Consortia between industry and academia are not a rare phenomenon. Typically they are mutually beneficial—students get exposure to real-world problems, and oil companies get access to bright young minds.

One such consortium that is dear to my heart is the Reservoir Characterization Project (RCP) at the Colorado School of Mines, which just celebrated its 30th anniversary in November 2015. I’ve served on RCP’s advisory council for the last 10 years and have been impressed with the caliber of the students, faculty and sponsors involved.

Founded by Tom Davis, a geophysics professor at the school, RCP was formed to study the thorny problem ofractured reservoirs. Prior to going to Mines, Davis had worked for an oil company and had learned first-hand how inscrutable these reservoirs could be.

“A lot of very infl uential folks were saying, ‘We don’t really understand what drives these fractured reservoirs,’” Davis said. “And the only tool we have for sensing them is seismic.”

RCP is somewhat unlike other consortia in that oil companies bring their problem fields to the group in hopes that their project will be chosen as one of the phases. Sponsors vote on which field seems most in need of help.

Once a field is chosen, a small seismic survey will be shot to expose the students to geophysical acquisition. Students are assigned to evaluate this dataset along with other available data from the field, and they’re expected to work together as an integrated team. They present their findings in front of the sponsors twice a year.

It’s the integration aspect that stands out for many. RCP contains graduate students not just in geophysics but also in geology, reservoir engineering and sometimes petrophysics. They build on each other’s findings as well as conducting their own research.

Over the years the project has analyzed a host of challenging fields, starting with the Silo Field in Wyoming. Currently students are analyzing the Wattenberg Field in Colorado as well as the Vaca Muerta Shale in Argentina, the Montney Shale in Canada and a deep gas project in Kuwait.

Students also get a sense of the economic realities their research enables. “It’s about fractured reservoirs and understanding them more fully, but you’ve got to transfer that into value,” Davis said. “Value comes in an economic context—can you make money out of this? We’ve been able to do that.”

Despite the downturn and the perception that there are too few students interested in a career in the industry, RCP never lacks for students. Davis said he looks for a particular type of student.

“I look for students who are self-motivated, drivers, ones that want to be leaders,” he said. “They’re not always the ones with the 4.0 GPAs. I look at the quality of the students, look them in the eye and say, ‘Are you willing to work?’ The work ethic is the most important thing.”

The 30th anniversary of RCP coincides with Davis’ last year of teaching; he plans to retire at the end of the 2015-2016 school year. His leadership over the years has led some to speculate on the future of the program. But Davis is convinced that RCP will live on.

“I’m trying to motivate the thought that it’s not done by a long shot,” he said. “We have a lot of work left to be done. I think the students can carry the momentum because RCP is student-driven.”

Contact the author, Rhonda Duey, at rduey@hartenergy.com.

Comments