Why do oil and gas companies invest in Russian university research projects? It is obvious that these investments are not just charitable contributions, and investors expect to gain profits from the implementation of new promising technologies in their companies. Nevertheless, Russian science benefits as well: qualified scientists obtain employment; laboratories may afford high quality equipment and chemicals, research gains momentum for dynamic development. The first youth contest of pilot projects arranged by the Russian State Gubkin Oil and Gas University is an example of such efficient investment in young scientists’ research. The contest prize fund was granted by Chuda Ltd., a company formed by private interests to assist in transforming cutting edge scientific research into practical applied technologies. This contest was the first of its kind conducted within the walls of the country’s leading Oil and Gas University.
“The contest called for projects proposed by young scientists of our university, young lecturers and post-graduates at the age of up to 35 years old,” one of the contest initiators, Deputy Chairman of the Contest Committee, professor Oksana Yelagina says. “According to the procedure, a basic requirement to pilot projects was adhering to global scientific priorities and proposing unorthodox solutions to the problem in question. In addition, it was required to develop a science-based plan for implementing the proposed solution and achieving specific results within a year, which will make this project completed.”
Experts and professors of university departments of oil and gas field development; oil and gas geology and geophysics; pipeline transportation system design, construction and operation; mechanical engineering; economics and management; and automation and computer science had to resolve a rather complicated dilemma: to review 35 applications submitted to the contest and to nominate a winner. At the first stage, the committee cut the number of applications nearly by half, and the best projects received maximum points.
The contest committee’s session took place in late May, and it was the final stage of the contest. Experts had to select by voting three winners from the list of 15 projects. “The offered point scoring system is not the best criterion for evaluating the projects. One must understand that preferences are to be given to the projects offering solutions for urgent issues,” said the deputy chairman of the contest committee, Vice-Principal for Scientific Research Vladimir Vinokurov forewarning the voting procedure.
Along with experts and honorable professors of the Russian State Gubkin Oil
and Gas University, voting rights were granted to the contest committee’s members who were invited to participate in the session. The contest committee included the chairman, his deputies, the head of Chuda Ltd., Gerry Presky, and the author of this article, OGE Deputy Editor-in-Chief for technologies, Elena Zhuk.
Preskey proposed to award the first prize to the project titled “Construction of Plasmochemical Modular Units for Processing and Converting Natural and Associated Petroleum Gas to Synthetic Gas, Hydrogen and Liquid Hydrocarbon Fuels” submitted by Pavel Gustchin and Evgeni Ivanov. He made the following comments to support his choice: “We vote for petrochemistry and plasma because we appraise the projects for their novelty offered to western specialists and companies.”
The second prize was awarded to Pavel Ponomarenko with his project titled “Geological and Geophysical Modeling of Carbonate Reservoir Interstice Space Structure in the Course of Development of Hard-to-Recover Oil Reserves”. “Pavel Ponomarenko has recently defended his Candidate Thesis and now works as an assistant. His project is devoted to developing complicated carbonate reservoirs in the Timan-Pechora Province with potential extrapolation actually to all reservoirs, especially reef ones,” the Dean of the Oil and Gas Geology and Geophysics Department, professor Viktor Filippov commented on the project of one of his advisees.
The third prize was divided among the three projects: “Development of Automated Adaptation Procedure for Hydrodynamic Models” submitted by Pyotr Pyatibratov; “Technology of Cleaning Well Bore Zone by Combination of Hydraulic Pulsation and Vibroseis Impacts” by Dmitry Lambin; and “Development of Technique for Increasing Friction Surface Wear Resistance by Application of Bimetal Materials” by Andrei Konovalov.
A successful start inspires confidence that a similar contest will again be conducted next year. “We hope for the contest to be continued,” Yelagina says. “I think that at the end of winter, we will again call the contest committee’s members who participated in this spring session, and will listen to research findings in order to evaluate how efficient the first experience was. After making some adjustments based on the obtained results, we plan to conduct the second contest and to make it an annual event in the future. A lot of applications were submitted and most of them were rated rather high, so there is a good base for making a choice. I wish these projects were implemented one day.”
Vinokurov believes that the situation with the university research projects is improving: “The amount of investments is increasing, the centralized fund we have established is growing larger and larger. There are more opportunities now to support projects offered by young scientists; though these projects will hardly be implemented in the near future, they require careful examination and promotion among young specialists. This concerns the most relevant research trends of the university in the area of geology, field development, transportation, storage, etc.”
