As the task of finding and producing hydrocarbons becomes more difficult, complex, and costly, the number of universities focusing on finding solutions has risen. Whether the frontier is heavy oil, deep water, or remote locations, efforts within academia are under way to solve the next generation of technical challenges confronting hydrocarbon E&P operations. Because many noteworthy research and development (R&D) efforts exist at universities all over the world, the intent of this article is not to cover all of them but to present a sampling from many geographical locations. Part 1 of this two-part series appeared in September’s JPT.
The University of Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA
The University of Tulsa (TU) was formed in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1907, when the boards of Kendall College and McFarlin College made the decision to merge the two institutions. TU has offered academic degrees in petroleum engineering since 1932 and has a research and development (R&D) program dating back to 1965, when property and buildings were donated by Humble Oil and Refining Company, creating TU’s north campus, which is devoted entirely to oil and gas.
TUDRP
To support its research, the university formed the Tulsa University Drilling Research Program (TUDRP) consortium, which currently has 18 industry partners. TUDRP aims to improve drilling operations while reducing costs and the number of safety and environmental incidents.
According to principal investigator and director of TUDRP, Stefan Miska, the center has completed 153 research projects since 1968; TUDRP’s 2014–15 programming brochure lists 13 active research projects.
The center is operated by 27 personnel—including senior-level researchers, nonresearch employees, and 16 advanced-degree candidates who assist in conducting the studies.
Low-Pressure Ambient-Temperature Flow Loop
TU has a number of highly customized pieces of research equipment and facilities for drilling studies. One of the most prominent pieces of equipment is a large, above-ground flow loop, which was developed in 1990 when professor J.J. Azar was director at TUDRP (Miska became director in 1996). This loop—the outdoor low-pressure ambient-temperature (LPAT) flow loop—has a 90-ft test section with 8-in. casing and 4.5-in. drill pipe. Tests can be conducted at angles between 0° and 90°: a feat that would be impossible with an actual underground wellbore.
LPAT has a maximum flow rate of 700 gpm, from a 100-barrel mud tank, and can handle multi-phase flow to accurately simulate drilling conditions inside a real wellbore. It includes a complete mud system, with a hopper, a shale shaker, agitators, flow lines, compressors, and pumps. Two smaller, indoor flow loops also exist so that more than one team can conduct flow studies at the same time.
Advanced Cuttings-Transport Facility
“Back many years ago, I had been thinking about drilling a horizontal well on the north campus,” recalled Miksa. “I eventually decided to change direction, because I would be locked in with all dimensions and would have no flexibility.” Instead, in the late 1990s, Miksa helped create another large-scale, outdoor fixture for TUDRP: the Advanced Cuttings-Transport Facility. It was funded mainly by the US Department of Energy with 20% matching funds from industry. The loop was built in stages over a period of six years and at a cost of USD 6 million.
This facility is also a wellbore simulator, but is designed especially for investigation of cuttings motion and behavior when contained in compressible and incompressible fluids, as well as underbalanced conditions. The test section is 75 ft long and can simulate a pressure of up to 2,000 psig and temperatures up to 200°F. It has a maximum liquid-flow rate of 500 gpm and a gas-flow rate of 900 scfm at 500 psig. The casing diameter is 6 in. and drillpipe diameter is 3½ in.
Other Special Equipment
TU has two facilities for the study of operational stress on tubulars. The Drillpipe/Coiled Tubing Buckling Facility simulates buckling during horizontal drilling, with a 90-ft-long 2-in.-inner-diameter acrylic pipe containing up to 1-in.-outer-diameter pipe with fluid that can be circulated up to 100 gpm in the annular section. Sensors can measure top and bottom load forces, as well as pipe contact with sides of the hole. Measurements are automatically recorded to a computer. The maximum load is 1,000 lbm. The second tubular facility is exclusively for drill pipe and tests cracking and fatigue.
Other major pieces of equipment include a high-pressure, single-bit cutter; a full-scale drilling test rig; and facilities for TUDRP’s newest research direction of geomechanics, including a load frame and triaxial cell.
