For forming a Markov chain, we proposed Adaptive Spatial Resampling algorithm (ASR), and It is much faster than rejection sampler with keeping the range of uncertainty.
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	SCRF: Stanford Center for Reservoir Forecasting
E-mail:	ckjeong@stanford.edu

Christin Weierholt Strandli - Member

Research Title:	MULTI-LEVEL PRESSURE MEASUREMENTS FOR CO2 SEQUESTRATION
Synopsis:	Use of multi-level pressure measurements at a monitoring well extending dow to depth of CO2 injection to infer the location of the CO2 plume
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	Benson Lab
E-mail:	strandli@stanford.edu

Da Huo - Member

Research Title:
Synopsis:	My current research interests include the study of effective seal properties and the impact of fractures during CO2 sequestration.
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	Benson Lab
E-mail:	dhuo@stanford.edu

Danica Dralus - Member

Research Title:
Synopsis:	The focus of my research is quantifying how chemical interactions between rocks and their pore fluids change the physical properties of the rocks. In the laboratory, I explore swelling and changes in acoustic velocities of zeolites when they are saturated with carbon dioxide. I am also testing the dependence on pore fluid chemistry of the kinetics of the opal-CT to quartz phase transition.
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Geophysics
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	BPSM: Basin and Petroleum System Modeling
E-mail:	dralus@stanford.edu

Dario Grana - Member

Research Title:	Probabilistic inversion methods of facies and reservoir properties from seismic data in 3D and 4D studies combining rock physics and geostatistical models
Synopsis:	In my research I work on sequential approaches to solve Bayesian linear inverse problems where we assume that the model is distributed according to a Gaussian Mixture distribution. By assuming a Gaussian mixture distribution we can treat the multimodal case and we still preserve the analytical solution. In my research, we derived the analytical solution of the linear inverse problem in the GM case, introduce a sequential approach by integrating geostatistical techniques and finally developed some applications in reservoir modeling and geophysical inverse problems.
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	SCRF: Stanford Center for Reservoir Forecasting
E-mail:	dgrana@stanford.edu

Francois Pascal Hamon - Member

Research Title:
Synopsis:
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	SUPRI b
E-mail:	fhamon@stanford.edu

Günther Glatz - Member

Research Title:	THERMAL EOR WITH SPECIAL FOCUS ON IN-SITU COMBUSTION
Synopsis:	Kinetic cell and combustion tube experiments for up-scaling of in-situ combustion to field scale simulation.
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	SUPRI A
E-mail:	glatz@stanford.edu

Guang Yang - Member

Research Title:
Synopsis:
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	SCRF: Stanford Center for Reservoir Forecasting
E-mail:	gyang2@stanford.edu

Guillaume Moog - Member

Research Title:
Synopsis:	Accurate modeling of subsurface flow is a key component of oil and gas fields development and management. Classically, structured grids are widely used in the reservoir simulation community. They allow for relatively simple discretization methods of the governing equations. However, because of the geological complexity, the construction of practical reservoir models based on structured grids is quite challenging. In addition to that, the elliptic flow problem is usually discretized using a two-point flux approximation (TPFA) scheme that fails to capture the effects of non-orthogonal grids, or full tensor permeability coeffcients. Multi Point Flux Approximation (MPFA) methods are designed to overcome these issues but have little been used in practical applications. My research focuses on developing MPFA techniques for general purpose reservoir simulation on unstructured grids.
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	SUPRI B
E-mail:	moog@stanford.edu

Inessa Yurchenko - Member

Research Title:
Synopsis:
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Geological & Environmental Sciences
Office Location:	Braun Hall (Geocorner) 317
Research Group:	SUPRI B
E-mail:	inessa@stanford.edu

Jaehoon Lee - Member

Research Title:	JOINT INTEGRATION of TIME-LAPSE (4D) SEISMIC and ELECTROMAGNETIC DATA (EM) for RESERVOIR MONITORING and MANAGEMENT
Synopsis:	Time-lapse seismic and EM data have been used to keep track of changes due to productino in many fields. However, 4D seismic data work well only for reservoirs with favorable rock and fluid properties, while EM techniques give excellent contrast between different pore fluids but with lower resolution than seismic data. Therefore, joint integration of time-laspe seismic and EM data can open new possibilites for reservoir monitoring and management. So, the objective of the research is to develop a workflow to integrate time-lapse seismic and EM data as well as geology and well logs with uncertainty quantification.
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	SCRF: Stanford Center for Reservoir Forecasting
E-mail:	jaehoonl@stanford.edu

