Events

Speaker: Dr. Oliver C. Mullins, Schlumberger Fellow

Title of Seminar: "Reservoir Fluid Geodynamics; A Fundamentally New Approach to Reservoir Evaluation"

Abstract: There is a large gap today in the modeling and understanding of reservoir fluids; this deficiency leads to major inefficiencies in field development planning. There is almost no modeling of fluid geodynamics once the fluids are in the reservoirs; nevertheless, in-reservoir fluid redistributions occur which can impact production in major ways. A new technical discipline resolves this concern; “Reservoir Fluid Geodynamics” (RFG) that provides the 1st-principles description of the dynamics of reservoir fluids in geologic time.

RFG studies are revealing new information, e.g. the sequence of events in multiple charging of reservoirs with fault block migration and that reservoirs exhibit not only density stacking in trap filling but also “lateral fluid fronts” near charge points of reservoirs. Reservoir fluid geodynamics is a rapidly evolving discipline and is an essential component of optimization of production. RFG is easy to employ using a ‘universal workflow’ which will be discussed.

Biography: Dr. Oliver C. Mullins is a Schlumberger Fellow and member, U.S. National Academy of Engineering. He led the inception and development of Downhole Fluid Analysis (DFA) in well logging. Dr. Mullins also leads an active research group in petroleum science leading to the Yen-Mullins model of asphaltenes and the FloryHuggins-Zuo Equation of State. His current interests include utilizing DFA technology and new asphaltene science to perform novel reservoir evaluation. This work is subsumed in the newly codified technical discipline he is leading “reservoir fluid geodynamics” that accounts for processes dictating fluid and tar distributions in oilfield reservoirs. He has won several awards including the SPWLA Gold Medal for Technical Achievement and the George A. Olah Award in Hydrocarbon or Petroleum Chemistry from the American Chemical Society. He has been Distinguished Lecturer 6 times for SPWLA and SPE. He authored the award-winning book The Physics of Reservoir Fluids; Discovery through Downhole Fluid Analysis, coedited 3 books and coauthored 14 chapters on asphaltenes and related topics. He has coauthored 275 publications, ~½ on petroleum science, ~½ on oilfield applications, and has coinvented 116 allowed US patents. He has accumulated >15,500 citations on Google Scholar to his work. He is Fellow of two professional societies and is Adjunct Professor of Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M University.