Facing increasing global demand for reliable supplies of oil and natural gas at reasonable prices, the oil and gas industry is increasingly searching and extracting recoverable gas and oil resources more challenging and complex geologic and geographic conditions – on land, under ice, and far out at sea. Accurately determining how much oil and gas is present in a reservoir and the rates at which the oil and gas can be produced are essential to oil and gas operators when assessing the economic value of drilling from such unconventional sources. These determinations rely heavily upon proper analysis and characterization of the gas, oil, and water present in the reservoir core or porous rock. Traditional methods for analyzing cores are known to contain uncertainties as a result of the lost gases and fluids that escape the core during the ascent out of the hole, leaving a data gap, which must be accounted for mathematically. Georgia Tech researchers have developed technologies to enable oil and gas operators to eliminate the guesswork and improve the accuracy of their core analyses to maximize oil and gas recovery reservoirs.

Researchers in the Center for Energy and Geo Processing, a collaboration between Georgia Tech and King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) in Saudi Arabia, are also focused on improving the accuracy and reducing the costs associated with drilling. Through the application of advanced digital signal processing to geo signals such as seismic data, the Center is helping to identify and isolate problems in the well and drilling process that that could damage expensive equipment or delay operations.

Georgia Tech researchers have developed technologies to enable oil and gas operators to eliminate the guesswork and improve the accuracy of their core analyses to maximize oil and gas recovery from reservoirs.