New Research Chair Established at Texas A&M University – College Station
A new five year, US$1.35 million funding package from the CMG Reservoir Simulation Foundation (Foundation CMG) will establish an Industrial Research Chair in Robust Reduced Complexity Modeling (R2CM) in Reservoir Engineering, at the Department of Petroleum Engineering, Texas A&M University (TAMU-College Station).
The Foundation CMG funding will support a Chair in Reservoir Engineering which will be led by Dr. Eduardo Gildin and Dr. Mike King. It will support Drs. Gildin and King’s team of research associates and students in undertaking leading edge research in innovative methods for reduced complexity modeling in reservoir simulation and optimization, applied to a variety of challenging problems in hydrocarbon recovery processes of conventional and unconventional reservoirs. 
The central idea of the R2CM Chair is to develop, test, and apply new methods of model validation (or invalidation) together with integrated dynamic reservoir monitoring and control, amenable to fast simulation, parameter estimation, uncertainty quantification, and production optimization. The team will examine a broad range of reservoir modeling techniques and their validation for consistent assessments of model simplifications and data assimilation for robust performance predictions. Ultimately, R2CM will tackle the “reduced complexity modeling” paradigm for reservoir management and optimization as a basis for decision support under uncertainty. To this end, R2CM will develop physically motivated simplified models, applying upscaling, streamlines and reduced-order modelling, together with smart systems frameworks, such as, control system theory, machine learning theory, real-time dynamical modeling, and high performance computing.
Proposed Strategic Research Areas
R2CM has proposed the development of a novel structured model hierarchy that encompasses adequate comprehensive computer models for each tier, together with an underlying error analysis. It will provide a framework that can be used to assess complex reservoir models used in optimization under uncertainty. R2CM will pay special attention to projects that provide practical benefits, but which also establish solid mathematical and theoretical frameworks, which will be the building blocks for long term research progress. The main themes of this research Chair is summarized below.
Upscaling and Multiscale Modeling
Development of novel multiscale methods, upscaling techniques and error analysis for mitigating large-scale computational simulation cost in complex reservoir simulation.
Model Reduction – Complexity Reduction
Development of novel model reduction techniques of large-scale reservoir models based on system and control theory and streamlines simulation as key enablers to fast uncertainty quantification and parameter estimation methodologies.
Reduced Complexity Optimization under the Uncertainty Paradigm
Development of uncertainty quantification methodologies that involve simplified models and large quantities of data together with High Performance Computing (HPC) in simulation and optimization under the uncertainty paradigm.
Texas A&M University, Dwight Look College of Engineering
The Dwight Look College of Engineering is the largest college on the Texas A&M campus with more than 350 faculty members and more than 11,000 engineering students in 22 different programs in our 12 departments. The Dwight Look College of Engineering mission is to serve Texas, the nation and the global community by providing engineering graduates who are well founded in engineering fundamentals, instilled with the highest standards of professional and ethical behavior, and prepared to meet the complex technical challenges of society.
The Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering is ranked among the top departments in the nation. The department faculty has considerable expertise and international recognition in the areas of unconventional petroleum resources, drilling engineering, production engineering, reservoir engineering, reservoir characterization, improved oil recovery, and petroleum development. The department has an annual budget in excess of $16 million and has well-established laboratories and consortia in the areas of deepwater drilling, well stimulation, multiphase flow, thermal oil recovery, reservoir characterization, streamline modeling, and carbon dioxide sequestration. The petroleum engineering department has 22 tenured and tenure-track faculty members, representing a broad spectrum of talents and research interests. The current student enrollment is 729 undergraduate students and 388 graduate students.
Foundation CMG
Founded in 1978, CMG Reservoir Simulation Foundation (Foundation CMG) was initially developed at the University of Calgary, Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Department. It promotes and financially supports research & development and students through research grants at universities around the world focusing on reservoir simulation. Foundation CMG has a rich history of over 30 years working in 25 countries around the world.
FCMG Chairs
The FCMG Chair at A&M will develop novel concepts in the broad areas of complexity reduction for reservoir management and optimization under uncertainty. We will take advantage of the 30 years of reservoir management experience that Dr. King brings to the formulation of the problems, and his expertise in upscaling, and the expertise in control theory and closed-loop optimization gained by Dr. Gildin while working in the aerospace industry, to provide a fundamental understanding of the within and between model class errors for a hierarchy of model types: analogues, decline curves, other proxies, material balance, streamline simulation, and complex integrated reservoir models, to determine their impact on the overall confidence in performance predictions for potentially complex reservoir management decisions.
Dr. Eduardo Gildin
Dr. Gildin is an Assistant Professor of Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M University and holder of the CJ Craft Jr. Faculty Fellowship in Petroleum Engineering. Dr. Gildin joined the faculty of Texas A&M University in 2010. He holds a PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and has held Postdoctoral Fellowships from The Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences (Center for Subsurface Modeling) at The University of Texas at Austin and from the Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University. Dr. Gildin has expertise in control of dynamical systems, the mathematics of reservoir simulation, numerical methods for control and model reduction of large-scale systems, finite element modeling, numerical analysis and optimization. His current projects involve multiscale model reduction modeling in porous media and production optimization in conventional and unconventional reservoirs.
Dr. Mike King
Dr. King joined the faculty at Texas A&M in the fall of 2009. Dr. King holds PhD and MS degrees in Physics from Syracuse University and a BS in Physics and Mathematics from The Cooper Union (NY). Previously, he worked for BP America and the BP Amoco E&P Upstream Technology Group. He is the current SPE Student Chapter Faculty Advisor, a member of the Crisman Institute Steering Committee, and Co-Director of the MCERI (Model Calibration and Efficient Reservoir Imaging) consortium.
For further information please contact:
Duke Anderson
President
CMG Reservoir Simulation Foundation
Suite 700, One Executive Place
1816 Crowchild Trail NW
Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2M 3Y7
Ph. (403) 450-8399
Drs. Eduardo Gildin and Mike King
Texas A&M University
Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering
3116 TAMU
College Station, TX, USA, 77843
Ph. (979) 862-4578