“Professor Mosegaard told us, that when people asked him what would be the probability of oil being present in a given geological field, he would reply “Well, what probability do you want?”. His point is that if you just make your grid wide enough, the probability of oil being present will be close to 100 per cent. But that is not helpful information, as you will not really have come closer to actually finding the oil,” Harm Jan Wubs smiles.
Employed at GDF SUEZ Exploration & Production Germany, Harm Jan Wubs attends the Discussion Meeting for the third time.
“I come here to listen. My main interest is what goes on within thermo dynamics. Are any new tools available for practical simulations? I am always interested in not only understanding the new tools, but also to learn of their limitations.”
Humour is an effective ingredient in any successful conference presentation, and even more so when the joke is actually relevant. According to Dr. Harm Jan Wubs this was the case for a presentation by CERE Professor, geophysicist Klaus Mosegaard.
“Professor Mosegaard told us, that when people asked him what would be the probability of oil being present in a given geological field, he would reply “Well, what probability do you want?”. His point is that if you just make your grid wide enough, the probability of oil being present will be close to 100 per cent. But that is not helpful information, as you will not really have come closer to actually finding the oil,” Harm Jan Wubs smiles.
“The joke illustrates quite well what brings me here. We do simulations every day, but we should always remember that our results are based not on nature itself, but on models. For instance we are often faced with scaling issues. Experiments are done in the lab, and we assume that you can apply the results at much larger scale, but this may not be reality. By attending here I have the chance to learn which fundamental problems are inherent in the various models. This tells me when and where we should be careful.”
This year Harm Jan Wubs has consulted CERE on a specific question regarding a gas well plugging problem encountered by the company.
“We are looking at various precipitation mechanisms that could be the cause. Obviously we would very much prefer to solve the issue through thermo dynamic simulations rather than field trials which are much more costly and time consuming. CERE has developed an outstanding expertise over the years, so we thought it would be worthwhile to ask their opinion and I wasn’t disappointed. The CERE faculty has provided some ideas which we will pursue.”