Grant: Industrial Research Chairs

The long-term goal of this five-year Chair is to provide a reliable tool to explore and validate the best novelrecovery processes that are both economically viable and environmentally sensitive and reduce water use andgreenhouse gas emissions. This research is vital to the viability of the oil and gas industry, one of Canada'smost important industrial sectors, which has been operating under low commodity prices for two years. Thenew processes to explore were identified by industry as requiring validation prior to field testing. Accuratereservoir models and efficient simulators developed in this program are the tools required to study andoptimize oil recovery processes with successful prediction of reservoir behaviours and environmental impacts.Essential features of flow and transport processes in petroleum reservoirs will be reflected in new mathematicalmodels. New numerical models can reliably generate solutions without false information. Accurate algorithmsand computational codes will then be developed to support the greening of heavy oil and oil sands recoveryprocesses and the renewal of a more sustainable oil and gas industry. This can only be achieved when eachnovel recovery process is carefully modelled and reliable simulations demonstrate the validity of the process.