About

Anthony Kovscek is the Keleen and Carlton Beal Professor of Petroleum Engineering and a Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford University. He holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, obtained in 1994, and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Washington, earned in 1989. His academic and professional focus is on energy systems, with a particular emphasis on petroleum engineering and the mechanistic control of unconventional formations. Kovscek is actively involved in research and education within the Earth Systems Program at Stanford, contributing to the advancement of energy sustainability and innovative energy technologies.

Research topics

• Petroleum engineering
• Geology
• Environmental science
• Chemistry
• Waste management
• Mineralogy
• Cartography
• Engineering
• Ecology
• Geotechnical engineering
• Geochemistry
• Paleontology
• Earth science
• Geography
• Biology

Selected publications

• Where is Electricity Curtailment Happening in California? Opportunities for Underground Energy Storage

  SPE Western Regional Meeting · 2025-04-25

  articleSenior author

  Abstract Curtailed electricity is a reduction of electricity output and leads to the loss of potentially useful renewable electricity, and therefore lost opportunities for reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The power imbalance is determined by a combination of economic factors, but most importantly demand. Other factors include the bidding strategy for electricity, and technical factors, such as limitations in transmission capacity and energy storage. The methodology to understand curtailed electricity temporally and geospatially includes data collection from publicly available sources such as the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) and directly from the Open Access Same-Time Information System (OASIS) platform. CAISO tracks the shorter-term and year-by-year patterns of curtailment and has shown that most curtailment occurs in the middle of the day in the months of February-June when solar and wind generation is high, and electricity demand is low due to moderate temperatures across California. In this work, we have identified the geo-spatial distribution of these curtailed units and the amount of curtailed electricity unit by unit. The amount of curtailed electricity is increasing dramatically year over year in California from 1.5 TWh in 2021 to 3.4 TWh in 2024, for example. The results show curtailment most strongly affects solar (photo-voltaic PV) units compared to wind farms. The units with the most curtailed electricity were identified based on rated capacity and total electricity generation. Most curtailed PV-electricity is within or adjacent to geological formations with favorable characteristics for subsurface energy storage in the form of hydrogen. Calculations show that the storage capacity of these reservoirs is more than sufficient to accommodate volumes of produced hydrogen equivalent to the amount of curtailed electricity.

  PublisherDOI

• Assessment of spatial monitoring of geological carbon storage using InSAR

  Gas Science and Engineering · 2025-03-03 · 4 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Author response for "Microfluidics for geosciences: metrological developments and future challenges"

  2025-06-05

  peer-review
  PublisherDOI

• Benchmarking CO$_2$ Storage Simulations: Results from the 11th Society of Petroleum Engineers Comparative Solution Project

  ArXiv.org · 2025-07-05

  preprintOpen access

  The 11th Society of Petroleum Engineers Comparative Solution Project (shortened SPE11 herein) benchmarked simulation tools for geological carbon dioxide (CO$_2$) storage. A total of 45 groups from leading research institutions and industry across the globe signed up to participate, with 18 ultimately contributing valid results that were included in the comparative study reported here. This paper summarizes the SPE11. A comprehensive introduction and qualitative discussion of the submitted data are provided, together with an overview of online resources for accessing the full depth of data. A global metric for analyzing the relative distance between submissions is proposed and used to conduct a quantitative analysis of the submissions. This analysis attempts to statistically resolve the key aspects influencing the variability between submissions. The study shows that the major qualitative variation between the submitted results is related to thermal effects, dissolution-driven convective mixing, and resolution of facies discontinuities. Moreover, a strong dependence on grid resolution is observed across all three versions of the SPE11. However, our quantitative analysis suggests that the observed variations are predominantly influenced by factors not documented in the technical responses provided by the participants. We therefore identify that unreported variations due to human choices within the process of setting up, conducting, and reporting on the simulations underlying each SPE11 submission are at least as impactful as the computational choices reported.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Assessment of CO2 leakage through existing wells and faults for a prospective storage site in the Southern San Joaquin Basin, California

  International journal of greenhouse gas control · 2025-04-21 · 4 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Hydrogeochemical modeling of hydrogen storage in depleted gas reservoirs: Insights from local and global sensitivity analysis

  Applied Energy · 2025-04-22 · 6 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Image processing and segmentation open source codes applied to FIB-SEM images of ultra-tight gas shales samples: Enhanced pore space representativeness and mineral identification

  Gas Science and Engineering · 2025-03-18 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access

