The University of Tulsa's Petroleum Engineering Department

Born in Sao Paulo State in Brazil, he got his bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering in 1976 from The Sao Paulo University. He joined Petrobras in 1978, when the offshore petroleum industry was still in its infancy in Brazil. He became petroleum engineer after attending a one yearlong Petrobras in-house specialization course, followed by an equally long period in field operations. All his graduate work was performed at the Tulsa University Petroleum Engineering Department, MS between 1981 and 1983, and PhD between 1988 and 1991, both in the Multiphase Flow area. Jim Brill was his adviser for the MS degree while Ovadia Shoham was his advisor for the PhD degree. He spent close to 20 years working for the Petrobras R&D Center, CENPES, mainly as a research scientist, covering technical areas such as multiphase flow in pipes, flow assurance, artificial lift and subsea boosting. He has also held managerial positions at CENPES during this period. For the past four years, he is the Artificial Lift and Flow Assurance Manager at the Petrobras headquarters office, in Rio. He is responsible for technology application in these areas. During his technical career at Petrobras, he has worked on several research and development projects, that contributed to the tremendous technical advancements achieved by Petrobras in deep water production.

Kazu in his own words:

Why did you choose TU?

As a young engineer at CENPES then, I frequently read the TU abstracts, where I found several good references to technical "staff" coming from TU, in my area of interest. I found repeatedly names such as Kermit Brown, Jim Brill, and JJ Azar, to name a few. In performing my job in developing technology and simulation tools, many of these published works became my daily reading material, including the then famous Brown´s books and the never published Brill & Beggs Multiphase Flow in Pipes "blue book". So I had no doubt to apply for TU when I had the chance to pursue my master´s degree work, fully supported by Petrobras. In addition, all former Petrobras TU students gave me excellent evaluation, indicating that, definitely, TU was best school in Production Research.

How was your experience at TU?

My experience at TU was definitely fantastic. For my PhD, although I considered other universities, after a careful screening among top universities around the World, I ended up selecting TU. Something inside me, in addition to the "strong recommendation" coming from Raquel - my wife, who is in love with Tulsa ever since - was pushing me towards my beloved school, again. TU not only prepared me well, but also a group of Petrobras staff. I thank all the professors from the several TU departments, and my former advisers, Jim Brill, Z. Schmidt, and Ovadia Shoham, who, as a whole, prepared and guided me throughout my graduate studies, shaping me up to the professional I am. I think that the multiphase production technology Petrobras applied so successfully in its offshore fields was put together, in good part, by professionals prepared by TU, like me. Our in house simulators for multiphase flow design and artificial lift are all based on knowledge disseminated or created by the several professors and students engaged in research consortia such as TUFFP, TUALP and TUSTP.

Do you have any fond memories?

I had such a good life at TU, despite the never ending pressure of an intense academic work, that it is hard to select a few good episodes. Spending quality time with other fellow students, learning from their life experience and culture, was certainly a great experience. Teasing Luis Macias Chapa, a Mexican, or Argentineans in general on soccer team performances was delightful. Teasing fellow reservoir engineering students (and professors) about the simplicity of the only Partial Differential Equation (Darcy´s Law) they had to deal with, and the time it is taking them to solve it, was another. But there were two episodes that are worth mentioning. On the technical side, after I completed my PhD. The first was a paper we (Dr. Shoham and I) submitted to a SPE Journal, based on the main contribution of my dissertation, namely, Pigging Dynamics in Two-Phase Flow Pipelines - Experiment and Modeling". To my disappointment, it was turned down by the reviewers, at first. We replied back with all the justification we could come up with. It was finally published in 1995. The best part is that it was selected as the SPE Production & Facilities Best Paper of 1995! That was a good surprise for myself and Ovadia. The second episode also relates to a paper. As a side activity to my PhD research work, I had gone over a technical issue in multiphase flow area. I developed a new theoretical model for a phenomenon that would fit experimental observations and data published by others. But at the same time, it would challenge one of their experimental observation and conclusion. That was towards the end of my doctorate studies. I wrote a manuscript of a paper with the developed mathematical model and its comparisons with the experimental data, collected by these authors, and asked Dr. Taitel, invited professor then, to review it and to become a co-author. To me, it was a good paper already! After carefully reviewing the manuscript he said he had to decline to sign the paper, as the model challenged part of the experiments conducted by others. He would co-sign the paper only if I could prove him my point, by repeating their experiments. Relying only on the theory was somewhat risky, especially for Dr. Taitel, a worldwide recognized researcher in the multiphase flow area. Since I had no time to work on the subject, I left the incomplete paper with Ovadia, my adviser. He, in turn, one or two years later, had a student, Sridhar Amaravadi, to perform the experiments and complete the work. His experiments supported the proposed model and the conclusion. This work was then submitted for publication at the SPE Journal, having Sridhar, Ovadia and me as authors. After going through some reviews, finally it was accepted and published in 1998, under the title "Two-Phase Zero-Net Liquid Flow in Upward Inclined Pipes: Experiment and Modeling". The big surprise was that the paper was selected for the 1999 Cedrik K. Ferguson Award (for young investigators), as the best peer reviewed paper of SPE during 1998!!!