Innovations in Exploration and Energy Conversion Pathways of Unconventional Hydrocarbon Reservoirs

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue invites contributions that advance exploration strategies, production technologies, energy storage, and monitoring for conventional, unconventional, geothermal, and natural hydrogen systems. We welcome experimental, numerical, field, and review papers that strengthen the energy chain for unconventional resources and related subsurface–surface energy infrastructures, with emphasis on process performance, diagnostics, and operability.

In light of the current global sustainable transition and the pressing challenges surrounding energy and climate change, this Special Issue also seeks research addressing the sustainability pathways and policy–technology interfaces of energy systems. Studies linking energy technologies with environmental impact mitigation, carbon management, and sustainable energy transition are particularly encouraged.

We particularly encourage studies that bridge subsurface exploration and production with surface conversion and storage (e.g., compression, purification, power-to-hydrogen, hydrogen-to-power), as well as grid and microgrid integration, control and optimization, and energy systems analysis.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Exploration and production technologies for energy supply: drilling and completion innovations, production optimization, flow assurance, and wellbore/production system modeling oriented to energy performance.
• Hydrogen energy chain: subsurface sourcing (including natural hydrogen), conditioning, compression and purification, transport, and underground storage (salt caverns, depleted reservoirs) with a focus on efficiency, reliability, and operability.
• Energy conversion and integration: power-to-hydrogen, hydrogen-to-power, coupling with CCS/CCUS and geothermal heat-to-power; balance-of-plant and surface facilities supporting conversion efficiency.
• Thermodynamics, heat/mass transfer, and entropy analyses of exploration, production, and conversion processes; performance maps and sensitivity studies.
• Diagnostics, monitoring, and control for energy conversion chains: online sensing, model-based and data-driven fault detection, prognostics, and real-time optimization.
• Artificial intelligence in energy systems design and control: forecasting, optimization, physics-informed learning, and data assimilation for production and conversion assets.
• Energy, environment, and sustainability: life-cycle assessments, carbon footprint analyses, emission reduction technologies, and strategies for sustainable transition in energy systems.
• Energy and climate change: resilience of energy systems under climate constraints, adaptation and mitigation technologies, and environmental impacts of exploration and conversion activities.
• Energy storage and systems: coupling with batteries/fuel cells/PCS, microgrids and smart grids, dispatch strategies, and ancillary services.
• Comparative reviews across conventional, unconventional, geothermal, and natural hydrogen developments from the standpoint of energy technology and conversion performance.

Submission types can include reviews, research articles, and communications. Full experimental details, model descriptions, and sensitivity analyses are highly recommended to ensure reproducibility.

Dr. Mohamed Zinelabidine Doghmane
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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