UW-Milwaukee: Receives $1.3 million software grant from Schlumberger

Issued by: Deanna Ding, 414-229-2923; dingd@uwm.edu

03/05/2013

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MILWAUKEE – Schlumberger, a global service provider to oil and gas companies, has granted the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee software valued at $1.3 million. The grant includes three-year licenses for the Petrel E&P software platform and ECLIPSE industry reference reservoir simulator.

“Schlumberger recognizes the level of excellence of the geosciences program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and its strong history of student job placement in the oil and gas industry. Investment in the education of future geoscientists and engineers is an important aspect of Schlumberger’s corporate mission,” says David Seabrook, vice president Schlumberger Information Solutions North America.

Petrel E&P and ECLIPSE will be used by faculty and students in the Department of Geosciences as they research ways to securely dispose of and store industry-generated carbon dioxide inside of geologic formations to prevent release into the atmosphere, as well as oil and gas exploration. The Petrel platform is used to create 2D and 3D structural and stratigraphic models to define potential hydrocarbon accumulations in the subsurface, using various types of geologic and geophysical data, while the ECLIPSE simulator is used to simulate the movement of the liquids and gases through the reservoir over time.

Professor Weon Shik Han, one of the principal investigators on these types of projects, notes: “Understanding geologic subsurface features, several thousand feet below the surface, is a challenging task. Petrel provides the capability to integrate all available soft and hard data—well logs, seismic survey data, and analogs to perform subsurface mapping and modeling including geostatistical techniques and visualizations. Our students will have a chance to use the same sophisticated software used in major oil and gas companies, furthering their credentials and experience for future jobs.”

For more information on the research impacted by the software, please contact Professor Weon Shik Han at hanw@uwm.edu or (414) 229-6558.

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