Hello All,

In March, Knowledge Reservoir celebrated its tenth anniversary serving oil and gas clients around the globe. Over this period, we have learned how to be different, stand on our own, think outside the box, and to continue to grow our reputation for excellent customer service and innovative consulting and resourcing solutions. Just this month, I’m proud to say that Knowledge Reservoir ownership has returned to its original founders, myself and Robert Archer, giving us the unique ability to quickly and efficiently adapt to your ever changing needs.

Below, you will find other stories about the difference Knowledge Reservoir is making in the oil and gas industry. We’ve given you everything from a free article on how to determine if CO2 is the best method for your reservoir to what’s new across the globe.

I’d like to personally invite you to contact either myself or Robert with any questions, concerns or input you may have on how we may serve you better.  Knowledge Reservoir would like tp help you be as successful as possible in your business, and would welcome the opportunity to show you the Knowledge Reservoir difference.

Sincerely,
Ivor Ellul
President & CEO, Knowledge Reservoir

Contact Us

	Americas Email: info@knowledge-reservoir.com Phone: +1-713-586-5950 Fax: +1-713-586-5955 Click here for global contact information

Tech Trends

Improved Recovery and CO2 in the Permian Basin

The Permian Basin of West Texas has a development history going back to 1920. Reservoirs are predominantly light oils in tight carbonates (1-10 mD) at depths of around 6000 ft. Over the years, field development has been through primary depletion, secondary waterflooding, and, finally, tertiary CO2 miscible WAG (Water Alternating Gas).

CO2 is supplied from three natural source fields (McElmo Dome, Sheep Mountain, and Bravo Dome) and transported as a dense phase some 500 miles to the Permian Basin. In the early 1980s, Shell developed McElmo Dome (12 Tscf), the largest of the source fields with a supply capacity of 1 Bscf/d. Figure 1 shows the location of the source fields relative to the Permian Basin and the local CO2 infrastructure that has developed around the main fields.

Knowledge Reservoir is establishing a niche role in the Permian Basin, helping our clients evaluate and implement CO2 flooding and other tertiary recovery opportunities. Here we present answers to the most common questions about CO2 flooding.

Q.  How do you determine if a field is a candidate for secondary or tertiary recovery?
Most oil fields do not have enough natural reservoir energy, such as a strong water drive or an expanding gas cap, to “push” oil towards producing wells. Many of these fields with limited natural reservoir energy become good candidates for secondary or tertiary recovery. In effect, secondary and tertiary recovery are techniques to “mobilize” the oil or give it a push towards producing wells. Since secondary and tertiary recovery techniques cost money and have to be customized to each field to maximize benefits, earth scientists and petroleum engineers look hard at several factors to determine whether a field is a good candidate for secondary or tertiary recovery and how to design the right program for each field. These factors include the following.

• How much oil is left in the ground versus the cost of “mobilizing” the oil
• How much natural energy is left in the reservoir, e.g. dissolved gas or natural water drive, since secondary and tertiary recovery techniques should ideally complement natural forces in the reservoir
• What the current reservoir pressure is and how much it can be increased through proper injection process
• The structure of the field, e.g. an anticline versus a stratigraphic trap, which influences such factors as how much gravity can help in improving oil recovery
• The nature of the formation, e.g. rock type and its thickness, porosity, and permeability. The rate at which water, gas, or other fluids can be injected into a field depends heavily on these formation characteristics
• The viscosity and other characteristics of the oil; less viscous oil is easier to mobilize than heavy, thick oil

Q.  Is there a difference between secondary and tertiary recovery?
Traditionally, injection of natural gas and water are considered secondary recovery techniques, while injection of more “exotic” fluids such as CO2, nitrogen, polymers, and steam are considered tertiary recovery techniques. Primary recovery is essentially what nature does on its own, for instance natural water drive or expansion of natural gas in or above the oil in the formation.

Tertiary recovery involves injecting other gases (such as carbon dioxide) or heat (steam or hot water) to stimulate oil and gas flow to produce remaining fluids that were not extracted during primary or secondary recovery phases.

