CEPE - Research Lines

Center for Petroleum Studies

Research lines

Drilling and completing oil wells. Well engineering, which involves the drilling and completion of wells, plays an important role in the exploration and exploitation of an oil and/or natural gas field. Within the exploration context, the drilling of the pioneer well is the only material indicator of the occurrence of hydrocarbons within the geological structure evaluated and mapped by geologists, geophysicists and geochemists. omics. The commercial viability of exploiting a field depends, significantly, on the drilling and completion techniques used, as well as the consequences of the interaction of the well with the reservoir rock. river carrying hydrocarbons. Within this scenario, the group intends to develop lines of research that support the well project, ensuring the safety of operations and promoting increased productivity in the oil reservoir and/or or natural gas. The lines of research cover both experimental studies and mathematical modeling of physical problems encountered during field exploration, such as: - Poroelastic modeling of well stability - Study of hydraulic fracturing - Drilling fluid rheology - Control of erupting wells - Transport of solid particles by fluids (drilling and fracturing) - Modeling of the mechanical behavior of drilling columns - Study of new drilling and completion technologies in the scenario of ultra-deep water depths (Approved by the Department/Scientific Council in 1994).

Reservoirs. Study of characterization and behavior of reservoirs, characterization and behavior of fluids, special recovery methods, simulation of reservoirs, include geophysical modeling work, methods numerical for simulation, heat and mass transfer in porous media, test analysis in wells, tracers, computed tomography, phase equilibrium (Approved by the Department on 01/1994). (Approved by the Department/Scientific Council in 1994).

Oil and Gas Production. In the current Brazilian scenario in the oil sector - characterized by the opening of the exploration and exploitation market of Brazilian oil and gas reserves, and by growing pressure on the competitiveness of companies in the sector - universities must play an important role, particularly in carrying out basic and applied research and professional training, as the experience of several countries shows. The Oil and Gas Production Research Group's central objective is the integrated study of new techniques and technologies that seek to make oil and gas production viable, ensuring the flow of this production in land and sea fields, and aiming to reduce costs through intelligent production management. The Group develops activities in an interdisciplinary manner in Petroleum Production Engineering, involving the Department of Petroleum Engineering and the Department of Energy of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at UNICAMP. Particularly noteworthy are research in: - Artificial Lift - Gas-liquid-solid separators - Intelligent Systems and - Production & Transport of Heavy Oils. The Group has been operating over the years through the Center for Petroleum Studies - CEPETRO at UNICAMP, which constitutes a Center of Excellence supported by PRONEX - FINEP. Human resources training is carried out through the Postgraduate Program in Petroleum Engineering at FEM-UNICAMP, where the Group has already trained dozens of Masters and Doctors. A significant number of publications in specialized journals and at national and international conferences have been published by the Group's members. Furthermore, the Group's impact on the industrial sector has been achieved through basic and applied research, generating technological innovation through patents and software. Approval by the Department/Scientific Council on 01/1994). (Approved by the Department/Scientific Council in 1994).

Well Engineering. Research and developments in Well Engineering involve various aspects of petroleum engineering, extending from oil well design, well drilling planning, complete well drilling and marine operations. Basic and application research has been carried out on well stability problems, drilling fluids and their flow in the well during operation, directional well design and new techniques. Drilling techniques, well control and safety, operability of ships and drilling platforms and completion under the effect of environmental conditions (waves, currents, winds, etc. ). These researches have the participation of postgraduate students in Petroleum Engineering in master's and doctoral studies, and also, these researches and developments obtained are generally in partnership with companies (Petrobrã s) and important support from government research funding agents (CNPq, Capes, Fapesp, MCT/Pronex, ANP, among others). Through training programs for undergraduate students in the specialty of Petroleum Engineering, it has made important contributions to the generation of specialists in the field. As a result, important knowledge and personnel training have been generated, making important contributions to the rational and efficient exploitation of oil in the country, particularly in deep waters. (Approved by the Department/Scientific Council in 1994).

Mathematical Geophysics. Our research interests are the mathematical methods of Geophysics, especially those referring to the modeling of the propagation of acoustic and elastic waves, the imaging of synthetic seismic data ethical and real data and the inversion of this data with the aim of extracting as much information as possible about the subsoil region under investigation. The results of our research have been presented at several national and international conferences, having a great impact on us in academia, as well as in oil companies. This can be seen from the large number of publications by the group and the agreements obtained (Approved by the Department/Scientific Council in 1998).

Thermodynamics of separation and mixing processes. Development of processes for recovering active ingredients from natural plants using supercritical carbon dioxide. It is a promising technology to replace traditional methods of extraction with chemical solvents and distillation that bring with them the risk of leaving toxic residues in the extracted products or the thermal degradation of natural products, respectively. Currently, studies are being carried out to obtain subsidies that allow the development of processes for extracting purine alkaloids, such as methilxanthines, which are main components in medicines, from coffee, mate, guaran � and cacao. Applications in environmental areas such as the recovery of contaminated soil and toxic components in aqueous industrial waste are of great interest to this group. - determination of the properties and behavior of petroleum fluid phases with a view to developing processes that guarantee fluid flow and additional oil recovery. Currently, the formation of solids such as asphaltenes, paraffins and hydrates from petroleum fluids is being studied. The studies aim to determine the training conditions and develop preventive and curative measures to resolve such problems. - development of thermodynamic models to determine thermodynamic properties and phase equilibrium in complex systems containing associative and polydisperse components aiming at the adequate simulation of separation processes in these systems. The behavior of systems formed by alcohols, water and carboxylic acids are currently studied. - obtaining phase equilibrium information as input for developing separation processes. An example of interest is the partitioning of biomolecules using aqueous biphasic systems containing polymers and salts. The separation of proteins such as human insulin, among others, is currently being studied. (Approved by the Department/Scientific Council in 1998).

Economics of Mineral Resources. It involves the application of economic analysis to mineral and petroleum resources. The Group is currently heavily involved with the ANP (National Petroleum Agency) in the economic analysis of oil fields. Furthermore, the group develops several methodologies linked to decision-making processes in the oil industry (risk analysis, investment portfolio, etc.) (Approved by the Department/Scientific Council in 2000).