Khalid Alnoaimi - Member

Research Title:
Synopsis:	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.
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	SUPRI A
E-mail:	noaimikr@stanford.edu

Lauren Shumaker - Member

Research Title:
Synopsis:	Taranaki Basin, New Zealand: basin margin evolution (stratigraphy/sedimentology; detrital zircon geochronology; apatite helium thermochronology); submarine channel and canyon system evolution (3D reflection seismic interpretation)
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Geological & Environmental Sciences
Office Location:	Geocorner (Braun) 322
Research Group:	SPODDS
E-mail:	shumaker@stanford.edu

Mehrdad Shirangi - Member

Research Title:	OIL FIELD OPTIMIZATION UNDER UNCERTAIN GEOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION
Synopsis:	Oil field development optimization is computationally very demanding. In addition, the uncertain geology is usually represented by an ensemble of reservoir models rather than a single model. My research is mainly on production optimization under uncertain geology in a closed-loop approach. In my research I am also looking at innovative use of flow streamline information for well placement and well control optimization.
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	SCRF: Stanford Center for Reservoir Forecasting
E-mail:	mehrdad.ghsh@gmail.com

Morgan Ames - Member

Research Title:	DEVELOPMENT OF TEMPERATURE NANOSENSORS to MAP TEMPERATURE DISTRIBUTIONS in GEOTHERMAL RESERVOIRS
Synopsis:	Cataloging materials based on transport properties and potential temperature sensing mechanisms using experimental methods and modeling
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	Stanford Geothermal Program
E-mail:	mames@stanford.edu

Ogy Grujic - Member

Research Title:	HYDRAULIC FRACTURE and HORIZONTAL WELL PLACEMENT OPTIMIZATION
Synopsis:	Optimize horizontal well placement and hydraulic fracturing, by taking into consideration natural fracture occurences, clay content (brittle/ductile features) and current stress field.
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	SCRF: Stanford Center for Reservoir Forecasting
E-mail:	ogyg@stanford.edu

Orhun Aydin - President

Research Title:	DETERMINING MODEL COMPLEXITY USING IMAGE TRANSFORMS IN a TOP-DOWN and BOTTOM-UP APPROACH
Synopsis:	How complex should a spatial or spatial-temporal geostatistical model be in order to suit the purpose for which it is used? This is a common question to all applications of geostatistical modeling whether it is mining, petroleum, environmental or any other. How many grid-blocks, how many indicator categories should we use? I am working on general frameworks for determining a suitable spatial model complexity on the basis of distances obtained from a series of image transformations and the linear combinations of these distances thereof.
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	SCRF: Stanford Center for Reservoir Forecasting
E-mail:	orhuna@stanford.edu

Priscila Magalhaes Ribeiro - Member

Research Title:	COMBINED PRESSURE and TEMPERATURE TRANSIENT ANALYSIS APPLIED to HYDRAULIC FRACTURED WELLS
Synopsis:	The new developments in temperature data application to reservoir characterization and rich source of data collection, as fiber optics distributed sensors, motivated us to investigate the use of temperature data to hydraulic fracture characterization. Our goal is to apply simultaneously temperature and pressure analysis during and immediately after hydraulic fracturing in order to improve the knowledge of this complicated physical problem. We aim to understand better not only the fracture properties, but also the reservoir itself.
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	SUPRI D
E-mail:	pribeiro@stanford.edu

Sara Farshidi - Member

Research Title:	NUMERICAL MODELING OF CO2 MINERAL TRAPPING IN SALINE AQUIFERS
Synopsis:	The coupling of chemical reactions in the simulation of Co2 sequestration introduces numerical issues due to phenomena happening in different time scales. The detailed catalog of components involved in reactions render the compositional simulation unmanageable, and initiate further scaling concerns due to their relative mass fractions. The focus of my research currently is the treatment of these and more issues caused by the coupling of chemical reactions in Stanford's GPRS (General Purpose Reservoir Simulator).
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	SUPRI B
E-mail:	farshidi@stanford.edu

Siyao Xu - Signatory Member

Research Title:	SURFACE MODELING USING TANK EXPERIMENT DATA
Synopsis:	Tank experiments can be measured and recorded in details, which become a rich source of understanding the deposition process. My study focus on the use of tank experiment data in surface-based modeling to construct reservoir model.
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	SCRF: Stanford Center for Reservoir Forecasting
E-mail:	siyaoxu@stanford.edu