Q.  What factors do you use in determining if a field is a candidate for CO2 floods?
An integrated team of earth scientists, petroleum engineers, facility engineers, and financial analysts evaluate several factors to determine if a field is a candidate for C02 flooding in the Permian Basin. It can include the following.

• How much oil is left in the ground and how much of this oil can be produced incrementally by initiating CO2 injection. This can be done by using decline curve analysis or material balance technique to see how much ultimate oil recovery is. The value of this incremental oil is then compared to the costs of piping in CO2 and injecting it into the field
• Whether enough reservoir pressure has been maintained in the field through water injection: CO2 needs a minimum pressure of around 1,300 psi before it starts dissolving in oil to reduce its viscosity. If reservoir pressure is low, it generally makes more sense to inject cheap water into the field to boost reservoir pressure rather than to inject more expensive CO2
• The structure of the field and where the remaining oil is concentrated, which helps determine where to start CO2 injection and what the effects will be
• The characteristic of the formation in terms of rock type, thickness, porosity, and permeability, which heavily influence how rapidly CO2 can be injected into the formation and what the economic returns are likely to be

Q.  What are some examples of determining when a field is a candidate for tertiary recovery?
The various successful CO2 injection projects in the Permian Basin are testimony to the characteristics needed for success. These include the following.

• The candidate fields typically have several million barrels of incremental oil recoverable through CO2 flooding
• The locations of the largest concentrations of remaining oil in the fields have been assessed and targeted for CO2 flooding
• The fields have fair to good permeability and porosity
• Most of the fields have been under waterflood for years and show good response to waterflooding
• By introducing CO2 injection, the basin shows much improved recovery factor compared to simple waterflooding

How long the field has already been producing is not necessarily a barrier; many fields with successful CO2 floods have produced for 50 years or more and have cumulative oil production of tens of millions of barrels. Moreover, CO2 floods have been successful in both limestone and sandstone formations. 

Q.  What about the problems of having enough CO2 – how does that factor in?
Obtaining CO2 on attractive terms is an important factor in determining whether a field can be economically C02-flooded. Fortunately, enough CO2 pipelines have been built in the Permian Basin that most of the area is within a few miles of CO2 infrastructure. However, the expense of connecting these pipelines to your field and installing the compression facilities needed to initiate CO2 injection are important factors in determining the economics of new CO2 injection projects.

Once injected, CO2 starts breaking through to producing wells, and it is recovered and re-injected, thus reducing the need for new supplies of CO2. Moreover, increasing quantities of CO2 are likely to become available as part of global initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; conceivably in the future, power plants will pay to inject their CO2 emissions into oil fields. 

Q.  How do you perform the economic analysis to see if CO2 flooding is applicable to your field?
The best way is to start with the production history and perform decline curve analysis. The analysis can provide valuable information about total recovery under primary, secondary, and tertiary recovery conditions. Based on the difference between the tertiary recovery program and the current program, the value of remaining oil can easily be calculated and therefore the worth of it.

The data of installation of CO2 injection facilities and timeline is very much available throughout the Permian Basin. Based on the capital cost, operating cost, and incremental production, a detailed economic model can be derived which can provide rate-of-return, payoff time, etc.

Q.  What is Knowledge Reservoir’s experience in the Permian Basin? How can we add value to the operators here?
Knowledge Reservoir has significant experience in water and CO2 flooding worldwide, especially when we performed numerous studies in West Texas fields for water and CO2 flooding. Recently we performed a screening process of some fields in the Permian Basin to see if these fields are good candidates for CO2 flooding. We took a systematic approach by looking at geological, reservoir, and production data and performed reservoir analysis to see how the production would look like under CO2 or water flooding. Based on that, and from economic analysis, we forced ranked those fields and could realize how a field can be a good candidate over others.

All together, it is a value-added experience for the operators in West Texas who would like to know about the field potential or for the new investors who knows how much risk is involved in investing in such environment. Since the Permian Basin is a world leader in EOR, all fields in this area are being scrutinized for extra recovery. Knowledge Reservoir is fully compatible to help the operators to guide through the process and make them successful. 

