Nancy House, SEG
The SEG EVOLVE CCUS Program will bring together multidisciplinary teams of students and early career professional to evaluate real-world datasets using new approaches for carbon capture technology, including sequestration, utilization, and storage. The program is designed to build a qualified next generation of CCUS technologists by providing a virtual internship that facilitates the rapid development of capability through experiential learning utilizing real world data sets while leveraging experience from qualified subject matter experts.
SEG’s EVOLVE Exploration Program has been successfully providing students and early career professionals with “Best Opportunity” Exploration experience through multidisciplinary virtual teams who load, analyze, interpret, and present “Investment Opportunities” for the past 4-years. The program has consistently produced technical presentations aimed at management funding of E&P Projects worthy of teams with several years of industry experience. EVOLVE CCUS will expand this preparation to equip a workforce for critical geoscience support for CCUS Projects vital to a net-zero future.
The SEG EVOLVE CCUS Program will launch a pilot in 2022 as a 4-month educational/experiential learning opportunity. Teams will be introduced with a problem and a data set, not fully interpreted, to use as a basis of analysis. Use of a cloud environment and Industry software support will provide the suite of tools needed.
It will pose a problem in different areas of carbon capture and mitigation for reservoir characterization, injection, monitoring and civil engineering. Through individual team development (weekly individual team mentoring), collaborative team engagements (weekly progress sharing meetings), and mentoring sessions from experienced volunteer professionals, the teams will be tasked with generating the best carbon mitigation and utilization proposal. Proposal outcomes could include ways to positively impact the volume of carbon in the environment, ways to produce profit through repurposing of the carbon, or other practicable outcomes Two program milestones will be defined as mid-term presentation with research, interpretation, and solution proposal progress, with the final project presentation showcasing the best mitigation and utilization proposal and economic analysis of the implementation. Additionally, the program will provide opportunities for students to present their final project proposals at an SEG or partnered workshop/event focusing on Carbon Solutions.
The Project Content will include:
Starting with a geologically characterized reservoir, the team will:
- Integrate geophysics, geology, petrophysics and reservoir engineering data
- Evaluate geomechanics, chemistry, and reservoir impact of sequestering (injecting CO₂)
- Plan injection program, simulation and how to monitor the success
- Plan, implement and evaluate injection plan.
Team will describe the project plan, evaluate the economics of the project and prepare a presentation to support the project to Sponsors as either a “Management Team” or “Funding Organization”
The timeline for the pilot program is targeted as:
- Call for Applications May 2022
- Program Kickoff August-2022
- Materials/Tools & technical analysis August-September 2022
- Program Finalization December 2022
- Presentation of the Results January 2023
This program will equip Early Career Professionals with necessary skillset and practical implementations to enter the workforce experienced in critical skills for CCUS with a minimal ramp up time.