Theme 2
Tight Oil and Gas
Research on tight oil and gas resources (Theme 2) has built upon well-established industry partnerships to address two grand challenges: imaging and controlling hydraulic fracturing and enabling small-footprint recovery from low-permeability reservoirs. Integrated solutions are focused on a set of big questions: Can we mitigate and manage risks of induced earthquakes? Can we improve hydrocarbon recovery efficiency while reducing resource utilization and sequestering greenhouse gases (GHGs)? How can we assess and reduce environmental impacts?
The induced seismicity team has accelerated commercialization of risk-based software focused on characterizing critical fractures and developing a validated predictive framework calibrated using data analytics. The fracture-surveillance team has deployed the first-ever field prototype for a multicomponent distributed acoustic sensing system and has delivered an industry short course on machine learning in geophysics. Enhanced-recovery research teams have advanced our understanding of adaptive asynchronous CO2 huff-and-puff processes and developed novel optimization strategies for water alternating gas (WAG) processes. Research teams investigating environmental impacts have collaborated in an injection experiment to quantify the fate of methane in groundwater, developed recommendations for groundwater monitoring, conducted life-cycle assessment for tight oil and gas development and developed a highly competitive scalable mobile methane sensing system for emissions detection, quantification and reduction.
UCalgary Projects
Can We Mitigate and Manage Risks of Induced Seismicity?
UCalgary Lead: David Eaton
Sustainable Hydrocarbon Recovery from Low Permeability Reservoirs
UCalgary Lead: Kris Innanen
How to Accurately Assess and Subsequently Reduce Environmental Impacts of Development of Low Permeability Hydrocarbon Resources?
UCalgary Lead: Bernhard Mayer
Fugitive Methane Emissions
UCalgary Lead: Bernhard Mayer
Improved Reservoir Characterization by Advanced Seismic Processing
UCalgary Lead: Kris Innanen
Computational Seismic Full Waveform Inversion
UCalgary Lead: Kris Innanen
Monitoring the Structural Response of Storage Structures to CO2 Injection – Exploring the Potential of Passive Seismic Monitoring
UCalgary Lead: Hersh Gilbert
Low-Cost Catalysts and Methodologies for Partial Upgrading of Bitumen
UCalgary Lead: Josephine Hill
Identifying, Characterizing and Mapping Critically Stressed Faults
UCalgary Lead: David Eaton
Development of a Validated Computational Framework that Combines Geomechanics, Earthquake Fault Mechanics and Reservoir Simulation and is Calibrated by a Wealth of New Data
UCalgary Lead: David Eaton
Eaver loop and Deep Shale Basin
UCalgary Lead: David Eaton
Improved Fracture Surveillance
UCalgary Lead: Kris Innanen
"Green" Hydraulic Fracturing Fluids
UCalgary Lead: Kris Innanen
Evaluation and Manipulation of the Fundamental Controls on Hydrocarbon Fluid Recovery and GHG Storage Using Ghgs as the Injected Fluid
UCalgary Lead: Kris Innanen
Design Schemes to Co-Optimize CO2/Lean Gas-EOR and Sequestration
UCalgary Lead: Kris Innanen
Can we Quantify Rates of Fugitive Emissions from Subsurface Operations Via Gas Migration and Surface Casing Vent Flows, and other Sources, and Accurately Upscale These Emissions to the Atmosphere Regionally?
UCalgary Lead: Bernhard Mayer
Can we Assess Impacts on Potable Waters (Groundwater and Surface Waters) from Fugitive Gases, Saline Waters and Chemicals Used in Hydraulic Fracturing?
UCalgary Lead: Bernhard Mayer
What is the Fate of Fugitive Gases and Dissolved Compounds Once they Enter Shallow Hydrologic Systems and Soils (E.G. Attenuation Capacity for Methane)?
UCalgary Lead: Bernhard Mayer
What are the Most Effective Approaches to Minimize Environmental Impacts?
UCalgary Lead: Bernhard Mayer
Passive Biopile
UCalgary Lead: Bernhard Mayer
PoMELO
UCalgary Lead: Chris Hugenholtz
Methane Emissions Policy and Regulation in Canada: Assessing Options and Effectiveness
UCalgary Lead: Jennifer Winter
Novel Approaches to Big Data
UCalgary Lead: Kris Innanen
KIQ-START (Shallow Pressure Experiment with JOGMEC)
UCalgary Lead: Per Pedersen
Duvernay Pilot Hydraulic Fracture Test Site (HFTS)
UCalgary Lead: Chris Clarkson
Optimising Recovery (EOR) and GHG Sequestration (Tight Oil And Gas)
UCalgary Lead: Don Lawton
Distributed Acoustic Sensing Integration
UCalgary Lead: David Eaton
Tight Oil EOR
UCalgary Lead: Apostolos Kantzas
Emissions Reduction-Lafarge Exshaw
UCalgary Lead: Don Lawton
GRINSTEM 2: ASEISMIC Inc.
UCalgary Lead: David Eaton