Enhanced Oil & Gas Recovery (EOGR)

Members of our EOGR research team focus on the experimental, numerical, and stochastic modeling of immiscible and miscible displacement, as well as chemical and heat injection in fractured and non-fractured reservoirs, including: 

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•    Development of mature oil fields (light-oil) through EOR (diluted surfactant and nitrogen injection as tertiary oil recovery)     

 

•    Tertiary recovery (miscible, CO2) potential of mature oil/heavy-oil fields 

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•    Modeling matrix-fracture interaction during waterflooding, thermal (steam and hot-water), chemical (surfactants and polymers),       and miscible (solvent) injection applications in oil/heavy-oil reservoirs

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•    Optimal use of CO2 in enhanced oil recovery and sequestration 

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•    Heavy oil-bitumen recovery, and the efficiency of SAGD, VAPEX, and CSS processes 

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•    Modeling fluid flow in 2-D fractal porous media 

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•    Understanding the mechanics of spontaneous imbibition (co- and counter-current) of gas-liquid and liquid-liquid  systems at               elevated temperatures and low interfacial tension 

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•    Heat, mass, and volume transfers between fracture and matrix in fractured reservoirs

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•    Effect of ultrasonic waves on capillary and viscous displacement in porous media 

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•    Flow of loss control and well stimulation chemicals/materials in fractures and porous media

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•    Modeling multiphase flow in a single fracture considering the effect of surface roughness

 

 

One of our main research areas is to describe the matrix-fracture interaction in fractured oil reservoirs at laboratory and field scale for different fluid types and matrix characteristics.