About

The Unconventional Natural Resources Consortium (UNRC) is a research effort between industry and academia to analyze natural gas and oil reservoirs and production in unconventional plays. The main objective is to provide long-term support to cutting-edge research in the area of unconventional resources exploitation and development, and disseminate research results to UNRC members.

Unconventional resources typically span large areas of poorly understood geologic formations such as ultra-deep reservoirs, low-permeability formations, and environmentally sensitive areas. Currently the most substantial volume of unconventional natural resources can be found in the form of coal-bed methane, tight sands, gas shales, and oil shales. The significance of oil and gas production from these plays continuously grows within the U.S. domestic portfolio. Ongoing recovery of natural resources from these poorly understood plays depends on technological developments and a research effort championed by UNRC.

How to Join

To become a member, contact one of the UNRC Directors: Luis F. Ayala H. or Russell T. Johns at unrc@ems.psu.edu

Research Areas

Envisioned research projects will focus on the reservoir engineering areas of unconventional natural gas and oil resource exploration and production technology, with an emphasis in shale gas, tight gas, and shale oil formations. However, members are encouraged to provide research topics and data so that research by the consortium is company led, not Penn State led. Areas of interest include:

• Fluid flow modeling and recovery mechanisms in shale gas reservoirs and tight sands
• New generation reservoir engineering analysis tools for shale gas and tight sands such as material balance techniques, reserve analysis based on production data from vertical and horizontal wells, and deliverability test analysis protocols
• Well test analysis and protocols for ultra tight systems
• Well test analysis in horizontal wells with transverse fractures in composite double porosity systems and reservoir response to transverse hydraulic fracturing in shale reservoirs
• X-ray computed micro-tomography studies to investigate the effects of rock heterogeneities and flowing conditions on the mobility of immiscible fluids through geologic formations, fracture fluid leak-off, and hydraulic fracture conductivity
• Artificial expert applications: performance prediction of shale gas and tight sand reservoirs, synthetic well log generation, identification of pay zones, productivity forecast based on seismic data, optimal production strategies.
• Fluid flow modeling and recovery mechanisms in coalbed methane reservoirs
• Well test analysis and protocols in coalbed methane reservoirs