Pedro Pereira completed a degree in Geological Engineering in 2012 from the University of Aveiro, a Master's degree in Geological Resources in 2014 from the University of Aveiro and a PhD in Petroleum Engineering in 2019 from the Instituto Superior Técnico of the University of Lisbon. He also completed the Stanford Online Course with Certificate in Reservoir Geomechanics at Stanford University in 2015/2016, the IBM Data Science with a Professional Certificate online course at IBM Austin Research Laboratory in 2020/06 and an internship at TotalEnergies' CSTJF (Centre Scientifique et Technique Jean Féger) in 2018/2019. He is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Évora and a researcher in Geo-energy, in particular in the geological storage of carbon dioxide (CO2), with participation in several European projects, and in the geological storage of hydrogen (H2), being the PI of a project in this area funded by FCT.
EDUCATION
Ph.D. in Petroleum Engineering (University of Lisbon, IST, Portugal, 2020)
M.Sc. in Geological Resources (University of Aveiro, Portugal, 2014)
Degree in Geological Engineering (University of Aveiro, Portugal, 2012)
RESEARCH, TEACHING, or OTHER INTERESTS
Engineering, Energy, Geotechnical Engineering and Engineering Geology, Environmental Science
Optimization Under Geological Uncertainties for CO2 Injection in CCUS: A Case Study from the Lusitanian Basin K. Khudhur, P. Pereira, J. Carneiro, M. Goldman, G. Blin, et al. 86th Eage Annual Conference and Exhibition, 2025 Summary This study focuses on optimizing CO2 injection strategies under geological uncertainties in the Lusitanian Basin, offshore Portugal, as part of the PilotSTRATEGY project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 program. The research integrates Bayesian optimization with the Big Loop™ framework to maximize CO2 injection efficiency while ensuring long-term containment and safety. Using a high-resolution 3D static model developed from seismic data and well information, the study simulated 948 scenarios to identify an optimal well location and injection strategy. Key challenges addressed include reservoir heterogeneity, fault interactions, and risks from legacy wells. The optimization process varied injection well coordinates, perforation intervals, and bottom hole pressure, constrained to prevent reservoir fracturing. The optimal scenario achieved a total CO2 injection capacity of 24 million tons over 30 years, with extended modeling confirming safe containment for up to 1,000 years. Sensitivity analysis revealed bottom hole pressure and perforation depth as critical factors influencing injection performance and reservoir stability. This work highlights the utility of integrating stochastic modeling with dynamic simulations to optimize CO2 storage strategies, providing a robust framework applicable to similar geological contexts worldwide while contributing to the advancement of CCUS technologies.
Hydrogen storage in heterogeneous reservoirs: evaluating well configurations and cushion gas impact P. Pereira, J. Carneiro, P. Canhoto, J. Pedro, K. Khudhur, A. Mazezo 5th Eage Global Energy Transition Conference and Exhibition Get 2024, 2024 Summary The urgency in mitigating the climate change effects and the expecting rise of energy consumption in the coming decades will require zero-carbon sources like renewables, fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage, and sustainable storage solutions like underground gas storage. Hydrogen geological storage in porous rock formations is expected to play a major role for sustainable energy systems, offering large-scale storage in subsurface reservoirs for grid stability and cost-effective integration of renewable hydrogen production. This work explores hydrogen geological storage in saline aquifers, focusing on reservoir simulation under varying structural and geological conditions. To address renewable energy fluctuations, hydrogen injection and withdrawal cycles were conducted in complex heterogeneous reservoirs. Key aspects include the evaluation of different well configurations, such as separate injection and withdrawal wells, dual-purpose wells, and a hybrid of both, and the role of cushion gas in enhancing reservoir efficiency. The work highlights that dual-purpose well configurations offer higher efficiency, making the use of cushion gas less critical. However, optimising cushion gas usage is essential due to its significant impact on operational costs. The study also emphasizes the importance of addressing reservoir heterogeneity, as it greatly influences the efficiency of hydrogen injection and withdrawal cycles.
Assessing offshore prospects for CO2 storage in Portugal: from pilot-scale to commercial site P. Pereira, M.H. Caeiro, J. Carneiro, C. Ribeiro, J. Casacão, B. Pina, C. Revaux, R. Findlay, A. Plougoule, C. Msika 4th Eage Global Energy Transition Conference and Exhibition Get 2023, 2023 Summary Within frame of the PilotSTRATEGY project, comprehensive geological characterization studies were conducted in the Lusitanian Basin to assess the CO2 storage potential in this Portuguese region. In the offshore area of this sedimentary basin, three promising geological structures were identified. Relying on well and geophysical data, each of them has been characterized to define their structural closure scenarios, reservoir petrophysical properties and dimensions as potential CO2 storage sites. The current work presents a volumetric stochastic approach used to assess and integrate reservoir geological uncertainties for determining the CO2 storage capacities of the three identified structures. Following the volumetric estimation, a preliminary long-term storage capacity assessment was conducted for the most promising prospect Q4-TV1. The goal was to consider supplementary physical trapping mechanisms, such as mineral and solubility trapping, and to evaluate their impacts on storage capacity and CO2 plume dispersion over time. By combining both storage capacity assessments, this work provides valuable insights and confirms the outstanding potential of prospect Q4-TV1 as a CO2 pilot injection site. Furthermore, this study highlights the feasibility of upscaling this prospect to a commercial-scale, contributing to the development of a viable carbon sink in the Lusitanian Basin.
