Associate Dean, College of Engineering Professor, Chemical Engineering Director, Petroleum Research Center Directorate, Utah Heavy Oil Center Tel (801) 581-7629 Fax (801) 585-9291 milind.deo@utah.edu Curriculum Vitae Teaching : www.che.utah.edu/~mddeo

Research specialities

• Multiphase flow in porous media; oil and gas reservoir engineering, large-scale reservoir simulation and enhanced oil recovery, large-scale, three-dimensional simulation of subsurface remediation processes.
• Reservoir characterization; conditional stochastic simulations; fractured reservoir characterization and simulation.
• Parallel processing; finite difference and finite element methods.
• Complex hydrocarbon mixtures (contaminant) chemistry characterization; high-temperature gas-chromatography (HT-GC), GC-MS and supercritical fluid chromatography.
• Supercritical fluid extraction; liquid-vapor, liquid-liquid, solid-liquid and solid-liquid-vapor phase behavior of complex hydrocarbon systems, absorption and adsorption technologies.
• Subsurface remediation; distribution of LNAPLs and DNAPLs in soils, thorough knowledge of contaminant chemistry, and characterization, monitoring and remediation techniques (including conventional pump and treat, air sparging and bioventing technologies and unconventional surfactant assisted technologies); conversant with most of the computer models employed for evaluating subsurface remediation technolgies.
• Mathematical modeling and simulation
• Pyrolysis kinetics, fixed and fluidized-bed reactors.

University Training

B.Tech., Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India.
Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, Texas.
Post-doctoral Fellowship, Petroleum Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California.

Current reserach project(s)

Online, Optimization-based Simulation of Fractured and Nonfractured Reservoirs, U.S. Department of Energy.

Reservoir simulation is a tool used for better reservoir management. There is a need to incorporate the most modern numerical algorithms in today's reservoir simulators. There is also a need to develop affordable parallel computing solutions so that the independent producers are able to use this sophisticated technology. There has been a great emphasis on the effect of reservoir geologic and petrophysical properties on reservoir performance; however, little research effort has been expended on understanding the effect of control variables on reservoir operation. This is a difficult constrained-optimization problem. When resolved this will lead to optimum reservoir operation, continuous performance monitoring and possibly automatic and continuous model updating based on reservoir history. This will open up a new era of efficient reservoir operation and maintenance which may keep a number of marginal fields in the United States in operation for a considerably longer period. Most reservoirs are fractured to a certain degree. Dual porosity, dual permeability models which are the current state-of-the-art in fractured reservoir simulation, smear out the fracture effect and are not able to model the spatially explicit nature of fracture networks, if known. There is a need for alternative, fundamentally different approaches, and the discrete-fracture modeling method is one such alternative. Implementation of the entire package (optimization, simulation, parallel computing) on the internet would open the technology to independent producers. Based on these research needs this project has four (4) specific goals.

1. Incorporate the most modern numerical schemes in reservoir simulation algorithms and implement the simulator on large PC clusters to demonstrate affordable parallel reservoir simulation.

2. Develop optimization-based reservoir simulators so that development of oil reservoirs is planned in an economically optimal fashion and oil fields are operated optimally over their lifetime.

3. Complete the development of the University of Utah discrete-fracture model so that an alternative production-level fractured reservoir model is available.

4. Implement the entire package on the internet (with adequate protection of intellectual property rights) so that the technology is available and accessible to a wide group of independents.

Online optimal development will also help educate the public about the way oil reservoirs work, the constraints under which the reservoirs in particular and the industry in general operate. This public outreach will help the domestic oil industry immensely and will to a certain extent help arrest the decline in oil production in United States.

The State Centers of Excellence Program – Petroleum Research Center (State of Utah)

The Petroleum Research Center (PERC) at the University of Utah was established to conduct research and development studies leading to practical, cost-effective solutions to liquid hydrocarbon production, handling and transportation. As originally envisioned, this research is resulting in a variety of products and methods that should be commercialized, and potentially would have an extremely large global market. The following is a list of products and services that are on their way to commercialization.

• Online Wax Measurement Phase I: Beta Version
• Online Wax Measurement Phase II: Chemometrics
• Online Wax Measurement Phase III: Online Control and Pipeline Optimization Pipeline Flow Model
• Discrete-Fracture Reservoir Simulation Models
• Oil Simulants
• Online FTIR-Food Industry Applications

Selected publications

Yang, Yi-kun and Deo, M. D., A Flux-Conservative Control Volume Finite Element Method for Multiphase Flow in Porous Media, In Review, SIAM J.

Oh, K., Ring, T. A. and Deo, M. D., 2004, Asphaltene Aggregation in Organic Solvents, J. Colloid Interface Sci., 271, 212-219.

Oh, K. and Deo, M. D., 2002, Effect of Organic Additives on the Onset of Asphaltene Precipitation, Energy & Fuels, 16, 694-699.

Parra-Ramirez, M. and Deo, M.D., 2001, Comparison of first and multiple-contact carbondioxide induced precipitation, SPE 65019, Paper presented at the SPE International Symposium in Oil Field Chemistry, Feb. 13-16, 2001, Houston, Texas.

Kim, J. and Deo, M. D., 2000, A Finite Element, Discrete-Fracture Model for Multiphase Flow in Porous Media, AiChE J., Volume 46, #6, 1120-1130.

Deo, M. D., Forster, C. and Schamel, S., 1999, Strategies for Steam Flood Optimization in a High-Water Saturation Reservoir in the Midway Sunset Field, SPE 54075, Proc. of the International Thermal Operations and Heavy Oil Symposium, Bakersfield, CA.