Below the Salt
As operators continue to push the frontiers of deepwater exploration, more and more prospects are being investigated under thick salt canopies or salt overhangs.  Until recent years, these sub-salt plays were particularly difficult to identify and explore due to various factors but especially due to the inability of seismic surveying to resolve structural and stratigraphic details such as faulting through the salt layers. Salt rugosity, dipping contacts, and seismic velocity changes between clastic sediments and salt cause significant problems for seismic imaging. Velocity changes at the margins of salt overhangs cause reflection pull-ups and problems for structural interpretation. Advances in seismic processing and interpretation have begun to address these problems and many deepwater sub-salt fields are now in various stages of appraisal and development, in particular offshore in the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil.

Knowledge Reservoir is building a track record in the geological interpretation of sub-salt plays and has completed studies on several fields in the GoM, including Tahiti, Thunderhawk, Gemini, and Shenzi.

Other News

ReservoirKB 2009 Release
Knowledge Reservoir announced the eagerly awaited 2009 release of its deepwater Gulf of Mexico knowledge base, ReservoirKB™. This latest release of ReservoirKB features major upgrades to the Web-based service, including a totally new GIS interface, which represents a step change in the user experience. The new interface incorporates significant advances in system design, targeted at maximizing navigation efficiency for users seeking specific information on deepwater reservoirs.

ReservoirKB currently represents the most comprehensive knowledge base directed towards exploration and appraisal geoscientists and engineers in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico region. It provides coverage of all deepwater productive sands discovered, constituting reservoirs currently either in production or sanctioned for development. Additionally, it provides continually updated reservoir performance metrics, analogs, lessons learned, and regional knowledge, not available from any other single source.  The knowledge base provides a unique combination of reservoir engineering data, geological description, and production data analysis.

ReservoirKB is provided as a subscription service, on a hosted portal, to oil and gas companies exploring and evaluating prospects in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. The updates are presently provided annually, this most recent including fresh data and information covering 2008, as well as completely updated analysis. As the definitive source for information on deepwater reservoirs in the Gulf of Mexico, ReservoirKB has seen phenomenal growth since its original development, and now includes:

• 193 fields
• Over 620 associated reservoirs
• Over 1050 Wells (including Appraisal and Development)
• Current discussion on the critical challenges facing the industry, including a review of the Paleogene

Dr. Ivor R. Ellul, President of Knowledge Reservoir, stated “ReservoirKB was developed in response to operators’ needs for a knowledge base of deepwater data to evaluate projects, assess risks, and measure them against other opportunities in their portfolios. Our clients find it an invaluable resource when researching analog fields, as reservoir assessment and benchmarking are at the heart of good appraisal and sanction decisions. We are most excited with the new interface; the greatly enhanced utility of which users familiar with other GIS based applications will be familiar."

Significant Projects

DeepStar: Deepwater Appraisal Study
Knowledge Reservoir was recently awarded a Deepwater Gulf of Mexico project by DeepStar Phase IX titled "Look Back Study of Appraisal Programs." The project aims to improve the industry’s understanding of the effectiveness of appraisal programs in deepwater by determining if the number of appraisal wells and the amount of data collected correlates to the success of the field development (success is measured by the similarity of the field development plan to the actual development such as actual timeline, number of wells planned versus number actually drilled, design capacity versus actual field rate, etc.). Technology transfer will be achieved by capturing the study findings in a knowledge base accessible to DeepStar members.

Knowledge Reservoir has previously been involved in several projects for DeepStar, including development of the GoM deepwater knowledge base, ReservoirKB; a GoM deepwater pore pressure study; and a reservoir characterization study.

DeepStar is a joint industry, technology development project focused on advancing the technologies to meet its members' deepwater business needs to deliver increased production and reserves. DeepStar provides a forum to execute deepwater technology development projects and leverage the financial and technical resources of the deepwater industry.

