Page 34: of Marine Technology Magazine (April 2013)

Cenpes building is located, just across the street from the old Cenpes complex. The $700 million structure, is a low struc- ture, and proposes to be an environmentally friendly building. It has a mostly transparent roof in form of a wave which lets in sunlight to reduce energy consumption. The top ß oors are adorned with a host of small gardens that receive sunlight from the roof and also collect and drain rainwater. In between these gardens are rest areas for staff. The lower ß oors house admin- istrative ofÞ ces, conference rooms and auditoriums, with the high technology labs located on the ground ß oor. One would expect large laboratories in such a sprawling futuristic build- ing, yet that is not the case, and upon examining the labs and speaking to researchers, it becomes clear that what is really important here is the high aggregate value of the minds that work in these labs, along with the state-of-the-art equipment and the experience accumulated along many years of research. Two of the most important labs are the Geophysics lab, known as Rock Physics Laboratory, which deals with mea- surements of seismic velocity in rock samples using a method of propagation of ultrasonic pulses. In this lab it is possible to measure the reservoir under real conditions: pressure, temper- ature and saturation. By analyzing seismic velocity data mea- sured in the Laboratory of Rock Physics and other data from other Cenpes laboratories is possible to calibrate the seismic images used to evaluate reservoir potential and change these properties for rocks that are useful for developing oil Þ elds and also to help to monitor production. The database of accumulated information in these labs is in-valuable to pinpoint new reservoirs and to plan water or CO2 injection parameters to increase reservoir pressures in order to facilitate and increase production: important in both new deepwater acreage as well as in older shallow water Þ elds.Another important lab is the Fluids Laboratory, coordinated by Rosana Lomba. This lab carries out research to develop in- novations in drilling and completion ß uid technology, such as developing drilling ß uids, the suitability of ß uid formulations O shore Brazil April 201334 MTRMTR #3 (34-49).indd 34MTR #3 (34-49).indd 344/4/2013 9:08:58 AM4/4/2013 9:08:58 AM