Ole Torsæter
Background and activities
Born September 18, 1951, Norwegian.
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Professor Emeritus in reservoir engineering, NTNU.
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Research Associate, PoreLab, Norwegian Center of Excellence, NTN U and University of Oslo.
Siv.ing. ( 1975, NTH) and Dr.ing. (1983, NTH) both in petroleum technology / reservoir engineering.
Experience: Ole Torsæter is Professor Emeritus in reservoir engineering at NTNU and research associate at PoreLab, Norwegian Centre of Excellence at NTNU and University of Oslo (UiO). Associate Professor at NTH 1983-1990 and Professor at NTH/NTNU 1990-2021. He was Adjunct Professor at Department of Physics, UiO, 2027-2021. He had research positions with SINTEF, Phillips Petroleum Co., USA, and ResLab before he became professor. He has been a visiting professor at New Mexico Tech, Texas A & M, University of Bordeaux and visiting investigator at A*STAR in Singapore. Torsæter has been the main supervisor for about 220 Master thesis and 25 PhD thesis, and he is author/coauthor of more than 200 research publications. The subject areas for his teaching and research are experimental reservoir engineering, flow in porous media, fractured reservoirs and enhanced oil recovery methods. Presently Torsæter’s research activity is focused on wettability on pore scale and on mobilizing residual oil by using nanofluids. Ole Torsæter has a Master - degree in petroleum engineering from Norwegian Institute of Technology in 1975 and a Dr.ing. - degree from the same institution in 1983 with a thesis on water imbibition in chalk from the Ekofisk Field where he showed that Ekofisk was a good candidate for water flooding. Torsæter received the Darcy Technical Achievement Award from the Society of Core Analysts in 2014, Distinguished Achievement Award for Petroleum Engineering Faculty (2016) and Management and Information Award (2018), both from Society of Petroleum Engineers, North Sea Region. Torsæter is Member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Technology.
Academic and professional committees: Presently member of several international technical and review committees on reservoir engineering / EOR.
Doctoral student supervision: Main supervisor for 25 PhD graduates in reservoir engineering.
Research:
Experimental reservoir engineering (routine and special core analysis), Evaluation of fractured reservoirs, Enhanced oil recovery methods, Wettability, Nanofluids for EOR, Pore scale experimental studies of fluid distribution and flow.
Teaching:
Reservoir Engineering, Flow in Porous Media, Unconventional Oil and Gas Reservoirs, Fractured Reservoirs.
On-going research:
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Microscopical characteristics of two phase flow in porous media:
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Nanofluids for enhanced oil recovery
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Wettablility on pore scale
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Microfluidics in reservoir engineering
Scientific, academic and artistic work
A selection of recent journal publications, artistic productions, books, including book and report excerpts. See all publications in the database
Journal publications
- (2022) Water flooding of sandstone oil reservoirs: Underlying mechanisms in imbibition vs. drainage displacement. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering. vol. 213.
- (2022) Polymer-Coated Silica Nanoparticles for Enhanced Oil Recovery in Water-Wet Berea Sandstone Core Plugs. Advances in Science, Technology & Innovation (ASTI).
- (2022) Experimental Investigation of the Effect of Silica Nanoparticles on Interfacial Tension and Wettability during Low Salinity Water Flooding: A Micromodel Study. Journal of Modern Nanotechnology. vol. 2 (1).
- (2021) A Crucial Role of the Applied Capillary Pressure in Drainage Displacement. SPE Journal. vol. 26 (04).
- (2021) Experimental investigation of polymer-coated silica nanoparticles for EOR under harsh reservoir conditions of high temperature and salinity. Nanomaterials. vol. 11 (765).
- (2021) Application of Low-Salinity Waterflooding in Carbonate Cores: A Geochemical Modeling Study. Natural Resources Research. vol. 30 (1).
- (2021) High salinity and high temperature stable colloidal silica nanoparticles with wettability alteration ability for EOR application. Nanomaterials. vol. 11 (707).
- (2021) Visualizing and Quantifying Wettability Alteration by Silica Nanofluids. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. vol. 13.
- (2021) Smart Proxy Modeling of a Fractured Reservoir Model for Production Optimization: Implementation of Metaheuristic Algorithm and Probabilistic Application. Natural Resources Research. vol. 30 (3).
- (2021) Effect of convective mixing process on storage of CO2 in saline aquifers with layered permeability. Advances in Chemical Research. vol. 3 (1).
- (2021) Application of nanoparticles for oil recovery. Nanomaterials. vol. 11 (1063).
- (2020) A core flood and microfluidics investigation of nanocellulose as a chemical additive to water flooding for EOR. Nanomaterials. vol. 10 (7).
- (2020) Polymer-functionalized silica nanoparticles for improving water flood sweep efficiency in Berea sandstones. E3S Web of Conferences. vol. 146 (02001).
- (2020) Enhancing oil recovery with hydrophilic polymer-coated silica nanoparticles. Energies. vol. 13 (21).
- (2020) Fluid flow through 3D-printed particle beds: a new technique for understanding, validating, and improving predictability of permeability from empirical equations. Transport in Porous Media. vol. 134.
- (2020) Experimental investigation of stability of silica nanoparticles at reservoir conditions for enhanced oil-recovery applications. Nanomaterials. vol. 10 (1522).
- (2020) Dynamic wettability alteration for combined low salinity brine injection and surfactant flooding on silica surface. SN Applied Sciences. vol. 2.
- (2020) The effect of wettability and flow rate on oil displacement using polymer-coated silica nanoparticles: A microfluidic study. Processes. vol. 8 (8).
- (2020) Experimental investigation of the effect of adding nanoparticles to polymer flooding in water-wet micromodels. Nanomaterials. vol. 10 (1489).
- (2020) Pore throat structure characteristics and its effect on flow behavior in Gaotaizi tight siltstone reservoir, Northern Songliao Basin. Marine and Petroleum Geology. vol. 122 (104651).