Organizers of the contest think that other companies may also participate in the contest as sponsors. “Now, since we have already acquired some experience, we will notify companies of the forthcoming contest and invite them to participate,” Vinokurov says. Alongside with that, he believes that the time when scientific projects left university grounds irretrievably and without any payback has passed away: “We do not wish to give away our research projects at this stage; their value is much higher even when they have just been conceived. Today the university has a chance to accomplish lots of studies independently, and not to sell them at the stage of an idea generation or an achieved solution, as it was done in the past, and as a rule, at a low price. In this case, the university may lose its research potential, and this process is a deadlock. We should carry our scientific projects to completion, and sell finished research and technology products.”
At the same time, Vinokurov thinks that companies may participate in a project at any stage of its implementation. “If a company is interested in a project, it should carry it through to the completion stage, i.e. to commercial production, and it requires quite a different amount of funding. But in the long run, it is all done for the company, not for the university.”
“We keep in mind the projects that still need funding and support,” Vinokurov continues. “We try to cardinally change the situation, to change the direction in which this or that scientific school or research advisor is moving, to ensure support of the administration and keep the process in line with the university’s needs. We introduced this contest project in order to stimulate development of certain research areas, to support them and help with their implementation. We will try to do all this using the university’s own resources. First, it will help to increase the price of end products; second, this is a good experience for youth who can gain some independence through participation in such projects. Young scientists learn to act like adults in an independent project, and not under the aegis of the whole chair, where, regretfully, the youth’s role is significantly underestimated. I think that such experience is really useful.” Approximately once a month, the Russian State Gubkin Oil and Gas University conducts academic readings, where leading specialists and scientists discuss problems of the industry. By the end of the year, Vinokurov plans to start conducting minor academic readings based on results of implementation of young scientists’ projects.
---
Utilizing Associated Petroleum Gas
The Oil and Gas Eurasia magazine acted as an information sponsor of the youth pilot projects contest. When I was given the honor to participate in the voting as a member of the contest committee, I supported Gerry Preskey’s choice, awarding the garland to the project of utilizing associated petroleum gas (APG). In Russia, a major volume of this valuable resource is still being flared.
According to the data provided by the Minister of Natural Resources Yuri Trutnev at the conference dedicated to the issue of APG utilization held in Khanty-Mansiysk in June, every year the country wastes approximately 362 billion rubles. The volume of gas flared annually is equal to gas reserves in a large gas field. A low purchasing cost of the associated gas paid by processing plants combined with highly expensive construction of their own facilities for APG fractionation and lack of infrastructure, reduce to zero all efforts of producers, as well as of the Ministry of Industry and Energy (MIE) and the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) aimed at improving the situation. As a result, only about 30 percent of extracted gas reach processing facilities. At the same time, APG potential application is much wider than that of natural gas due to its more complex chemical composition.
TNK-BP intends to process more associated petroleum gas – up to 95 percent, by the year 2011, and Gazprom Neft will expand its processing capacity to the similar level by 2012. The conference in Khanty-Mansiysk should result in devising a system of increasing environmental penalties, which are expected, according to the minister, to “motivate other companies to accelerate their work in this direction.”
---
OGE congratulates the winners!
1st Place
Construction of Plasmochemical Modular Units for Processing and Converting Natural and Associated Petroleum Gas to Synthetic Gas, Hydrogen and Liquid Hydrocarbon Fuels.
Pavel Gustchin, Evgeny Ivanov
We try to process into useful products the associated petroleum gas, which is currently disposed of by flaring accompanied by air hazardous emissions. Accordingly, our objective is to process APG sulfur-containing waste and methane, which is its basic component. To succeed in this, we use plasma technologies, by means of which we can process and convert associated gas to synthetic gas, which then will be used for generating liquid hydrocarbons or pure hydrogen for hydrogen energetics, i.e. it will be used as an energy carrier. Plasma technologies contribute to rather high energy efficiency of these processes, and are much more efficient in comparison with catalytic methods used previously. We strive to introduce plasma technologies to oil and gas producers for application on a large-scale basis. Our project aims at construction of fairly large units for utilization of associated petroleum gas, which later may be used by oil and gas companies at their fields.
OGE: Have you ever thought you can take the first prize?
Evgeny Ivanov: Considerable time has been spent on preparation and actual implementation of this project. We started working two years ago, and it was hard time. While implementing the project, we acquired significant scientific and practical knowledge. First, we thoroughly prepared and developed the technical basis. And there were no visible results at the beginning while daily diligent work was time-consuming and required much efforts, as it usually happens in preparation for any research activity. We created the research laboratory with our own hands. I can’t say that we expected to take the first prize but we hoped that the work would be appreciated by the members of the contest jury.
