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Academic institutions serve an essential role in furthering scientific research that can drive the commercialization of transformative products and services, said U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz during a visit to Austin.

A little winter weather didn't stop UT PGE students from participating in the 2014 SPE Local Paper Contest. The event, originally planned for January 24, was rescheduled to the following week due to icy roads and freezing temperatures.

On January 31, UT PGE hosted the 2014 SPE Local Paper Contest, an annual event that requires participants to craft a 20-minute presentation on their research topic or an academic/internship project and showcase it to a panel of industry judges, many of whom graduated from UT PGE. The contest allows submissions from B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. students and after competing, winners are chosen from each division.

The winners of the local paper contest are:

B.S. Division

1. Jason Camacho

2. Kellyn Schmitz

3. Youssef Elkady

M.S. Division

1. Mahmood Shakiba

2. Joseph Tansey

3. Sapatswa Basu

Ph.D. Division

1. Fei Cao

2. Yashar Mehmani

3. Aboulghasem Kazemi Nia Korrani

The B.S. division winner, Jason Camacho, expressed his enthusiasm for competing in the contest.

"My research represented a body of work, which spanned two years and many hundreds of hours," said Camacho. "Sharing my results in an academic forum was the capstone on executing my honors thesis. The opportunity to participate in the B.S. division of the local paper contest was a privilege. The other contestants were qualified, motivated, and prepared."

Dr. David DiCarlo, associate professor and SPE co-advisor was excited about the success of this year's event.

“Even with the postponed event, we had our best turn out for students and judges since I have been at UT,” said DiCarlo. “We had 38 students present in more than five different rooms in front of 12 judges. We saw a big jump in our M.S. student participation – it went from six last year to 14 this year.  A big thanks to our industry judges who re-arranged their schedules on short notice to make the trip up to Austin.”

The list of judges, includes:

• Mark Walsh, Consultant
• Bob MacDonald, Platt, Sparks & Associates
• Josh Xu, Chevron
• Alan He, Statoil 
• Sahil Malhotra, Chevron
• Dustin Walker, Chevron
• Nico Roussel, ConocoPhillips
• Matt Dean, Chevron
• Siyavash Motealleh, BP
• Sam Larkin, Pioneer Natural Resources
• Susan Howes, Chevron
• Kristin Schmidt, Chevron

The first and second-place contestants will travel to the oil and gas capital to compete in the SPE Regional Paper Contest on April 4 and 5 at the University of Houston. Those who place first at the regional contest will then be invited to present at SPE’s prestigious Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands this October.

Nicolas Espinoza joined UT PGE as an assistant professor in the fall of 2013 and is quickly becoming a “rock” star in the area of geomechanics.

Petroleum engineering is a complicated, technical subject that requires engineers to solve geological challenges 10,000 feet below the earth’s surface. UT PGE created the Simple Concepts Contest to showcase the discipline in a non-technical manner to middle-school and high-school students in order to attract them to studying petroleum engineering. The department recently hosted its second annual contest, which produced unique and creative winning projects.

The competition requires participants to create a simple demonstration of a physical concept relevant to any aspect of flow through subsurface and mechanics of rocks and soils. Ultimately, the goal of the Simple Concepts Contest is to communicate fundamental scientific concepts to non-scientific or specialist audiences.

Participants entered for a chance to win prizes—up to $750. The winner, graduate student Mahmood Shakiba, was recognized for his submission titled, “Napkin Sweep Efficiency.”

Shakiba said his project idea was inspired while simply making coffee.

“I accidentally spilled it on a pack of napkins on the counter,” he said. “I noticed that the diffusion of coffee into the napkins could be a good example of injecting water into layers of a reservoir. Based on the patterns of the wet napkins, I could explain vertical and areal sweep efficiencies due to water flooding.”

The winning submission is showcased each spring at Explore UT, which is typically popular with school-aged children. Shakiba said he hopes these younger attendees gain a better understanding of petroleum engineering processes through his project.

“The contest gives me a great opportunity to improve my communication skills and to test my knowledge by explaining [these concepts] in a simple way,” said Shakiba. “I hope my project will help the younger students visualize the operations and processes that we deal with in petroleum engineering.”

Students Mahdi Haddad and Shaina Kelly also won the second and third place prizes for their projects, “Paper Fish” and “Design Your Edible Petroleum Reservoir.”

Those who placed first, second and third received $750, $500, and $250 in prize winnings, while the three teams who received an honorable mention were awarded $50 Amazon gift cards.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is supplying UT PGE with $1.7 million to conduct game-changing research over the next four years on methane hydrates, which could serve as our nation’s next major energy resource.

