Jose Antonio Guevara Gonzalez is a Level "A" Technical Specialist in the Secondary and Enhanced Recovery Management Area in PEMEX´s Exploration and Production Unit. His research area is on reservoir modeling with a focus on Enhanced Oil Recovery techniques. In this interview he talks about the importance of HPC in the changing oil and gas landscape and how ENERXICO is helping Pemex it´s oil exploitation process.
What is your motivation for pursuing research in this area?
My motivation, which is aligned with the company needs, is the Oil Reserves increase. Or in other words, extend the productive life of oil wells and reservoirs. In fact, the tool that helps us to optimize the exploitation of reservoirs is the reservoir simulator, which gives us insight on different producing scenarios, such as opening and closing existing wells, drilling new wells, injecting different fluids such as water or gases at different regions or rates, etc.
What would you have done if you were not a researcher?
I would have dedicated my efforts to learn agronomy, focusing in producing food from the earth or, to astronomy, trying to understand the supreme order that governs the universe.
Have you encountered any challenges in pursuing your research career?
I have faced many and different challenges, all of them with a high degree of complexity. Too many to mention here. The main outcome of this constant process is that I realized I must be constantly improving my knowledge and skills in order to solve problems and overcome challenges.
Do you think HPC is changing the oil and gas landscape?
Yes, of course. Actually, HPC is allowing companies around the world to have access to serious computing power and enabling them to explore and solve problems that where too complicated or expensive to solve before. In the case of the oil and gas companies, such as PEMEX, we now have access to a more powerful reservoir simulator with a huge improvement in resolution and surprisingly low computing times.
What do you think is the importance of ENERXICO to PEMEX?
ENERXICO is helping PEMEX, through technological development, to optimize the whole process of oil exploitation and production by giving us access to HPC technologies along with a state-of-the-art reservoir simulator and PVT properties package incorporated in the simulator.
