Mature reservoirs · adaptive systems architecture · research programme

The end of commercial production is not the end of the reservoir.

Mature hydrocarbon reservoirs retain substantial capillary- and structurally-trapped volumes even after decades of production. SEVARIS develops the scientific foundations of an adaptive systems architecture that combines established methods field by field and operates them within explicit safety limits — as a research programme, not as a finished industrial system.

The problem

The end of production and depletion are not the same thing

The decline of a mature field describes commercial performance under the given operating conditions — not the volume actually remaining. The causes are falling reservoir pressure, preferential flow channels, early water breakthrough, capillary-trapped residual oil and unswept dead volumes. They concern mobility, not necessarily quantity.

At the same time, none of the established tertiary recovery methods — thermal, chemical or by gas injection — has provided a general answer to the geological heterogeneity of natural reservoirs. Each method addresses a particular mobilisation mechanism; none works equally across all reservoir types.

From this follows the guiding proposition: not another single method, but the field-specific and continuously adapted combination of established methods within a common digital control architecture offers the greatest potential.

And what does not follow. That the combination works is a working proposition, not a result. It must be demonstrated field by field through laboratory work, simulation and pilot.

What it is

A research programme with its evidence base declared

This description follows the scientific version of the undertaking. Its governing principle is the separation of what is established from what is plausible and from what is mere hypothesis. We maintain that separation in public communication as well.

E 1

Established

Supported by extensive, independently reproduced literature and industrial practice. May be taken into pilot projects after technical review.

E 2

Engineering-plausible

Consistent with established knowledge but not validated for the specific field. Requires documented laboratory or simulation evidence before any field application.

E 3

Hypothesis

Without a sound experimental or theoretical basis in the literature reviewed. May not be presented as a viable system component — not even to investors.

What that means in practice. Components at level E 3 are not described on this site. They are the subject of fundamental feasibility studies whose outcome is open — including the possibility that they prove untenable.

Components

Six components at levels E 1 and E 2

The following description sets out the task each component performs and how its evidence base is to be classified. The specific interconnection and the processes from whose interaction the overall system arises are not the subject of this description.

Component 1
Geological reassessment
Reprocessing of historical seismic data, high-resolution methods, well data and computer-assisted attribute analysis. Fields developed under the technical conditions of earlier decades carry structural uncertainties that can now be substantially reduced.
E 1
Component 2
Digital twin
A model of the reservoir continuously reconciled with measurement, production and pressure data, in place of the model created once and thereafter barely changed.
E 1 to E 2
Component 3
Adaptive flow management
Continuous reassessment of flood patterns, injection rates and well arrangement against the changing saturation state.
E 2
Component 4
Field-specific reservoir chemistry
Formulations aligned to crude chemistry, mineralogy, salinity, temperature and pore geometry. No universal recipe exists; tests on original cores are required.
E 1 to E 2
Component 5
Geomechanical operating window
Continuous determination of, and adherence to, the reservoir-specific pressure limits. As these vary locally, a single limit for an entire field frequently does not exist.
E 1
Component 6
Electrical near-field heating
Ohmic and dielectric heating in the immediate vicinity of the well to reduce viscosity. Its effect is confined to the near field; that is a limit of physics, not of implementation.
E 1 to E 2
Safety

Four principles that are not open to negotiation

Principle 1

Below the fracture limit

Every operating strategy remains permanently below the reservoir-specific fracture pressure demonstrated for the field. Optimisation methods may neither exceed nor alter that limit.

Principle 2

No hydraulic fracturing

Hydraulic fracturing is not part of the concept. This is not a restriction in the individual case but a determination of the programme.

Principle 3

Computational methods in an assisting role only

Pattern recognition, anomaly reporting and scenario comparison within limits set in advance. Safety-critical decisions do not rest on data-driven optimisation.

Principle 4

Independent protective functions

The protective functions are designed separately from any optimisation method and follow the requirements of functional safety under IEC 61511 and the ISA 84 series, with hazard analysis, defined safety integrity levels and independent verification.

Method

Why an advisory board and not a single opinion

The undertaking touches on seventeen scientific and technical disciplines. No individual and no uniformly composed team holds them at the required depth. In the literature, failures of technically ambitious undertakings regularly stem from too little external technical scrutiny, not from too much.

01

Interdisciplinary advisory board

A mandated scientific board drawn from seventeen disciplines — from reservoir engineering, geology and geomechanics through interfacial and polymer chemistry, high-frequency engineering, sensing and control engineering to safety science, environmental science and law.

02

Veto on safety matters

The disciplines of geomechanics and functional safety hold an independent veto against any operating strategy that endangers the pressure limits or the safety architecture.

03

Clearance before publication

No scientific, intellectual-property or investor-facing statement concerning components at level E 3 without the express clearance of the responsible discipline.

04

Staged clearance

Transition between development stages occurs only after documented review — from laboratory validation through hazard analysis to assessment on the basis of pilot data rather than simulation assumptions.

Roles

Who is responsible for what

Proprietor

IMS New Technologies AG

Proprietor of the brand and the associated know-how, Herisau, Switzerland. It directs the research programme, maintains the methodology and grants licences.

www.ims-nt.ch

Scientific advisory board

Technical oversight

An independently constituted body with rights of review, clearance and veto. Members disclose economic and institutional ties; success fees tied to a particular assessment are excluded.

Operators and partners

Field and plant

Reservoir operators, service providers and research institutions contribute in their respective roles. They are independent undertakings; their technologies and permits belong to them.

Contact

Enquiry

Write to us stating the field type, country, production history and the occasion of your enquiry. We work without a contact form and without a telephone hotline.

Notices and reservations

This description sets out SEVARIS at a functional level. The specific interconnection of the components and the processes from whose interaction the overall system arises are not the subject of this description; they constitute protected know-how and the subject matter of intended applications for industrial property rights. Disclosure takes place only upon conclusion of a confidentiality agreement and after the priority date has been secured.

All assessments made to date rest on published literature, not on the company’s own experiments, simulations or field trials. Statements about additionally recoverable volumes are not the subject of this site; in the absence of validated pilot data they could, under the systematics of the applicable evaluation guidelines, at most be classified as contingent resources and not as reserves.

Electrical and electromagnetic equipment in the well and plant environment is subject to explosion protection requirements. Electromagnetic transmission and power systems may, depending on their specification, qualify as dual-use goods under export control law; that assessment precedes any cross-border cooperation.

SEVARIS™ is a brand of IMS New Technologies AG.