  Geological formations, such as shales and mudstones, are highly compact and challenging to characterize experimentally. Beyond artifacts associated with the chemical composition of the material, certain formations exhibit topological and morphological properties that, during each FIB ablation, generate shading effects (back-pore artifacts). As in the present case, these artifacts may prevent access to a connected pore network during reconstruction and FIB-SEM processing. This issue compounds other challenges that constrain the ability to accurately reconstruct a digital twin of the porous medium of interest. In this study, we present the solutions we have developed to mitigate common artifacts, with a particular focus on addressing back-pore artifacts. This effort aims to advance Digital Rock Physics techniques, extending their analytical capabilities for complex porous media. The workflow outlined here details the processes required to characterize mineralogy and quantify flow properties based on a representative pore-space geometry. At the Focused Ion Beam - Scanning Electron Microscopy (FIB-SEM) scale (nm to μm), characteristic of tight formations, the proposed methodology can be extrapolated to larger volumes. It enables the quantification of transport properties at the pore scale with a high degree of confidence as a function of fluid pressure. The proposed imaging process, in conjunction with the Lattice Boltzmann Method, provides an effective approach for evaluating transport properties within a given pore-scale geometry. Furthermore, it highlights the method's potential for investigating transport behavior as a function of pressure and temperature. • The image processing uses a VSNR filter to correct structured noise including curtaining and charging artifacts. • A machine learning based segmentation returning an accurate and reproducible classification of shale mineral phases. • The back pore artifact is corrected driving to some multiple percolating flow paths in a 10 × 10 × 10 μm 3 rock sample. • The connectivity retrieval permits to access to the 10 nD permeability connected porosity measured with a Lattice Boltzmann Code. • A novel image processing and segmentation methodology for DRP exploitation of tight media using FIB-SEM.

  PublisherDOI

• Optimization of Well Placement for Geological CO2 Storage to Minimize Fault Slip Tendency

  2025-09-01 · 2 citations

  article

  Abstract Geological carbon storage is an important technology for reducing CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. Storage operations can be improved by using computational optimization to maximize effectiveness and minimize risk. In this work, we apply computational optimization to determine the placement of CO2 injection wells such that a metric that quantifies the risk of induced seismicity is minimized. The simulation model includes a heterogeneous storage aquifer along with a large surrounding region, caprock, and basement rock. The storage aquifer contains two major faults. Fault slippage and seismicity can occur if the injection operation alters the stress state such that the fault slip tendency (FST) exceeds a particular value. The objective of the optimizations in this study is the minimization of the maximum FST observed along either fault in the model. The constraints imposed on the problem ensure that wells are spaced more than 1 km apart, that the target amount of CO2 is injected, and that all injected CO2 remains within the storage aquifer. The core optimizer is a differential evolution algorithm, and the simulations required for function and constraint evaluations are accomplished using the coupled flow-geomechanics simulator GEOS. Geometric constraints are handled using a repair procedure, and nonlinear output constraints are treated with a filter method. The setup involves three injection wells, each injecting 1.5 Mt CO2/year for 50 years. The optimization framework is shown to consistently provide well locations that lead to feasible solutions with maximum FST values that are less than those achieved in a set of heuristic cases. Although FST increases with time, the maximum value after 50 years in the optimized case corresponds to small likelihood for fault slip.

  PublisherDOI

• Elastic and creep behavior of fractured shale caprocks in the presence of argon and CO2

  International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences · 2025-09-17 · 1 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• History-Matching of imbibition flow in fractured porous media Using Physics-Informed Neural Networks (PINNs)

  Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering · 2025-02-01 · 20 citations

  articleOpen access

  In this work, we propose a workflow based on physics-informed neural networks (PINNs) to model multiphase fluid flow in fractured porous media. After validating the workflow in forward and inverse modeling of a synthetic problem of flow in fractured porous media, we applied it to a real experimental dataset in which brine is injected at a constant pressure drop into a CO 2 saturated naturally fractured shale core plug. The exact spatial positions of natural fractures and the dynamic in-situ distribution of fluids were imaged using a CT-scan setup. To model the targeted system, we followed a domain decomposition approach for matrix and fractures and a multi-network architecture for the separate calculation of water saturation and pressure. The flow equations in the matrix, fractures and interplay between them were solved during training. Prior to fully-coupled simulations, we suggested pre-training the model. This aided in a more efficient and successful training of the coupled system. Both for the synthetic and experimental inverse problems, we determined flow parameters within the matrix and the fractures. Multiple random initializations of network and system parameters were performed to assess the uncertainty and uniqueness of the resulting calculations. The results confirmed the precision of the inverse calculated parameters in retrieving the main flow characteristics of the system. The consideration of matrix-fracture interactions is commonly overlooked in existing workflows. Accounting for them led to several orders of magnitude variations in the calculated flow properties compared to not accounting for them. The proposed PINNs-based workflow offer a reliable and computationally efficient solution for inverse modeling of multiphase flow in fractured porous media, achieved through history-matching noisy and multi-fidelity experimental measurements.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• L. M. Castanier

  Stanford University

  54 shared

• Cynthia M. Ross

  Stanford University

  38 shared

• Edgar Rangel-German

  32 shared

• Bolivia Vega

  Stanford University

  31 shared

• Clayton J. Radke

  27 shared

• John Bargar

  Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

  26 shared

• Tae Wook Kim

  23 shared

• Kristian Jessen

  University of Southern California

  23 shared