Dr. Steve Bryant penned a feature story for an issue of Scientific American magazine about a closed-loop system that not only produces energy, it cuts down on greenhouse gas emissions.

Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have developed a simple scaling theory to estimate gas production from hydraulically fractured wells in the Barnett Shale.The method is intended to help the energy industry accurately identify low- and high-producing horizontal wells, as well as accurately predict how long it will take for gas reserves to deplete in the wells.

Using historical data from horizontal wells in the Barnett Shale formation in North Texas, Tad Patzek, professor and chair in the Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering in the Cockrell School of Engineering; Michael Marder, professor of physics in the College of Natural Sciences; and Frank Male, a graduate student in physics, used a simple physics theory to model the rate at which production from the wells declines over time, known as the “decline curve.”

They describe their new model of the decline curve in the paper “Gas production in the Barnett Shale obeys a simple scaling theory,” published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. To test their theory, the researchers analyzed 10 years of gas production data from the Barnett Shale licensed to the university by IHS CERA, a provider of global market and economic information.

The team’s estimates were an instrumental part of the comprehensive assessment of Barnett Shale reserves funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and issued earlier this year by the Bureau of Economic Geology at UT Austin.

Until now, estimates of shale gas production have primarily relied on models established for conventional oil and gas wells, which behave differently from the horizontal wells in gas-rich shales.

The researchers estimate the ultimate gas recovery from a sample of 8,294 horizontal wells in the Barnett Shale will be between 10 trillion and 20 trillion standard cubic feet (scf) during the lifetime of the wells. The study’s well sample is made up of about half of the 15,000 existing wells in the Barnett Shale, the geological formation outside Fort Worth that offers the longest production history for hydrofractured horizontal wells in the world.

“With our model at hand, you can better predict how much gas volume is left and how long it will take until that volume will be depleted,” Patzek said. “We are able to match historical production and predict future production of thousands of horizontal gas wells using this scaling theory.”

“The contributions of shale gas to the U.S. economy are so enormous that even small corrections to production estimates are of great practical significance,” Patzek said.

The researchers were surprised by how all of the wells they analyzed adhere to that simple scaling curve.

“By analyzing the basic physics underlying gas recovery from hydrofractured wells, we calculated a single curve that should describe how much gas comes out over time, and we showed that production from thousands of wells follows this curve,” Marder said.

Patzek adds: “We are able to predict when the decline will begin. Once decline sets in, gas production goes down rapidly.”

The decline of a well happens because of a process called pressure diffusion that causes pressure around a well to drop and gas production to decrease. The time at which gas pressure drops below its initial value everywhere in the rock between hydrofractures is called its interference time. On average, it takes five years for interference to occur, at which point wells produce gas at a far lower rate because the amount of gas coming out over time is proportional to the amount of gas remaining.

Using two parameters — a well’s interference time and the original gas in place — the researchers were able to determine the universal decline curve and extrapolate total gas production over time.

The researchers found that the scaling theory accurately predicted the behavior of approximately 2,000 wells in which production had begun to decrease exponentially within the past 10 years. The remaining wells were too young for the model to predict when decreases would set in, but the model enabled the researchers to estimate upper and lower production limits for well lifetime and the amount of gas that will be produced by the wells.

“For 2,057 of the horizontal wells in the Barnett Shale, interference is far enough advanced for us to verify that wells behave as predicted by the scaling form,” Patzek said. “The production forecasts will become more accurate as more production data becomes available.”

As a byproduct of their analysis, the researchers found that most horizontal wells for which predictions are possible underperform their theoretical production limits. The researchers have reached a tentative conclusion that many wells are on track to produce only about 10 percent of their potential.

The researchers conclude that well production could be greatly improved if the hydrofractures connected better to natural fractures in the surrounding rock. The process of hydraulic fracturing creates a network of cracks, like veins, in rocks that was previously impermeable, allowing gas to move. If there are high porosity and permeability within those connected cracks and hydrofractures, then a well is high producing. By contrast, if the connection with hydrofractures is weak, then a well is low producing.

“If this finding spurs research to understand why wells underperform, it may lead to improved production methods and eventually increase gas extraction from wells,” Marder said.

Work is underway on how to improve performance of hydrofractures in horizontal wells, Patzek added.

This paper was supported by Shell and the Sloan Foundation.

