Challenge:
With a decades-long working relationship of building their in-house simulation capabilities with the support of SIMULIA technologies, ExxonMobil wanted to further strengthen their simulation toolkit to enable them to better address the many challenges involved in the subsurface extraction of shale gas.
Solution:
SIMULIA worked closely with Exxon to develop state-of-the-art general-purpose material models, finite-element technology, and computational procedures including fluid dynamics (CFD) and particle flow dynamics (PFD)—aimed at identifying solutions that could be applied in the field.
Benefits:
This collaborative effort between ExxonMobil and SIMULIA led to fundamental enhancements to the power of simulation to address key drilling, completion and production challenges. SIMULIA’s advanced simulation technologies and 3D visualization are playing an increasingly vital role in the success of ExxonMobil and the energy industry at large.
In just the last decade, the outlook for clean-burning natural gas as a major contributor to meeting global demand for energy has dramatically changed. In 2000, shale gas represented just one percent of natural gas supplies in the U.S., for example. Today that figure is 30 percent and rising.
Why? Because innovative solutions developed from technologies long used by oil and gas companies, are now being applied successfully to unconventional resources like shale rock as well. This subsurface work is filled with all kinds of technical challenges that require detailed insights and understanding of the complex physics involved. One major company taking a leadership role in the use of simulation to power such innovation is ExxonMobil.
ExxonMobil was an early licensee (in the late 1970s) of Abaqus software in the energy sector. The relationship was more than simply commercial—ExxonMobil was also an early collaborator with SIMULIA on technology development to enable simulation of key energy-sector performance challenges.
Watch this video interview with Bruce Dale,
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