Several oil companies and others are participating in a $52 million, 3 year initiative to develop scientific and commercial software for supercomputers.
The program stems from an agreement between the U.S. Department of Energy and Cray Research Inc. to apply supercomputer technology to industrial needs.
Various participating organizations will work on different research projects.
OIL, GAS OBJECTIVES
Researchers employed by one participant in the program, Amoco Production Research Co., Tulsa, Okla., will write a computer program for oil and gas reservoir simulation that will run on Cray's new T3D massively parallel processor (MPP) supercomputer.
Amoco researchers will work in cooperation with Cray and DOE's Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. As a result of the research efforts, an MPP reservoir simulation software product will be commercially available to the oil and gas industry by 1996.
"State of the art advanced technology in reservoir simulation will enable Amoco and other companies in the industry to recover the vast amount of reserves still existing in mature reservoirs in the U.S. and increase domestic oil and gas production," said Wolfgang Schollnberger, Amoco Production vice-president of research. "This technology will also help us find, develop, and produce more natural gas in the North American continent."
MPP supercomputers will allow reservoir simulations that normally require several days or weeks to be run in less than 1 hr, Schollnberger said. The supercomputer simulations will also give a much more accurate location of residual oil and gas.
Meanwhile, Cray and DOE's Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories will work with 15 other companies on various applications.
The projects include research in environmental contamination and remediation, materials design applications targeted at improving processes as common and important as welding and casting, and advanced manufacturing software projects relating to satellite technology, automotive air bags, and semiconductors.
The other organizations involved include Boeing Co., Exxon Research, and AT&T Bell Laboratories.
Copyright 1994 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 1994 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.
