FEI and the University of Liverpool have entered into an agreement to enable Liverpool to undertake novel research in the field of petroleum reservoir geoscience using FEI’s QEMSCAN technology.
“We see QEMSCAN technology as a step change in the petrographic analysis of rocks, giving students the ability to gain unrivalled insights into oil and gas sandstone and carbonate reservoir quality,” Professor Richard Worden, the lead academic in the Department of Earth, Ocean and Ecological Sciences at Liverpool said.
FEI’s QEMSCAN technology is used to quantify the amount, type and distribution of mineral grains that are present in oil and gas reservoirs, the shape and size of the grains, the abundance of pores present that are capable of storing oil and gas, and the nature of the throats between pores that will allow the oil or gas to flow. Liverpool’s Sedimentary Geology Research Group will utilize the high-resolution QEMSCAN modal and spatial mineralogy data, as well as the elemental analysis functionality, to evaluate subsurface petroleum reservoir samples and compare the results to traditional forms of data, such as: point counting using light optics, phase analysis using X-ray diffraction, and both petrophysical and geomechanical characteristics of reservoir rocks.
“Having industry-leading technology, like the QEMSCAN, will be an integral part of our research and teaching programs, and may potentially change the way the exploration and production (E&P) industry evaluates some of the most prolific reservoirs in the UK, Norway and, indeed, globally,” Worden said. “We are very excited to afford this opportunity to our faculty and students, and look forward to creating a new generation of geoscientists that can not only automate many of the manual processes of geological analysis to provide meaningful answers faster, but will also have the skills to transfer the knowledge and apply their learning to an integrated E&P workflow.”
“We are eager to enter into this arrangement with the University of Liverpool to provide them access to a QEMSCAN to resolve some of the pore-scale reservoir challenges faced in these complex reservoir systems,” Dr. Alan Butcher, chief petrologist, FEI Oil & Gas Business said.
Image from FEI.
Subscribe
