Extended Reality Innovations for Reservoir Engineering

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The primary objective of the oil and gas industry is to find hydrocarbon deposits and determine economical strategies for recovery. In pursuit of this goal, oil and gas professionals must perform complex tasks on 3D representations of the subsurface. These complex tasks also require the analysis of large quantities and varieties of data within the context of these representations. Immersive, extended reality (XR) technologies such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) have undergone a renaissance over the last few years and high-quality hardware is now widely available. What remains unsolved is how to apply these technologies to improve workflows in industry. Immersive applications have many benefits that are thought to be applicable to reservoir engineering. This project combines the research expertise of Dr. Zhangxing (John) Chen and Dr. Frank Maurer with the experienced team at CMG Ltd. to unlock these benefits. Dr. Chen has extensive experience in modelling and simulation for reservoir engineering, and his team has successfully developed several extended reality prototypes for reservoir engineering that have been well received by industry. Dr. Maurer brings extensive research expertise in human-computer interaction for immersive analytics applications. CMG Ltd. is a leader in the development of reservoir simulation and analysis software. This team is uniquely positioned to uncover how extended reality can provide value for the field of reservoir engineering. Their collective expertise allows them to determine the best way to apply immersive technologies effectively to reservoir engineering workflows to provide greater efficiencies when analyzing complex scientific data sets. This project will develop techniques to utilize extended reality for improved understanding of scenarios, more efficient workflows and greater collaboration while advancing the energy industry in Canada to the forefront of understanding how to apply these exciting new visual and interactive technologies to real-world problems.