DTU Chemistry’s involvement in the Center for Energy Resources Engineering (CERE DTU) increased in the past year, as several new activities related to oil and gas exploration were launched.
With faculty from five DTU departments, one of them being DTU Chemistry, CERE DTU addresses science relevant to exploration of oil and gas in the Danish part of the North Sea and other energy resources engineering topics.
Researchers from DTU Chemistry are active in several of CERE DTU’s projects. This is especially true for the NextOil program, which addresses exploration of deep oil and gas fields. This is also known as HPHT (High Pressure, High Temperature) exploration. NextOil was initiated by late 2012 with DONG Energy, Maersk Oil, GEO and CERE DTU as partners.
Further, DTU Chemistry faculty members are active in two new JIP’s (Joint Industry Projects) headed by CERE DTU. COMPPLEX is a new JIP dedicated to compositional reservoir simulations that not just calculate average oil properties (so called “black oil simulations”), but involve the phase behaviour of the main chemical components of the oil in question. This approach promises far more accurate simulations. Another effort will address the complex phase behaviour seen in carbon dioxide Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR). Current industry partners are ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil.
Finally, OPTION is a new JIP focussed at predicting flow and phase behaviour in relation to oil wells. The project promises new tools for optimizing the output from oil exploration not least in the Danish part of the North Sea. Industrial partners are Lloyd’s Register Consulting and Welltec.