Multiscale Modelling at NSU

An Agreement was signed between NSU and Baker Hughes, which starts our collaboration in the frameworks of a Laboratory for solving complex mathematical tasks on modelling oil fields.

The new Laboratory on Modelling and Solving Numerical Problems in Oil and Gas Industry affiliates to the Geology and Geophysics Department at NSU and employs students, post-graduates and members of the faculty as well as researchers from SB RAS institutes.

The Laboratory is going to focus on multiscale modelling of oil fields. Researchers consider such fields complicated as the medium consists of porous space filled with moving oil, gas and saline solution. Depending on the size of the field, the medium can demonstrate different properties and should be described by means of corresponding equations. Equations of different degrees of complexity and at different scales as well as their numerical implementation make the subject matter of multiscale modelling. Multiscale models exist for some particular tasks (e.g., Homogenization of the Maxwell equations), while other tasks require such models to be developed (e.g., Multiple-phase flotation in petroleum storage tanks). Ultimately, multiscale modelling is to open up new vistas for studying oil field structures, analyzing their physical-chemical properties and compiling productivity forecasts.

According to the Agreement, the Laboratory will be funded by Baker Hughes during the first year of work with 15% of NSU co-funding (from the sources of Project 5-100). The first stage will take half a year, after which the parties involved will meet to correct the plans and specify the team extension.

“Partnership with NSU is strategic for Baker Hughes,” says Leonty A. Tabarovsky, a representative of Baker Hughes and a former graduate of the Physics Department of NSU (1968). “Here we can create a team of highly qualified scientists working in diverse areas. Our Agreement deals with a radically new direction which will help us to solve important scientific and technological tasks using the potentials of NSU, SB RAS institutes and the Baker Hughes Novosibirsk Technology Center.”

The Baker Hughes Russian Science Center (BARSC) was established to advance reservoir evaluation technologies through cross-disciplinary studies; it cooperates with well-established scientific entities and universities in Russia and the United States and has a lot of staff that are NSU graduates