KFU’s Resneuro software suite wins IT Leader Award
Researchers at Kazan Federal University’s Institute of Geology and Petroleum Technologies have received the IT Leader Award in the Science and Technology category for developing the Resneuro software suite.
Established in 2023 with support from Russia’s Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media, the award recognizes Russian developers and aims to identify and promote the best domestic IT solutions. This year, awards were presented in 12 categories, including two new ones: Science and Technology, and Culture.
The final round of the competition, in which participants presented and defended their projects, took place during the Kazan Digital Week forum, according to Vladislav Sudakov, Deputy Director for Marketing at the Gazpromneft–KFU Research and Education Center.
“We have been developing the Resneuro software suite since 2021,” he explained. “It began as a joint project with Tatneft, but is now being developed as a standalone software product under the Priority 2030 program and has potential applications across a range of oil and gas companies. As oil reserves become increasingly depleted each year, identifying remaining reserves becomes essential. Resneuro is specifically designed to locate them in late-life oil fields.”
Vasilya Garifullina, Senior Research Associate at the Institute’s Digital Earth Laboratory, described the methodology underlying the innovative project.
“Remaining oil reserves are most often found in parts of reservoirs where hydrocarbons have undergone the least biodegradation. The methodology we have developed allows us to identify these areas, which are bounded by water-swept, high-permeability zones,” said Garifullina, one of the project’s developers. “The main challenge is to delineate these areas accurately and select effective methods for developing them. Resneuro makes it possible not only to estimate the volume and pinpoint the location of remaining oil accumulations — bypassed oil pockets — in large, late-life fields, but also to manage their development effectively. This can substantially increase the oil recovery factor.”
Garifullina noted that neural networks are used to locate bypassed oil pockets within water-swept areas. They analyze extensive information on the reservoir’s geological and physical characteristics, the properties of the produced fluids, and well performance data. The software’s strong predictive performance has been confirmed by geochemical monitoring results and incremental oil production.
The Resneuro software suite is protected by 12 patents, including two international patents. It has been tested at the Romashkino oil field in Tatarstan, which has approximately 40,000 wells.
“The Institute of Geology and Petroleum Technologies is successfully developing projects based on neural networks and large language models. Our IT experts are among the country’s leaders in applying these tools to oil and gas prospecting, exploration, and field development. Next on the agenda is the creation of a ‘digital core’ — one of the most relevant and sought-after technologies for the future of the oil and gas industry, but also one of the most resource-intensive. This work will be supported by the agreement signed between universities and leading oil and gas companies at the Kazan Digital Week forum. The technology was the subject of a lively discussion at the Digital Core roundtable,” said Danis Nurgaliev, Director of the Institute of Geology and Petroleum Technologies.