2nd Place
Geological and Geophysical Modeling of Carbonate Reservoir Interstice Space Structure in the Course of Development of Hard-to-Recover Oil Reserves.
Pavel Ponomarenko
Our project is aimed at developing new approaches to geological modeling of complex geological structures. More and more oil deposits and reserves are referred to as hard to recover, and accordingly, standard geological modeling techniques and approaches are not always suitable for such cases. We are developing a research technique enabling efficient operation of reservoirs. We supplement applicable standard data collected during many years of a field development with a complex of offset vertical seismic profiling (OVSP) and cross-dipole multiwave acoustic logging (XMAL). Based on this technique, we developed criteria for detecting in a sesmic wavefield geological features that significantly differ in reservoir permeability, porosity and strength properties, and criteria for defining orientation of near-vertical fracture porosity. Standard techniques applied currently are inefficient. Our work is conducted on a basis of low Permian – middle Carboniferous accumulation in the Usinskoye oil field, which has been developed over 30 years by now, and oil recovered for this period is below 5 percent of initial recoverable reserves. It is obvious that the existing model does not meet today’s objectives. The field is developed by LUKOIL-Komi. The current field development strategy consists in drilling horizontal wells. Our technique allows localizing sections of horizontal wells with a high level of detail. In particular, prospective reserves were confirmed in a horizontal well drilled based on our data. Today, the work is being done to test this approach with application of OVSP and XMAL techniques for the whole deposit in order to construct its geological model. Needless to say, we are looking forward to opportunities to apply this approach at some other fields.
3rd Place
Development of Automated Adaptation Procedures for Hydrodynamic Models
Pyotr Pyatibratov
Currently, engineering parameters of a field development are defined by means of 3D hydrodynamic modeling. Meanwhile, today a stochastic approach is widely applied in geological modeling. A criterion for hydrodynamic model applicability to design engineering development parameters is its adaptation, i.e. establishing development history. The constructed geological model serves as a source of initial data. While adapting the model, we begin someway changing parameters of the constructed model, without taking account of their randomness at the moment. The basic idea of our project is to take account of randomness of the model adaptation parameters. Moreover, I believe that we will succeed in automation of this procedure. Algorithms will be developed and applied in the existing software of producers, such as Schlumberger.
Development of Technique for Increasing Friction Surface Wear Resistance by Application of Bimetal Materials
Andrei Konovalov
The basic idea of our project consists in developing complex compositions of so-called coated bimetal materials that are used in friction assemblies of heavy-duty machinery and equipment. Bimetal composition is capable of ensuring very fast heat removal from a friction surface, thus increasing the friction assembly life and accordingly, its wear resistance. While implementing the project, we intend to use the equipment available at the university, and to develop a technology to produce these bimetal materials. Since it is necessary to compound materials with different thermal conductivity, a profound justification will be required and a lot of work will have to be done. We plan to use the obtained results in general engineering, including oil and gas machinery with significant amount of friction assemblies that operate without dynamic loads but at the same time are heavy-duty ones: these are metal friction couples – various pulley blocks, swivels, spools, etc.
Technology of Cleaning Well Bore Zone by Combination of Hydraulic Pulsation and Vibroseis Impacts
Dmitry Lambin
The project refers to oil production and wells in operation. Today many producers face a major problem – colmataging a well bore zone, which begins as early as at the stage of well construction. In the course of operation, the well bore zone is sealed with drill muds and various rock particles; and in case of injection wells, with various salts of mechanical impurities present in water. As a result, the production rate of producing wells and the intake rate of injection wells is reduced considerably (to zero). I work on developing a technology that enables cleaning the well bore zone by means of vibro-technical impact. Such technologies are far from being new, but novelty of my technology consists in applying a low frequency seismic load directly to rock matrix and hydraulic pulsations that affect directly the fluid, which flows and moves in the rock. Double action enables the removal of colmatants, various particles, dirt, mechanical impurities, and to change effective permeability, and facilitates oil production or water injection to injection wells. In addition to cleaning the well bore zone, this technology enables chemical effect and increases its efficiency by application of various acids, chemicals, and surfactants to clean the downhole zone, and to maximize depth of various chemical impacts in this zone. We have been working on this project for two years already, i.e. we already have some material available but more profound research is required; in particular, it is necessary to study chemicals behavior in the field of vibroseis impact, and how they affect removal of various colmatants. First of all, our project is intended for production departments of oil and gas companies experiencing similar problems. This technology (only vibroseis impact) was already tested in the Romashkinskoye field and the obtained results were quite good. The emerging technology is new, it is updated and improved but still requires fundamental researching. Laboratory research is carried on, and in six months or a year, we may proceed with its implementation.