The last major group of technologies TUDRP researchers have access to deal with drilling fluids. The Fluids Characterization Laboratory includes foam generators, viscometers, rheometers, air and liquid permeameters, and an entire laboratory devoted to preparation of custom muds and fluids for tests in TUDRP’s many flow loops.
The University of Queensland, Queensland, Australia
The University of Queensland (UQ)—the oldest university in the Australian state of Queensland and the fifth-oldest nationally—was founded in urban Brisbane in 1909. Its creation commemorated the 50th anniversary of Queensland’s independence from the state of New South Wales. After World War I, UQ grew significantly and acquired more locations, including one which is now the university’s main campus, located in the Brisbane suburb of St. Lucia.
Today UQ has a wide range of more than 30 recognized areas of research, ranging from cancer studies, genomics, and nanotechnology to mining. In 2013, UQ received a combined research budget of AUD 382 million from government, industry, and the community and is engaged in at least 1,543 different research partnerships in Australia and abroad.
The Centre for Coal Seam Gas
A concerted effort to study coal seam gas (CSG) began officially in 2011 when UQ—with project proponents QGC (a BG company); Santos GLNG; and Shell-PetroChina venture, Arrow Energy—founded The Centre for Coal Seam Gas (CCSG). A fourth project proponent, Asia Pacific LNG (which includes ConocoPhillips and Origin Energy), joined in 2014. The Queensland state government regulator also plays a supportive role in setting the research agenda.
Though CCSG is based mostly at UQ, its mission is to conduct multi-disciplinary research and consequently it has been set up as a virtual center, with the participation of 16 separate technical and nontechnical UQ schools and centers. At this time, over 60 researchers—some of whom are off-campus or internationally based—are involved in studies at CCSG.
Research Themes
CCSG’s program is divided into four research themes: petroleum engineering, geoscience, water (both groundwater and treated water), and lastly—an area rarely given its own separate consideration in university R&D—social performance. Researchers will spend approximately AUD 25 million between 2011 and 2016, and will do so relatively equally across each theme.
“[Research] is as diverse as looking into novel [CSG] production and stimulation methods, improvements in imaging, to basin-aquifer recharge measurements, to impacts on agricultural businesses, to the cumulative socioeconomic impacts of multiple mega-projects,” said CCSG Director Andrew Garnett.
Current CCSG work has some of its foundations in other nonhydrocarbon research conducted by the university in the past. The most significant extra-industry source of knowledge UQ draws upon is its expertise on subjects relating to the global mining and minerals sector.
For more than 100 years, Queensland has supplied Australia and other countries with coal—a resource that carries with its extraction analogous operational and societal considerations to petroleum’s (i.e., geologic surveying, effects on water supply, and effects on surrounding communities and stakeholders).
The social effects of drilling and producing CSG are complex, given the rural locations of Queensland’s new gas fields—remote areas which are often shared by farmers who rely heavily on local water supplies for irrigation. UQ’s studies on CSG will help the university lay groundwork for future research on shale development in Australia, which is also a socially delicate and water-intensive process.
Geology Laboratories
UQ has several facilities on campus which are used in oil and gas R&D. There are two major geology facilities used in the study of tight gas and CSG. First is the Exploration Geophysics Laboratory which—in addition to containing magnetics, gravity, resistivity, radiometrics, and seismic reflection/refraction equipment—also offers professional-level exploration geophysics training.
The Geoscience Computing Laboratory is geared toward the development and application of numerical simulation, especially for highly heterogeneous formations; coupled-flow, mechanical processes; and 3D visualization. The laboratory is equipped with supercomputing facilities for creating sophisticated geological models. Examples of research at this facility would be virtual near-wellbore modeling of coupled processes and modeling of coal-seam geological heterogeneity.
Coal Laboratories
Two UQ facilities focus on coal specifically, and are equipped by extension, to study the occurrence and nature of CSG. UQ has specialized in research related to coal basins and coal-formation since at least the 1980s. In recognition of this longstanding tradition, in 2010 the Vale-UQ Coal Geoscience Laboratory was established and is equipped to study coal microscopy and coal microanalysis. The research space includes classical layout tables, maps, and computers for 3D correlation and geomodeling of coal systems. Some examples of research at this facility are full basin-evolution modeling with a specific focus on the depositional controls of coal seam and interburden stratigraphy and connected aquifers, and coal (maceral) characterization through automated petrography.
