Recovering oil from underground reservoirs carries environmental and financial risks that can be minimized with prior knowledge of what fluids are there and how to efficiently extract them. Currently, fluid flow behaviour can be measured at reservoir conditions in large pressurized vessels capable of up to 150 atmospheres and 300°C, but measurements can take weeks […]

The efficient utilization of automation systems necessitates a clear understanding of the interaction of the human operator, the automation system and any automated routines being run. Precision Drilling is installing the newest generation of drilling automation control systems on their fleet of rigs and wishes to understand both the interaction of the human driller with […]

Unconventional shale gas has become a common source of hydrocarbons in the past few decades with advances in extraction techniques such as hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling. Many hydrocarbon-bearing rocks that were once unobtainable are now available for oil and gas production; the Nordegg Member in northeastern British Columbia is one of these rocks units. […]

Shale reservoirs store gigantic volumes of petroleum (oil and gas). However, because of the complex nature of the reservoir rock, it is difficult to recover the oil and/or gas stored in shales. Under normal conditions, it is possible to extract only as much as 10% of the resources in place, thus leaving behind a huge […]

Shale reservoirs have become a very important source of hydrocarbons, especially in North America. Shales are rocks with very low permeability and therefore, produce the hydrocarbons stored in them is difficult. In order to do it, oil companies have to inject high pressurized fluids to break the rock. But, by using this unique strategy, most […]

The use of natural gas as a fuel for on-road commercial vehicles offers significant benefits, including lower greenhouse gas emissions. Methane, the main component of natural gas, has many virtues as a fuel. However, its stability makes it harder to react in an engine. This introduces two challenges: first, an ignition source is needed to […]

History matching refers to calibrating numerical or analytical models by the observed data. However, this task can be very challenging in presence of complex geology and/or many unknown data . The purpose of this project is to introduce and apply the new techniques for efficient creation of predictive history-matched models for reservoir characterization of conventional […]

Due to the current economic downturn, especially the lower crude oil price, the drilling success rate become the most important goal for any oil/gas company. For a start-up company, any failure in drilling will be a disaster. To this end, the Deep Treasure Corp wishes that through the combination of mature hydrocarbon prediction techniques and […]

The Northern Gateway Pipeline and similar projects propose to transport oil from Alberta to tidewater terminals in British Columbia and eastern Canada. Accidental release of petroleum distillates and related by-products would have consequences on the marine ecosystem. To evaluate spill implications for seabirds, we propose to develop and apply molecular tools to assess toxicological and […]

Transportation of the oil and gas through pipelines network remains a crucial infrastructure for sustaining the economic growth of Canada. A major concern has been the frequent incidents of oil spills which can cause catastrophic failures if remained undetected. Despite a plethora of Leak Detection Systems being used with state-of-the-art technologies, these monitoring systems can […]

NEXEN has proposed a novel and advanced thermal EOR technique for oil sands recovery, which is both economically efficient and environmentally sustainable as compared to current thermal oil recovery method (SAGD). The focus of this research project is to investigate, analyze, improve, and design heat transfer modeling and control strategies for proposed enhanced oil sands […]

Production of bitumen in Canada has increased considerably in the last decade. Due to its heavy nature, bitumen needs upgrading in order to make it marketable. Partial upgrading, where bitumen is upgraded into transportable oil that meets pipeline specifications, has the potential to maximize the benefits of bitumen commercialization. However, there is not any economical […]