The DeepStar Project has been in continuous operation since 1992 and operates in two year funding phases. Phase VIII concluded in December 2007, and DeepStar is now beginning Phase IX. The funding and support for each phase comes from the membership fees from each member company. Participant members (oil companies and operators), depending on whether they are new member or established members, contribute either $1,300,000 or $650,000, respectively. Contributor members (vendors, engineering firms, and others) contribute $6,000 in membership fees, and many contribute in-kind work each phase. Each member company receives the benefit of access to all available deliverables and results from work performed each phase under the collection of pooled funding from the JIP.

The Phase IX Kick-Off Party and Contributors Meeting were held at the Houston Downtown Double Tree Hotel last February. Above, Knowledge Reservoir's Dave Rees discusses the proceedings with (left to right) Jim Longbottom, Energy Intersection Inc.; Michael Ming, RPSEA; and Steve Beach, RPSEA.

RPSEA: Improved Recovery Study for Deep and Ultra-Deepwater
Knowledge Reservoir secured a major contract with the Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America (RPSEA) to provide project direction and technical services for a project awarded under the RPSEA Ultra-Deepwater Program (UDW).

The project will deliver a research report and characterization database of deepwater and ultra-deepwater assets in the Gulf of Mexico focused on incentives, needs assessment analyses, and concepts identification for the application of Improved Recovery Techniques (IOR/EOR) in deepwater. The project will be directed by Knowledge Reservoir, with primary project participants Louisiana State University (LSU) and Anadarko Petroleum Corporation (Anadarko). 

The project will identify improved recovery opportunities in the early stages of field development planning, such that facility and well designs can be optimized to take advantage of those opportunities. Additionally, opportunities for improved recovery in producing fields will be assessed, as will current and near-future technologies for improved recovery. The project will include characterization of deepwater and ultra-deepwater reservoir assets and compile and categorize key causes of trapped and remaining hydrocarbons in such reservoirs. The prioritization of technology gaps in improved recovery methods will also be addressed as they specifically relate to deepwater and ultra-deepwater reservoirs, with the aim of identifying leading concepts for future research, investment, development, testing and deployment/application. A thorough and comprehensive review of IOR/EOR techniques, experience, and best practices, both on- and offshore, will be conducted.

Project results will be captured in a knowledge base to facilitate effective technology transfer. The primary outcomes of the project will be the advancement of understanding of improved recovery techniques, provision of a foundation for future development, and testing and deployment phases of new technology and methodology, all ultimately leading to the recovery of more resources from deepwater and ultra-deepwater assets.

Commenting on the announcement, Dr. Ivor R. Ellul, President and CEO of Knowledge Reservoir, stated, “Knowledge Reservoir is extremely pleased with the confidence that RPSEA has put in the improved recovery expertise within our deepwater geosciences and reservoir engineering consulting practice, as well as the quality of the project team we have assembled together with LSU and Anadarko.”

InterOil and Knowledge Reservoir Hope to Set Records

Earlier this year, Interoil Corp. may have succeeded in achieving the highest flow rate from a single gas well, thanks to the drilling of the  Antelope-1 well in Papa New Guinea (PNG). With a flow rate of 382 MMcfd and 5,000 bcpd during a production test and a potential resource base of upt to 11 Tcf, the prospects of development of the Elk-Antelope field are high. Discovered in 2006 with the drilling of Elk-1, the large carbonate gas structure has been appraised by four wells.

Interoil is taking no chances and has enlisted the expertise of Knowledge Reservoir to help in field appraisal and planning for field development. The Knowledge Reservoir team is provided log analysis, flow test pressure analysis, fluid characterization, flow assurance simulation, reservoir modeling and simulation of the field potential. The Late Miocene carbonate platform and reef presents special challenges due to the high variability of rock properties and the presence of natural fractures and vuggy porosity. Commenting on the project, Joe Lach, Senior VP of Consulting , noted “this is an exciting discovery and future development for InterOil, and Knowledge Reservoir is the right partner due to our unique experience in reservoir to facility modeling and field commercialization.”