Carbon capture, utilization and storage spillover effects on the Portuguese energy system P Fortes, L Fazendeiro, P Mesquita, P Pereira 2022 International Conference on Renewable Energies and Smart Technologies Rest 2022, 2022 Carbon capture, utilization and storage scenarios have been developed for the Lusitanian Basin (Portuguese region) under the STRATEGY CCUS project, considering Portugal’s carbon neutrality goal up to 2050. Supported by the national energy policy vision, the scenarios assume the use of captured biogenic CO2 emissions to generate synthetic methane as well as the geological storage of fossil CO2. Although carbon capture, utilization and storage tackles CO2 emissions, while maintaining fuel combustion and industrial processes, the deployment of the technology may lead to side effects on the overall energy system, such as on renewable power generation necessary to produce synthetic fuels. This study analyses the spillover effects (i.e., the impacts) of carbon capture, utilization and storage in the Lusitanian Basin in the Portuguese energy system, namely in the national power capacity and final energy consumption. The analysis is supported by the linear optimization energy system model TIMES_PT. Results show that by 2050, the generation of synthetic methane by hydrogen from electrolysis and CO2 (e-gas) demands a large amount of green hydrogen, 29% more than compared with a cost-effective decarbonization scenario. Consequently, a higher installed power capacity of solar and wind (above 6 GW by 2050) will be required. Contrary to what would be expected, the mandatory generation of e-gas does not lead to a reduction in electricity consumption in final users, as the synthetic fuel substitutes instead biomass/biogas and the direct use of hydrogen.
Carbon capture, utilisation and storage as a defense tool against climate change: Current developments in west Macedonia (Greece) Nikolaos Koukouzas, Pavlos Tyrologou, Dimitris Karapanos, Júlio Carneiro, Pedro Pereira, Fernanda de Mesquita Lobo Veloso, Petros Koutsovitis, Christos Karkalis, Eleonora Manoukian, Rania Karametou Energies, 2021 In West Macedonia (Greece), CO2 accounts as one of the largest contributors of greenhouse gas emissions related to the activity of the regional coal power plants located in Ptolemaida. The necessity to mitigate CO2 emissions to prevent climate change under the Paris Agreement’s framework remains an ongoing and demanding challenge. It requires implementing crucial environmentally sustainable technologies to provide balanced solutions between the short-term needs for dependency on fossil fuels and the requirements to move towards the energy transition era. The challenge to utilise and store CO2 emissions will require actions aiming to contribute to a Europe-wide CCUS infrastructure. The Horizon 2020 European Project “STRATEGY CCUS “examines the potential for CO2 storage in the Mesohellenic Trough from past available data deploying the USDOE methodology. Research results show that CO2 storage capacities for the Pentalofos and Eptachori geological formations of the Mesohellenic Trough are estimated at 1.02 and 0.13 Gt, respectively, thus providing the potential for the implementation of a promising method for reducing CO2 emissions in Greece. A certain storage potential also applies to the Grevena sub-basin, offering the opportunity to store any captured CO2 in the area, including other remote regions.
Risk and ranking assessments of the potential geological storage units for CCUS deployment in Portugal P. Pereira, J. Carneiro, C. Ribeiro 2nd Geoscience and Engineering in Energy Transition Conference Get 2021, 2021 Summary Carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) is a key technology for the energy transition to reduce the global CO 2 emissions, being crucial to mitigate emissions in hard-to-decarbonize sectors in which industrial process emission prevail. Safe storage of CO 2 during a project lifetime needs to consider the potential risks of CO 2 leakage from reservoirs to overburden geological formations and, ultimately, the migration pathways to the surface. Health, safety and environmental (HSE) assessments must be conducted to better understand the quality of the entire subsurface storage complexes and their suitability to deploy CO 2 injection and retain it for long-term periods. This paper presents the results from the application of the HSE Screening and Ranking Framework (SRF) to the ensemble of thirty-six potential storage units located in four sedimentary basins in Portugal. The HSE SRF method enabled to improve the identification and classification of the safer storage units (and clusters) and to discard those that do not present appropriate characteristics to proceed with further detailed characterisation studies. The Lusitanian Basin, with suitable and with lower risk potential reservoirs, is the most promising area in Portugal to conduct the CCUS technology.
Identification and characterization of geological formations with co2 storage potential in portugal Pedro Pereira, Carlos Ribeiro, Júlio Carneiro Petroleum Geoscience, 2021 Carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) is considered a major part of the Portuguese strategy for reducing CO 2 emissions. Some industrial sectors, the most prominent being the cement sector, require the implementation of CO 2 storage to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. This paper presents and characterizes the areas with potential for CO 2 storage in mainland Portugal. The lithostratigraphic and tectonic frameworks of the onshore and offshore basins are presented; a site screening process was conducted, based on basin- and regional-scale assessments, resulting in the definition of eight possible storage clusters, seven of which are offshore. The storage capacity was estimated for those clusters, with a central (P 50 ) value of 7.09 Gt; however, the most interesting locations are in the Lusitanian Basin (West Iberian Margin), both onshore and offshore, as they present high capacity and are located favourably in relation to the industrial CO 2 emitters. Considering only the potential sites of this basin, their storage capacities are greater than 3 Gt CO 2 , of which 260 Mt are onshore. Thematic collection: This article is part of the Geoscience for CO 2 storage collection available at: https://www.lyellcollection.org/cc/geoscience-for-co2-storage
RESOURCE MATURITY AND SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS OF CO2 STORAGE CAPACITY IN THE LUSITANIAN BASIN, PORTUGAL 82nd Eage Conference and Exhibition 2021, 2021
Increased geological consistency in geostatistical seismic inversion by using structural steering volumes Society of Petroleum Engineers Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference 2018 Adipec 2018, 2019
