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Professor Steven A. Gabriel, a faculty member in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Applied Mathematics, Statistics, and Scientific Computing Program at the University of Maryland (UMD), has been selected to lead a new project by Petrobras, a major global energy company based in Rio de Janeiro.
It is the second Petrobras-funded project to be headed by Gabriel and will last 3.5 years, with a project budget of just over $2.1 million. As Principal Investigator, he will lead development of game theory models for the firm’s petroleum product supply chain.
Explains Gabriel: “The Brazilian petroleum products market has moved to a more competitive, oligopolistic one in which such market equilibrium models are key to effective decision-making for investments and operations.”
“This new marketplace requires more competitive thinking that reflects the transition to a new ecosystem with profit-maximizing price-takers and price-makers, and that takes into account the role of climate change driving the replacement of fossil fuels with renewables,” Gabriel said.
Professor Gabriel’s first Petrobras project, awarded in 2023, concerns the Brazilian natural gas market and also involves developing game theory/market equilibrium models to understand Brazil’s new, oligopolistic market, which includes domestic (associated) gas production, gas imported from Bolivia, and liquefied natural gas from various other locations around the world.
This first project will last 3 years and has a budget of just over $876,000.
Together, these two projects represent approximately $3 million of non-U.S. federal funding. Besides advancing the decision-making capabilities of Petrobras, it aims to spur knowledge of game theoretical modeling and algorithms.
According to data from Statista, Brazil has both significant fossil fuel and renewable energy supplies. For example, hydropower is about 56% of the electricity supply, followed by wind and solar (24%), with about a 10% reliance on fossil fuels for electricity.
However, fossil fuels remain an important part of Brazil’s economy as well as exports to various other countries, Gabriel said.
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May 13, 2025
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