Fattahi	Johnson

Executive Editors of SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering alternate writing the Executive Summary. This issue's summary is by Behrooz Fattahi.

In this issue, I want to report on the progress on several fronts regarding the peer review process and this journal. In October 2006, when I started my term as the journal’s Reservoir Engineering Executive Editor, I inherited a list of approximately 120 technical reviewers. In attempting to update the list, it quickly became obvious that only approximately 75 people on the list were active participants.

In mid-July 2007, I sent letters to approximately 4,000 SPE members who, on their membership profile, had marked Reservoir Description and Dynamics as their principal area of experience and had indicated a willingness to review technical papers, and I invited them to participate in the peer-review process as volunteer technical reviewers. I requested that they complete a short form and attach their resumes. More than 1,000 applications came back, and I reviewed them all. I am happy to report that I have been able to recruit 240 new technical editors for the Reservoir Engineering side of the journal, and route more than 200 applications to Executive Editor Alan Johnson for him to consider as additional technical editors on the Reservoir Evaluation side. The newly-recruited technical editors are highly qualified engineers and scientists who come from academia as well as small and large operating companies. Fig. 1, which is limited to the reservoir engineering side, shows how the available technical review expertise has increased as a result of this exercise.

Fig. 1—Increase in Available Reservoir Engineering Expertise

I believe that the addition of new technical reviewers will provide better quality recommendations because of the lighter load on each reviewer, as well as enabling each paper to be reviewed by three experts instead of the current system of two reviews. In addition to teams of technical editors (each team reporting to a Review Chair), I am in the process of creating a team of highly regarded special experts on several topics who will assist me in reviewing appeals by authors and discussions submitted on papers as well as providing opinions on narrow and specialized subjects.

As SPE evolves, it recently reorganized its publications group. Under the reorganization/process optimization plan, the publications process is also under review by a consultant and this should contribute to a more effective peer review process.

With a team of highly qualified experts and an expanded coverage for special topics, my next goal is to establish a lean and disciplined process. This will entail adhering to the deadlines identified in the review process. An effective and quick paper-tracking system is needed and will be implemented to help the team monitor the process. Eventually, I want to address our journal’s ranking among similar publications. I am planning to form a small task force to identify the issues and recommend ways to improve our ranking.

Since SPE is a volunteer-driven organization, our success in improving the process of peer review will depend on the dedication of our technical reviewers. I am grateful for their devotion and commitment to this process.

This issue of the journal brings you 13 excellent papers:

• The first paper, by Zhang, Youn, and Doan, presents the results of the utility of 4D-seismic and crosswell seismic imaging at Christina Lake, Alberta, Canada, in understanding steam-chamber growth and the impact of reservoir architecture on steam movement. As a result, bypassed oil in several areas within the reservoir was identified.

• In the second paper, by Kumar, Ramanan, and Narasimham, the authors examine the use of horizontal and multilateral wells in redeveloping Mumbai High, a mature and multilayered oil field. As a result, the declining oil production was arrested and an increasing trend was established.

• In the third paper, Moridis, Kowalsky, and Pruess investigate the application of conventional technology in depressurization-induced gas production from Class 1 hydrate deposits. They show that capillary pressure effects play an important part in gas production from hydrates through the emergence of banded structures of alternating high-gas-saturation channels.

• The fourth paper, by Jessen and Stenby, presents a detailed analysis of the quality of two different fluid characterization procedures for miscible EOR and CO2 sequestration. The research shows that swelling tests in some gas/oil systems do not contribute to more accurate estimation of multicontact miscibility.

• The subject of the fifth paper, by Ghorayeb and Holmes, is black-oil delumping. The authors present a comprehensive black-oil delumping method to overcome the limitation of black-oil-simulation models in providing detailed compositional information for the purpose of surface process modeling.

• The sixth paper, by Coats, Thomas, and Pierson, discusses two methods for the simulation of first-contact miscible, multicontact miscible, and vaporizing gas drive. Both methods allow bypassed oil to be implicitly calculated as a function of pressure and composition during the simulation.

• In the seventh paper, Satik, Kumar, DeFrancisco, Hoang, and Basham conduct a numerical simulation study to investigate important modeling parameters for more accurately predicting steamflood performance. The results show that the status of surrounding patterns has a significant effect on calculated-production-rate decline of the target pattern. The authors recommend that the influence of boundary patterns must be properly accounted for in simulation models.

• The eighth paper of this issue is authored by Chen and Horne. Conducting experiments, the authors study phase transformation effects on relative permeabilities in fractures. The results suggest that relative permeabilities accounting for phase transformation effects have to be used in the simulation modeling of geothermal and solution gas reservoirs.

• The ninth paper, by Svirsky, van Dijke, and Sorbie, presents the results of a study that confirms the ability of a simple network model anchored to experimental data to predict three-phase relative permeabilities with reasonable accuracy. The authors also discuss the limitations of the network model, such as reproduction of the imbibition behavior of the two-phase oil relative permeabilities for highly permeable systems.

• In the 10th paper, authors Alhuthali, Oyerinde, and Datta-Gupta propose an approach for computing optimal injection and production rates to maximize sweep efficiency. They present 2D-synthetic and 3D-field examples to support the robustness of their proposed approach. The approach can be applied using both finite-difference and streamline simulators.

• The 11th paper of this issue, by Terrado, Yudono, and Thakur, illustrates how practical application of surveillance principles can be critical to understanding reservoir performance leading to improved recovery. The paper outlines a practical guideline to consistently evaluate the reservoir performance from field to block to pattern to well level.

• The subject of the 12th paper, by Cozzi, Ruvo, Scaglioni, and Lyne, is improving permeability log estimation by core-plug data preprocessing. The authors investigate the application of two techniques on turbidite reservoirs and identify the strength and weaknesses of both approaches.

• The 13th paper of this issue, by Behrend, Chugh, and McKishnie, discusses the development of the Strasshof Tief sour-gas field and whether acid gas injection could be a viable alternative to a sulfur plant. Compositional simulation modeling was conducted to investigate the viability of the injection and to optimize the placement of the injectors as well as the timing and duration of the injection.

—Behrooz Fattahi