Industry Education and Training

Rave Reviews for Knowledge Reservoir’s Production Operations Course

Why the gushing praise? Have Larry King and Dr. Phil started lecturing on production engineering? No, these were actual comments from course participants from Apache, Noble Energy, and Samson about Knowledge Reservoir’s very own Rolph Sankar and Quazi Rahman. Both charter members of Knowledge Reservoir’s Production Solutions team, Sankar and Rahman very professionally and enthusiastically prepared and delivered a week-long course, Production Operations, to the engineers from the USA, Mexico and Canada in Houston in June 2008 and April 2009.

"We knew that keeping the interest and attention of a diverse group of participants would take a combination of leading-edge content, multi-media instruction, and an ability to address real-life challenges in the participants’ operations," said Sankar. Rahman added: "We made a concerted effort to engage each participant, understand the professional challenges he or she faces, and incorporate creative production engineering approaches that they could start applying after returning to the office on Monday morning." Many of the participants responded to this approach by asking to keep in touch with the lecturers so that they could continue tapping into Knowledge Reservoir’s expertise.

“We decided as a team in late 2007 that development of this course would be one of our strategic investments in the Production Solutions practice,” commented Steve Knabe, responsible for Production Solutions globally. “The success of this course, coupled with other investments in knowledge capital we’ve made this year in high-growth areas of production engineering, like thermal recovery and CO2 injection, help position the firm as thought leaders who can create unique value for our clients. Rolph and Quazi exemplify the creativity, dedication, and hard work that enable us to stand out from the competition.”

Know any oil companies with production problems? Have them contact the Production Solutions team for solutions.

US Gulf Coast

US West Coast

California Dreaming: Knowledge Reservoir Carries Out Its First Major Consulting Project in Bakersfield

Aera Energy LLC (Aera), jointly owned by Shell and ExxonMobil but operating independently, produces 165,000 barrels of oil and 50 million cubic feet of natural gas each day in California, or roughly 30 percent of the state’s production.

So what’s the connection between Aera and Knowledge Reservoir?

Ken Baird, Knowledge Reservoir’s manager in our Bakersfield office, explains it this way: “After several visits to Aera outlining how Knowledge Reservoir could help Aera solve its toughest technical challenges, Aera invited us to bid on a project to address a burning question concerning future development of their Ventura Field; one of the largest oil producing fields in California."

Knowledge Reservoir was awarded a consulting project to determine original fluid oil-water levels within the steeply dipping reservoirs of their portion of the field. Ken and the recruiting team in Houston went into high gear to find a team who could solve in two months a mystery that had baffled earth scientists and engineers for decades.

The team was led by Norm Smith,  formerly and engineering manager for Mobil’s Western Division assets. Norm had an ace up his sleeve; he was familiar with the field and its challenges from his days at Mobil. “I knew this field was a bearcat," says Norm. “And I knew the answers would lie in the mountain of well test data and logs of varying dates and quality.”  

Norm was supported by two additional petroleum engineers, Glenn Donaldson and C.T. Sawabini, both of whom had decades of California experience.  “Aera was amazed at the experienced team we assembled for the project," says Steve Knabe, who was quality manager on the project. “One of the Aera engineers jokingly asked me if we were going to show up with T. Boone Pickens at the final presentation.”

Even without T. Boone Pickens, Norm and his team were more than up to the challenge. First they identified the key deep wells on the down dip outer edge of the field where oil-water contacts were likely to be found. They then located and evaluated archived well test and log information. With this and other assembled data, the team developed an efficient work flow for analyzing the data and mapping where oil–water contacts appeared to cut across the steeply-dipping formations in the field.  

“Aera was extremely impressed by the work of our project team," says Ken. “As a result of performing an excellent job on this project, Knowledge Reservoir has shown Aera that the services just delivered were a routine hallmark of our organization. I believe Knowledge Reservoir will be asked to again provide our technical support services for Aera’s future needs." Adds Steve, “The team did a great job developing and applying a work flow to convincingly demonstrate the original fluid levels in the field. The stage is now set for Aera to pinpoint where to apply new enhanced recovery techniques to recover millions of additional barrels of oil.”  

