Postdoc Impact of Upscaled Heterogeneity Reservoir-Scale Prediction

Join the Cross Scale team to build next-generation reservoir models and reveal how geological heterogeneity shapes uncertainty, advancing safer, more reliable geo-energy forecasts. Job description

As part of the Cross Scale project within the DeepNL Programme, you will take a leading role in investigating how small-scale geological heterogeneities shape reservoir-scale behaviour and uncertainty. Your work will focus on bridging fine-scale geological detail and field-scale reservoir models by developing and applying robust upscaling strategies, and by assessing how these choices influence uncertainty at the reservoir and field scale.

You will build a suite of high-resolution reservoir models for a sector of the Groningen field using advanced geomodelling workflows. These models will capture realistic geological uncertainty across different levels and scales of heterogeneity. Through numerical simulations with open-DARTS, you will evaluate how geological complexity translates into reservoir performance and establish robust uncertainty bounds.

In parallel, you will develop and test a second set of reservoir models aimed at evaluating upscaling techniques and Representative Elementary Volume (REV) scales identified within the wider Cross Scale project. You will also explore the integration of newly developed constitutive relations from other DeepNL projects into these simulations, assessing how these advanced formulations affect predicted reservoir behaviour.

Both the high-resolution and upscaled models will be calibrated using assisted history-matching methods in open-DARTS, incorporating production and compaction data from the Groningen field. Rather than reproducing the full production history, you will focus on recent data, and assess model quality through production forecasting and comparison with the most recent field observations.

You will benchmark the performance of the reference and upscaled models against models built using conventional workflows that do not employ the new upscaling methodology. This comparison is expected to demonstrate clear improvements in history-match quality and production-forecast reliability, highlighting the importance of appropriate REV identification and carefully designed upscaling strategies.

To quantify these improvements, you will apply global sensitivity analysis to evaluate the impact of varying REV scales and upscaling approaches. This analysis will identify the combinations that best reproduce the reference models and will provide a ranking of the geological heterogeneities that most strongly control reservoir characterisation and uncertainty at the field scale.

Through this work, you will contribute directly to advancing reservoir modelling practice by demonstrating that rigorous, geology-driven upscaling leads to more robust models and more reliable uncertainty estimates – insights that are critical for the safe and sustainable development of geo-energy projects.

As a successful candidate, you hold a PhD in reservoir engineering, geoscience, or a closely related field. You bring a strong foundation in reservoir engineering and multiphase flow, along with experience in reservoir simulation and programming, and an affinity for working with large and complex datasets. Experience with geoscience, geomechanics and geology is highly valued, but not a strict requirement.

Because this project sits at the interface of geology, reservoir engineering, and computational modelling, and Cross Scale also has a strong social science component, you enjoy working in an interdisciplinary, international, and collaborative research environment. You communicate clearly and effectively, and you are motivated to engage with researchers across different backgrounds and expertise.

Are you enthusiastic about geo-energy? Do you have a solid background in geology, hydrogeology, or reservoir engineering, and feel that you are a strong match for this position, even if you do not meet every single requirement yet? We strongly encourage you to apply. We are keen to learn about your vision for this project and how your skills and experience could contribute to advancing…