SPE and International Association of Drilling Contractors (IADC) University of North Dakota student chapters built a strategic partnership to host two collaborative events in the past 3 months. Energy transition and net-zero became the main subject of the sessions.
In January, the team organized an integrated virtual workshop on Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS). The event hosted 12 workshop presentations from 11 distinguished speakers covering theoretical and practical aspects of CCUS as part of the efforts to net-zero CO2 emissions. The virtual workshop discussed current CCUS initiatives and challenges, including subsurface geologic storage; CO₂-EOR/EGR; reservoir monitoring and risk assessment; case studies; policy and infrastructure; and non-technical considerations. More than 180 participants attended the sessions.
In one of the presentations, Catherine Stevens and Joshua Regorrah highlighted CCS regulatory platform and policy for Class VI wells in the project for the North Dakota context. Stevens has more than 25 years of experience in the oilfield covering technical and regulatory segments and Regorrah is a permitting and regulating specialist at Energy and Environmental Research Center. They discussed regulatory foundation, US EPA and primacy for states, North-Dakota-approved carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects, regulatory certainty for operators and investors, and CCS incentives for a CO2 emission reduction benefit. Other notable speakers such as John Tombari, Graciela Moore, Parag Bandyopadhyay, Eugene Holubnyak, Mohammad Evazi, Talib Syed, Sofiane Djezzar, Melianna Ulfah, and Ryan Kolaralso delivered impactful presentations in a variety of topics regarding CCUS. The recorded session can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvMjvm1-2vk
In March, the student chapters collaborated on another event and hosted the Geothermal Drilling Conference. The geothermal topic was chosen because the technology called enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) has tremendous potential in leading the energy transition toward a low-carbon footprint. However, the high cost of geothermal drilling is the main barrier to development. The virtual session aimed to provide a holistic understanding of drilling optimization, where a system specifically designed for geothermal application is developed to reduce drilling costs. This conference featured Mohammad Al Dushaishi, assistant professor of petroleum engineering at Oklahoma State University. The technical talk discussed a drilling optimization system for improved overall rate of penetration and reduced cost-per-foot in geothermal drilling.