Update: The paper was recently awarded the prestigious Cozzarelli Prize from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The honor recognizes recently published PNAS papers of outstanding scientific excellence and originality. Patzek will receive the prize, awarded to only six papers published in 2013, at a ceremony held in Washington, D.C. this April.

Disclosures:  The University of Texas at Austin is committed to transparency and disclosure of all potential conflicts of interest of its researchers. Tad Patzek has received research support from Chevron, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and a Shell-UT research agreement. Michael Marder has received research support from Shell and from various government and nonprofit entities including the National Science Foundation, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Alumni, spanning 65 years of classes, gathered at The Driskill Hotel for the fourth annual UT PGE Distinguished Alumni Program. The signature event, hosted on November 1, honored six outstanding alumni for their key contributions to energy production, the Texas economy, and higher education.

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) announced a $5 million, five-year agreement to establish the Ocean Energy Safety Institute (Institute) in Texas. The University of Texas at Austin has been selected as one of three university partners in the Institute.

The Institute will provide a forum for dialogue, shared learning and cooperative research among academia, government, industry and other non-government organizations in offshore-related technologies and activities that help ensure environmentally safe and responsible offshore operations.

The Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station’s (TEES) Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center has been selected to manage the Institute. TEES is partnering with Texas A&M University, The University of Texas at Austin and University of Houston.

“The creation of the Ocean Energy Safety Institute is critical to preserving our water resources, and meeting our nation’s energy demands,” said Tad Patzek, co-PI of the Institute and chair of the Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering at UT Austin’s Cockrell School of Engineering. “With the largest oil industry presence in the country, Texas is the ideal location for the institute. We are armed with an abundance of knowledge and research on the subject. UT Austin looks forward to working closely with our university partners, as well as government and industry to delineate our priorities and set important operational procedures.”

The Institute stems from a recommendation from the Ocean Energy Safety Advisory Committee, a federal advisory group comprised of representatives from industry, federal government agencies, non-governmental organizations and the academic community. The Institute will be an important source of unbiased, independent information and will not have any regulatory authority over the offshore industry. It will be a collaborative venture that will also include involvement on science and technology issues from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

“I look forward to working closely with our partners at the Institute on finding ways to improve safety offshore,” said BSEE Director Brian Salerno. “The Institute will develop a program of research, technical assistance and education that serves as a center of expertise in offshore oil and gas exploration, development and production technology, including frontier areas, such as high temperature/high pressure reservoirs, deepwater, and Arctic exploration and development.”

The Institute will provide recommendations and technical assistance to BSEE related to emerging technologies and the best available and safest technologies (BAST).  In addition, it will develop and maintain an equipment failure monitoring system and train federal employees to enable them to remain current on state-of-the-art technology.  The Institute will also promote collaboration among federal agencies, industry, standards organizations, academia, and the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).  Information on issues related to offshore research and best practices will be shared with industry, government, and the public through Institute held forums.

Arletta Tompkins, academic advising coordinator, received the prestigious Tany Norwood Award from the Friar Society on November 1. The annual award is granted to one deserving staff member from the university for their stellar service and commitment to student life. The award is named after Tany Norwood, who served as the organization’s longtime advisor and assistant dean of students.

As the oldest and most prestigious honor organization at UT Austin, the Friar Society welcomes award nominations from anyone in the university community. Tompkins was nominated by seven students, faculty and staff—a testament to the strong impact she has made during her time as an advisor.

Tompkins, who was awarded her 20-year service certificate from the university earlier this year, received the surprise announcement by six Friar Society student members, including UT PGE’s very own Tara Sharma. The group came bearing flowers, balloons and a plaque to honor Tompkins for her dedication to student success.

“As an advisor, there is no greater honor than to be nominated by your students for an award, because they feel you have been there for them and have tried your best to help them through their time as undergraduates,” said Tompkins. “I can’t think of anything more rewarding than knowing I have been a positive influence. I'm lucky to work with amazing students and am supported by great staff and faculty - I am ecstatic to receive the Friar’s Tany Norwood award.”  

Cameron Donnell, a petroleum engineering senior, said Tompkins makes extra time for students and has been crucial to his success at UT PGE.

“No matter how busy she is or what program you are in, Arletta will make the time to advise you and help devise a plan to reach your goals,” he said. “Without her unique perspective and knowledge of the department, I would not have been able to make informed decisions at the start of each semester.”

Demonstrating her commitment to students on a daily basis, Tompkins is an invaluable resource to students.

“Arletta’s door is always open, and she is willing to share her knowledge about university rules - and she does it all with a smile,” Donnell said.