Everyone on the team is looking forward to working together again. “It’s amazing how quickly we pulled together as a team, defined what we had to do, and got it done,” says Norm. “Now we’re ready for the next challenge.”  Ken and the Knowledge Reservoir sales force are actively looking for just that.

US Mid-Continent 

Permian Basin Operations Going from Strength to Strength
Knowledge Reservoir opened its Midland, TX office in 2007.  Two years later, we are listening and adapting to our Permian Basin clients’ needs more than ever. Our office, headed by Chad Brown (pictured) has been relocated and is now at 500 W. Texas Avenue in the well-known Fasken Towers.

Our first year efforts in Midland were geared toward updating Permian Basin operators on Knowledge Reservoir’s services and toward understanding the key issues that clients were trying to address. To date, we have completed numerous studies that cover the full spectrum of Knowledge Reservoir services from complex, integrated reservoir studies to classical production optimization, data management, and technical resourcing.

With a multitude of under producing or neglected fields, area operators are feverishly trying to get the most out of their existing assets. Because of this they are turning to Knowledge Reservoir for quick asset analysis to identify remaining potential in under-swept areas and recommendations in production optimization and secondary or tertiary recovery.

Last summer, the Midland office was approached by a publicly traded exploration and production (E&P) company to help with their well file issues. They had thousands of wells in various fields and time constrained engineers and geoscientists were spending a large amount of time sorting through the reams of well file information instead of working on field studies. To address this, we created the Data2Value^SM service. Knowledge Reservoir organized teams of senior engineering and geological technicians who are tasked with locating pertinent well history information in well files, entering it into WellView software, and quality checking the wellbore schematics. The deliverable is a fully-updated dataset of well history information that can be used for planning workovers or field studies. Since its inception, we have rolled this service out to various companies in Midland and are expanding it to other locations. Our clients no longer have to outsource different parts of their projects to various companies. They can now get complete turnkey reservoir studies from the ground up through Knowledge Reservoir.

We are excited to fill a niche in the region with our services and are grateful that so many clients have readily accepted us as a valuable resource in the Permian Basin.  We work every day to better understand our clients’ needs and are always looking for solutions to their challenges.

Latin America

Knowledge Reservoir is intensifying its business development push in support of clients in Latin America. Ricardo Sotto has been joined by Alan Black, formerly with Halliburton, to provide more comprehensive consulting and resourcing support for operators throughout the region. Building on the recent completion of major projects in Argentina and Peru, Knowledge Reservoir is active on several fronts, pursuing project work with several operators and major service company clients. Sotto will focus his efforts on Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, while Black is developing emerging opportunities in Venezuela, Mexico and Brazil.

Argentina
Having completed a major multi-year project with Repsol YPF, Knowledge Reservior is now in the process of expanding our production solutions experience in Argentina by increasing recovery factors of mature fields, improving and monitoring selective water injection, re-perforating and stimulating by-passed zones, optimizing well spacing, and controlling and/or reducing water cut mechanically with sliding sleeves and/or chemically with ASP polymers and micro gels.

Chile
Our business development team is currently working on the proposal for a multi-client (unitization) study of gas yielding turbidites.

Peru
Following work for Petrobras Peru on its Mogollon asset, Knowledge Reservoir is actively developing new business and project opportunities in the country with local, independent Peruvian companies operating oil concessions in the jungle.  

Ecuador
PetroProduccion recently asked Knowledge Reservoir to bid on an oil reserve certification project in Block 15 and to bid on a directional drilling best-practices and safety audit for new well prospects to be drilled in the Amazon.

Colombia
Knowledge Reservoir is active in technical resourcing support for Halliburton in Colombia and has supplied a number of contract personnel in the areas of production engineering, geology, and petrophysics.

Venezuela
Knowledge Reservoir and Suelopetrol have established an alliance in order to provide services to the oil industry in Venezuela. Suelopetrol is a company involving acquisition and interpretation of seismic graphs and also operates mature fields. Knowledge Reservoir's focus will be to provide reservoir characterization studies and resourcing to Suelopetrol's clients.

