Abstract
Perhaps the most important problem that we are facing is the Energy Problem which is coupled with the CO2 emissions. Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), mainly CO2 have reached very high levels, causing long-term climate changes and visible in many ways such as rising sea levels, warmer and more acidic oceans, diminished ice coverage, increased global surface temperatures, and multi-dimensional chemical changes that can alter the global equilibrium of the earth systems. CO2, the key gas in these systems should be reduced and parallel to that tremendous amount CO2 (~ 50 Gt) needs to be handled: stored/sequestered.
Gas injection at large scale has been practiced in petroleum/subsurface engineering area for more than 50 years. Many technologies developed during this period. Initially, most of the technologies for various gas injection processes, such as hydrocarbon gases and/or CO2, developed are centralized around the recovery improvement and gas storage. Later on, these technologies are applied for CO2 sequestration successfully at different settings at various countries. When the objective of CO2 injection is not limited to oil recovery processes, the application envelope for CO2 injection includes wider spectrum of options, such as deep saline aquifers and as well as basaltic rocks in addition to depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs and coal seams. Each option/case will have its own complexities, from data requirements to monitoring, especially in the context of reducing the uncertainty for screening, project execution and surveillance. In this talk, we will stress some of the key points and challenges of this global problem how and how much progress were made for various subsurface options.
About the Speaker
Dr. Birol Dindoruk is a Professor of Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M University at College Station. Previously he was AADE Endowed Professor of Petroleum Engineering & Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at University of Houston, and before that he was the Chief Scientist of Reservoir Physics and the Principal Technical Expert of Reservoir Engineering in Shell.
His technical contributions have been acknowledged with many awards during his career, including SPE Lester C. Uren Award (2014), Cedric K. Ferguson Medal (1994), and Distinguished Membership. In 2017, and finally the highest society award: SPE Honorary Member award in 2023.
He was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) for his significant theoretical and practical contributions to EOR & CO2 sequestration in 2017 and later on in 2025 elected to the National Academy of Inventors (NAI).
He was one of the Distinguished Lecturers of SPE for 2010-2011 term.
Dr. Dindoruk was Data Science and Engineering Analytics Technical Director of the SPE and a member of the Advisory Committee of the SPE Reservoir Dynamics and Description Technical Discipline. He has been active in various editorial positions under SPE and also Elsevier. Currently he is the Editor In Chief for all SPE Journals.
Dindoruk is the only individual in the entire world serving as an editor-in-chief for the first three most cited oil, petroleum and natural gas journals on Google Scholar.
Dr. Dindoruk is well-known for his extensive work on thermodynamics of phase behavior/EOS development, miscibility assessment and experimental work, interaction of phase behavior and flow in porous media, enhanced oil recovery and CO2 sequestration, and correlative methodologies.
Recently, Dr. Dindoruk has also been working in the area of data analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning and focusing on effective incorporation of data sciences into the oil and natural gas industry practices and energy systems. In recent years, he has authored/co-authored various articles for hydrogen, geothermal systems and adsorptive storage.
Dindoruk has 28 years of industrial experience, holds a BSc Degree from Technical University of Istanbul in Petroleum Engineering, MSc Degree from The University of Alabama in petroleum engineering and also a PhD from Stanford University in Petroleum Engineering and Mathematics, and an MBA from University of Houston.
Host: Professor Jiajun He