Major Research Areas
DRILLING AND COMPLETION
Wellbore stability
Geomechanics and in-situ stress
characterization
Directional, multilateral and extended
reach well drilling and completion
Drill pipe stability analysis
Formation damage prevention and acid
stimulation
Drilling fluid formation and management
Managing the total drilling system
Hydraulic fracture treatment design and
optimisation
Hot dry rock geothermal reservoir
development
PETROLEUM ECONOMICS
Fiscal analysis
Oil industry economic modeling
Risk analysis of oil & gas projects
The economics of CO2 disposal in
Australia
PRODUCTION ENGINEERING
Inflow Performance Curves
Impact of the skin effect
Optimum gravel and screen sizing
Stimulation treatment types
Optimum gas injection conditions.
RESERVOIR CHARACTERISATION
Formation evaluation and petrophysics
Lithofacies recognition from well logs
Predicting reservoir quality
Knowledge-changed reservoir modeling
Formalising geological knowledge
Characterization of naturally fractured
reservoirs
RESERVOIR ENGINEERING
Improved oil and gas recovery
Characterising core scale heterogeneity
Pore-scale displacement mechanisms
Large-scale network modelling
Simulation of naturally fractured reservoirs
PVT, core flood laboratory and X-ray CT
scan facility
[Top of Page]
Description of Laboratory Facilities
The research activities of the School of
Petroleum Engineering are supported by a
number of well equipped state-of-the-art
research laboratories and facilities.
These include:
- Fully equipped PVT laboratory for the
study of fluid properties, minimum
miscibility pressure, and heavy fraction
characterisation
- Restored-state wettability determination,
pendant drop apparatus for measurement
of interfacial tension and spreading
coefficients at reservoir conditions
- Core flooding facilities, gravity stable
gas flooding facilities
- High-pressure glass micromodel flooding
and flow visualisation facilities
- Beckman L8-M rock ultracentrifuge
equipped for high pressure, high
temperature displacement experiments
- Multicomponent apparatus for measuring
mixed gas adsorption/desorption
isotherms on coal
- In-situ conditions apparatus for
simultaneous measurement of porosity
and permeability of coal and tight rock
- Full range of CMG compositional and
black-oil reservoir simulation software.
CMG compositional and PVT software.
In-house coalbed gas simulation soft
ware and phase behaviour software.
FEKETE well test analysis software.
- Dynamic filtration apparatus to study
formation damage of reservoir rock
under simulated reservoir conditions
- Mud lab consisting of FAN50 viscometer,
high temperature, high pressure filter
press, chemical analysis and API test
equipment
- API standard cement testing laboratories
- Equipment to study petrophysical and
mineralogical properties of reservoir
rocks
- Core preparation and cleaning
laboratories
- Laboratory scale drilling rig to study
drilling parameters under bottom hole
conditions
- Liquid and gas pulse permeameter to
study permeability of tight rocks (in the
range of n-Darcy)
- Laboratory to study mud induced
stresses in shales
- BHA design capability for directional
control in drilling conditions: drilling
through shales, hot wells, high pressure
wells, etc
- Design and optimisation capability of oil
well tubular goods
- Capability to design chemical
treatments for prevention and removal
of formation damage
- Summagraphics Microgrid II. In house
software used for digitising well logs,
volumetric analysis of pay zones and
calculating areal extent of reservoirs
- Summa Sketch II. Plus graphics tablet
for small scale accurate tracing of
pictures, maps, drawings and photos
- In house software for the interpretation
of well logs
- HP Draft Pro colour plotter for draft
size (A1) maps and diagrams
- State of the art geological modelling
software STRATAMODEL
- Pseudo 3D fracture simulation model
STIMPLAN
Computing
- 2 Silicon Graphics and 1 Digital Alpha
workstations, direct access to University
supercomputing facilities
- 1 Sun Fire workstation
- Computer Laboratory with 24 PCs
- 40 PCs for postgraduate students
- Student common room equipped with 8
PCs.
[Top of Page]
Further Information
Postgraduate Research Coordinator
School of Petroleum Engineering
Associate Professor Sheik S Rahman
Phone: +61 2 9385 5192
Fax: +61 2 9385 5936
Email: pgrcoord.peteng@unsw.edu.au
Website: http://www.petrol.unsw.edu.au