A second coal lab, the Chemical Engineering Coal Laboratory, is devoted to the study of coal flow dynamics and strength characteristics. Some of the hydrocarbon-related applications for this facility include the study of stimulation methods for low-permeability coal formations, and the study of mechanisms of fines production and relative permeability.
Other Facilities
Other facilities include the Centre for Advanced Imaging, which is outfitted with several spectroscopy instruments; the Stable Isotope Geochemistry Laboratory, which is equipped to analyze stable isotopes in geological samples; and the Analytical Services Laboratory at the Advanced Water Management Centre.
In 2014, the university also received USD 3 million from industry donors to upgrade different facilities serving oil and gas purposes. These updates are currently being carried out across the university.
South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, South Dakota, USA
As new players enter oil and gas research, some of them work around the periphery, like creators of an improved subsea modem invented at the University of Connecticut’s engineering school (featured in Part 1 of this series in the September issue of JPT). Other times however, the newly interested institution has, in actuality, been equipped for years with the resources and engineering background needed to delve into oil- and gas-related R&D (e.g., reservoir studies, production, drilling).
This second case applies to the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology (SDSM&T), which has a legacy of education and research in areas complementary to oil and gas, such as underground engineering, geology, metallurgy, and materials studies. While researchers and graduates from the school’s various engineering and science programs have contributed to oil and gas activities for decades in supporting roles, there has been less attention paid specifically to petroleum engineering, but this is changing.
Fertile Ground
SDSM&T opened in 1885—before South Dakota was officially granted US statehood—to provide education and training for miners extracting gold from the state’s Black Hills region, where gold was discovered in 1874. However, probably more than for its gold, the area is known for being the home of Mount Rushmore, which is approximately half-an-hour’s drive from the school’s Rapid City campus. Between 1927 and 1941, the faces of four US presidents were carved into the mountain’s granite face, each 60 ft in size, creating one of the most recognizable national landmarks in the country’s history.
But even more important than either of these, the school’s campus is located equidistant from three significant sediment basins: the Williston basin (which encompasses the Bakken shale), the Powder River basin, and the Denver basin.
Energy Resource Initiative
This push for new hydrocarbon research and education falls under the heading of the Energy Resources Initiative, which is a university-wide effort to increase SDSM&T’s engagement in the industry—engagement in activities that affect efforts in the Dakotas region as well as those at a national level.
Although the university offers geological, engineering, and metallurgical degrees at a variety of levels, there has never been an active petroleum engineering degree program. However, in June 2014, the university’s President Heather Wilson announced that starting in the fall semester, SDSM&T would be adding an 18-credit-hour minor in petroleum systems to the undergraduate curriculum and is also preparing a certificate program for graduate students and outside professionals. According to university literature, the new minor will consist of “a mix of new and existing courses, including core courses in drilling and production engineering, fluid mechanics, and a petroleum field course.”
Broadening Research
SDSM&T’s research program has four branches: energy and the environment; materials and manufacturing; science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education; and underground science and engineering. The petroleum systems minor and companion research in production and drilling falls under the energy and environment research area.
Research on enhanced oil recovery techniques in fine-grained reservoirs has become a major focus for the university given the impressive amount of total in-place reserves in nearby plays like the Bakken, just a few hundred miles away. With Bakken recovery rates estimated at up to 7%, any advances—even a 1% to 2% improvement—would yield significant economic benefits for producers in the region. Some areas the university is investigating include fracturing simulation, transport pathways of microbes in organic substrates, and mechanical coupling of fine-grained media.
In mid-July, the university started geological studies of core samples acquired from the Pierre shale near Fort Pierre, South Dakota, about 150 miles from the SDSM&T campus. The drilling resulted in the recovery of approximately 3,000 lbm of continuous shale core, which is being subjected to laboratory tests at SDSM&T and by industry partner RESPEC Inc., a national engineering and consulting company. The mission of researchers looking at the recovered core is to study those properties of shale that have so far received little attention.