Tess Menotti - Member

Research Title:	SURFACE MODELING USING TANK EXPERIMENT DATA
Synopsis:	I am interested in exploring the potential of numerical basin models as means of defining the tectonic, diagenetic and thermal history in a complicated tectonic setting. My research delves in 1D thermal modeling, silica diagenesis, petroleum geochemistry, and 3D strike-slip basin modeling.
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Geological & Environmental Sciences
Office Location:	319 Braun Hall
Research Group:	BPSM: Basin and Petroleum System Modeling
E-mail:	tmenotti@stanford.edu

Yao Tong - Member

Research Title:	BASIN and PETROLEUM SYSTEM MODELING for UNCONVENTIONAL RESOURCES BASIN and COUPLED UNCERTAINTY QUANTIFICATION
Synopsis:	My research topic is an inter-discipline study in order to enhance the knowledge of basin and petroleum system and assist decision making during oil and gas exploration stage. Current project include mainly 2 parts, the first part is to build a 4D basin and petroleum model for better characterize the unconventional resources (Shale gas, tight gas, coal bed methane) in Colorado basin, the second part would be quantify the coupled uncertainty in basin and petroleum system modeling process, especially the spatial uncertainty which has not been introduced to this field so far.
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	SCRF: Stanford Center for Reservoir Forecasting	BPSM: Basin and Petroleum System Modeling
E-mail:	yaotong@stanford.edu

Yinan Wang - Member

Research Title:
Synopsis:
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	SCRF: Stanford Center for Reservoir Forecasting
E-mail:	yinan@stanford.edu

Yongduk Shin - Member

Research Title:	RESERVOIR CHARACTERIZATION and UNCERTAINTY QUANTIFICATION in APPRAISAL STAGE
Synopsis:	My research interests are mainly focused on how to combine seismic data, rock physics data from well log, and early production data such as extended well test to quantify uncertainty of given reservoir in its appraisal stage. currently, I am focusing on naturally fractured reservoir.
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	SCRF: Stanford Center for Reservoir Forecasting
E-mail:	ydshin@stanford.edu

Xiaojin Tan - Member

Research Title:	DIRECT UPDATING of GEOSTATISTICAL RESERVOIR MODELS USING ITERATIVE RESAMPLING with DISPAT
Synopsis:	we propose an alternative approach that, while being an approximation to the ideal case of parameterization/sampling, can provide a quick solution to the problem of model updating with a legacy reservoir model. we use the current existing reservoir model as a training image in a non-stationary geostatistical algorithm termed dispat. Using iterative spatial resampling, we then update the current legacy model with the additional production data.
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	SCRF: Stanford Center for Reservoir Forecasting
E-mail:	xtan1@stanford.edu

Post-Doctoral Research

Anna Semenova - Member

Research Title:
Synopsis:
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	SUPRI B
E-mail:	semenova@stanford.edu

André Jung - Member

Research Title:	ACCOUNTING FOR UNCERTAINTY IN DUAL POROSITY DESCRIPTIONS OF FRACTURED SYSTEMS
Synopsis:	Development of a workflow for geological consistent uncertainty quantification and history matching in Naturally Fractured Reservoirs.
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	SCRF: Stanford Center for Reservoir Forecasting
E-mail:	ajung@stanford.edu

Pejman Tahmasebi - Member

Research Title:
Synopsis:	My research interests include geostatistics (Simulation, MPS, …), intelligent and expert System (Artificial neural networks, Fuzzy logic, Genetic algorithms, Expert systems ...), data integration for reservoir and groundwater modeling (Seismic, Well, Facies, Geology...), uncertainty quantification, image processing, pattern recognition, optimization, statistical methods, inverse problems, computational methods (Parallel Computing, GPU,..) and porous media modeling
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	SCRF: Stanford Center for Reservoir Forecasting
E-mail:	pejman@stanford.edu

Senior Research Associate

Celine Scheidt - Member

Research Title:	SAMPLING POSTERIOR DISTRIBUTIONS IN HIGH DIMENSIONS FOR an ACCURATE MODEL of UNCERTAINTY
Synopsis:	Definition of an accurate model of uncertainty with limited number of model evaluations. How much should we match the data to get an accurate representation of uncertainty of predictions? Can we focus directly on the prediction rather than the model itself, and define a relationship between the observed response and the prediction response?
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	SCRF: Stanford Center for Reservoir Forecasting
E-mail:	scheidtc@stanford.edu

Research Title:	Diatomite and Steam Injection
Synopsis:
Primary Affiliation:	Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Office Location:	Green Earth Sciences Building
Research Group:	SUPRI A
E-mail:	jlagasca@stanford.edu

Research Projects

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