Oil and Gas 3 D Simulator

Oil Platform Simulator, is a highly-customized solution. However, it can be easily adapted to the needs of other oil or gas producing companies or educational institutions involved into teaching oil or gas industry related professions like petroleum engineers, drilling engineer, process engineer, design engineer, etc. That means that among other advantages of Oil Platform Simulator we can specially mention its flexibility and customizability.

3D Modeling for Oil and Gas Industry

This article is an assortment of some of the different 3D models I have created for clients in the oil and gas industry. I am not able to show all of my projects, as some of them have been for internal use or for use in a court case. These 3D models have been used in posters, web sites, animations, interactive flash projects, and computer based training.

The Future of Drilling Technology

This Japanese vessel has added a deep-drilling capability to scientific ocean drilling. Chikyu, operated by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) Center for Deep Earth Exploration, can handle up to 12 kilometers of drill string and has a riser capable of drilling in 2.5 kilometers of water. Chikyu’s on-board laboratory is equipped with a suite of state-of-the-art analytical equipment for core analyses (including a CT scanner). Chikyu’s riser technology, which provides mud circulation to clear drill cuttings and stabilizes the borehole, enables deep penetration into unstable formations, allowing sampling of active fault zones and downhole measurements of pore pressure and stress. Since 2005, Chikyu has drilled deep holes in the Nankai subduction zone off the eastern cost of Japan, an area with a 1,400-year-long recorded history of magnitude 8-plus earthquakes recurring at 120-year intervals. Chikyu was damaged by the tsunami during the 2011 Tohoku earthquake but has been repaired and is now drilling again.

The Future 

The scientific ocean drilling community, through NSF and the other international IODP funding agencies, is actively pursuing funding to expand this ambitious exploration program beyond 2013. The international scientific drilling community has developed a scientific plan for the next decade. The new plans set forth a program to conduct expeditions that will target pressing questions about climate and ocean change, biodiversity and the limits of deep life, and the processes associated with geohazards on human time scales. 

Achieving these goals will require a wide variety of drilling capabilities, in-situ measurements and long-term monitoring capabilities, including deep drilling up to 7 kilometers into the ocean floor, at continental margins, and in extreme environments such as shallow water (less than 100 meters) and the Arctic. 

No single drilling platform or coring technique can accomplish this task. The next phase of ocean drilling, if successfully funded, will continue to use the two principal platforms, the JR and the Chikyu, complemented by the use of mission-specific platforms. With a planned development of Chikyu’s riser capability from 2.5 kilometers to more than 4 kilometers of water depths, along with new generations of advanced CORKs to isolate and sample multiple subsurface zones and continued development of coring and logging tool, the new program will have the necessary technology to continue its unparalleled exploration of the Earth beneath the sea. https://www.sea-technology.com

3D modeling of oil and gas reservoirs

 Fri, Dec 7 : A U of C researcher has been awarded several million dollars of public and private sector funding. As David Boushy reports, it's to continue his ground-breaking work into developing 3D computerized models of oil and gas reservoirs.

3D Geologic Modelling

Geologic modelling or Geomodelling is the applied science of creating computerized representations of portions of the Earth's crust based on geophysical and geological observations made on and below the Earth surface. A Geomodel is the numerical equivalent of a three-dimensional geological map complemented by a description of physical quantities in the domain of interest. Geomodelling is related to the concept of Shared Earth Model; which is a multidisciplinary, interoperable and updatable knowledge base about the subsurface.

Geomodelling is commonly used for managing natural resources and natural hazards and quantifying geological processes, with main applications to oil and gas fields, groundwater aquifers and ore deposits. For example, in the oil and gas industry, realistic geologic models are required as input to reservoir simulator programs, which predict the behavior of the rocks under various hydrocarbon recovery scenarios. An actual reservoir can only be developed and produced once, and mistakes can be tragic and wasteful. Using geological models and reservoir simulation allows reservoir engineers to identify which recovery options offer the safest and most economic, efficient, and effective development plan for a particular reservoir.

Geologic modelling is a relatively recent subdiscipline of geology which integrates structural geology, sedimentology, stratigraphy, paleoclimatology, and diagenesis;

In 2 dimensions a geologic formation or unit is represented by a polygon, which can be bounded by faults, unconformities or by its lateral extent, or crop. In geological models a geological unit is bounded by 3-dimensional triangulated or gridded surfaces. The equivalent to the mapped polygon is the fully enclosed geological unit, using a triangulated mesh. For the purpose of property or fluid modelling these volumes can be separated further into an array of cells, often referred to as voxels (volumetric elements). These 3D grids are the equivalent to 2D grids used to express properties of single surfaces.

Geomodelling generally involves the following steps:

Preliminary analysis of geological context of the domain of study.

Interpretation of available data and observations as point sets or polygonal lines (e.g. "fault sticks" corresponding to faults on a vertical seismic section).

Construction of a structural model describing the main rock boundaries (horizons, unconformities, intrusions, faults)

Definition of a three-dimensional mesh honoring the structural model to support volumetric representation of heterogeneity (see Geostatistics) and solving the Partial Differential Equations which govern physical processes in the subsurface (e.g. seismic wave propagation, fluid transport in porous media).