Mexico
The oil reform legislation of 2008 has given rise to high expectations about new business opportunities in Mexico. Knowledge Reservoir is engaged with PEMEX in two main areas: Chicontepec field in the North of Mexico and the deepwater exploration projects in the marina region. This will be Knowledge Reservoir's main focus for the next two or three years.

Brazil
Knowledge Reservoir is currently engaged in a number of deepwater reservoir modeling studies for exploration and production clients operating in offshore Brazil.

Europe

OMV's Relationship with Knowledge Reservoir
Knowledge Reservoir, and OMV Exploration & Production GmbH (OMV), a business unit of OMV Aktiengesellschaft of Vienna, Austria, announced an agreement under which Knowledge Reservoir will provide OMV with consultancy services for fully integrated studies in the areas of petrophysics, geology and geophysics, and reservoir engineering, for all of their international assets.  Work under the $2 million contract will be awarded on a call off basis against specific work scopes over a three year period, with an option to extend for a further two years.

Middle East

Oman and Other News
Knowledge Reservoir opened its Muscat, Oman office as a hub for the Middle East in September 2007, introducing its operations mainly in Muscat but also in continuous and direct interaction with several companies in the region. In Muscat, Knowledge Reservoir is working to communicate its capabilities and share our expertise and service offerings with key oil companies in the region.

At present, Knowledge Reservoir conducts both short service orders, such as well test design requests and quick reservoir modeling validation exercises, for operators in the country, and larger integrated services involving geological and production reservoir reviews. An integral reason for the success of Knowledge Reservoir in Muscat is its technical capacity, with a highly professional caliber that understands the region well. Moreover, the success is largely attributed to the efficient and significant support provided by both London and Houston, without which several projects would not have been possible. At present the office in Muscat is well equipped with carbonate geology, fracture characterization, and reservoir engineering capabilities, with the development of other capabilities underway. Current clients include Daleel Petroleum, Dubai Petroleum, and Saudi ARAMCO.

In the News

Knowledge Reservoir and Ingrain
Knowledge Reservoir and Ingrain announced a strategic alliance designed to accelerate the use of Ingrain’s technical breakthroughs in the area of digital rock physics.

Ingrain’s digital rock physics labs use advanced 3D imaging technology and patented computational methods to rapidly and accurately determine the physical properties and fluid flow characteristics of reservoir rocks. Ingrain’s digital process works equally well on core samples and drill cuttings, and dramatically decreases turnaround time compared to physical core analysis. Knowledge Reservoir plans to develop enhanced reservoir modeling workflows around the wealth of data generated by Ingrain’s technology and will support clients in the application and interpretation of the data. The alliance means that Knowledge Reservoir’s highly experienced upstream industry consulting teams can help oil and gas companies maximize the value of their investment in Ingrain’s advanced rock properties data (such as porosity, elastic properties, and relative permeability, each computed in three directions).

Commenting on the announcement, Dr. Ivor R. Ellul, President and CEO of Knowledge Reservoir, stated, “Ingrain’s digital rock physics lab clearly represents the future of rock properties analysis.  Working with Ingrain will help grow our leadership in geosciences and reservoir engineering consulting solutions through extended and more effective reservoir visualization workflows.  Knowledge Reservoir will help oil and gas companies leverage Ingrain’s data via our world class asset team consultants, to further assist our clients in optimizing some of their key drivers—maximizing recoverability of reserves, reducing finding and production costs, and improving understanding of reservoir assets.” 

Ingrain was formed in 2007 to bring the petrophysical innovations of founders Dr. Amos Nur and Dr. Henrique Tono to the oil and gas industry. Ingrain uses advanced 3D imaging technology and patented computational methods to provide fast, accurate measurements of reservoir rock properties including porosity, absolute permeability, electrical conductivity, elastic properties, and relative permeability. The company has offices in Houston, Calgary, Rio de Janeiro, and Abu Dhabi.  www.ingrainrocks.com

Contract Wins

In the past year, Knowledge Reservoir has won consulting or resourcing projects with the following clients.

A big thanks to all of our clients!