One shale property researchers plan to investigate is known as creep, or the deformation of a material when subjected to a sustained load over time. According to the university, research on time-dependent shale qualities like creep can aid in the execution of hydraulic fracturing; underground storage of hydrocarbons in mined shale caverns; used-fuel disposition and waste disposal in shale; and carbon dioxide sequestration.
Beyond Drilling and Production
Some other areas of research include water resources in oil and gas operations, which is a function of the university’s energy and the environment research branch; and materials and manufacturing applications in oil and gas, which is a function of the materials branch.
“Researchers look at not only treatment and disposal of produced water, and ways to reduce the cost, but also water resource sustainability,” said Wilson. “How do you reduce the need for water, and how do you use it better when you’ve got it?” High activity in the Bakken shale increases demand for all resources, including water, making this subject highly relevant to the region and to supply chains in the other two basins, which could be affected as well.
Materials and manufacturing applications for SDSM&T research are almost too many to name. Wilson cited specialized chemical coatings for drilling equipment and tubulars and creation of polymers as two key examples.
King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia
King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), established in 1963 in the city of Dhahran by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, was first called simply the College of Petroleum and Minerals. The original institution offered 2-year educational options to an inaugural class of 76 students and employed 14 faculty members.
By 1975, the college had grown significantly and was granted university status; KFUPM started conducting oil and gas research in 1979. The public university received its current name in 1986 from the late Saudi King, Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, who ruled from 1982 to 2005.
Today KFUPM employs around 950 faculty members, has a student body of approximately 9,000, and offers BS, MS, and PhD degrees in science, engineering, business, computer science, and architecture.
Dhahran Techno Valley
The most distinctive feature of KFUPM from a research perspective is the Dhahran Techno Valley (DTV): an internationally participated in, 770,000-m2complex dedicated to hydrocarbon R&D. The DTV is located conveniently on KFUPM’s campus in Dhahran—a short distance from Saudi Aramco headquarters and just an hour from the industrial city of Jubail. The nucleus of this complex is the DTV Science Park, where national and international companies maintain offices and laboratories.
The park provides R&D partners (KFUPM, Saudi Aramco, and DTV Science Park tenants) collaborative research opportunities and the environment necessary for developing and deploying new technologies. Tenants include some of the largest oil and gas service companies in the world, such as Schlumberger, Halliburton, Weatherford, and Baker Hughes. The park has also attracted the participation of automation, control, measurement, and testing companies, such as Yokogawa, General Electric, and Emerson, which also have a presence in the DTV Science Park.
In addition to Saudi Aramco, the park also has national tenants such as Aminatit and Sipchem.
- Research among DTV collaborators falls into six major themes:
- Advanced materials
- Geosciences and petroleum engineering
- Refining and petrochemical processes
- Water management, production, and treatment
- Energy efficiency and renewables
- Advanced computing
Technology Transfer, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship Program
Collaborative R&D is done under the guidance of the university’s technology transfer, innovation, and entrepreneurship (TTIE) initiative, which was created in 2006 to commercialize Saudi academic R&D and help develop technology startups.
The four units of TTIE include the Innovation Center, which manages beginning stages of R&D projects, including proofs-of-concept and intellectual property; the Entrepreneurship Institute, which helps students learn entrepreneurial skills through mentorship; the Technology Advancement and Prototype Center, which focuses on advancing the technology readiness level of KFUPM R&D for potential entrepreneurial opportunities; and lastly the Liaison Office, which establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relations between the university and TTIE partners.
Dhahran Techno Valley Company
Today the DTV is operated by the Dhahran Techno Valley Company (DTVC), a fully owned subsidiary of KFUPM which was formed in 2010 by royal charter and shares a common goal of commercializing intellectual property created from university R&D. DTVC was formed as a separate entity from the university in order to oversee business-related aspects of the valley’s mission, which are not all exclusively related to KFUPM’s educational mission.
Basic Upstream R&D
Apart from technology-transfer-oriented research conducted at DTV, the university also conducts basic and applied research at the KFUPM Center of Petroleum and Minerals. The three main areas of research include reservoir studies, unconventional reservoirs, and advanced fluids. In the area of unconventional reservoirs, the center does a great amount of work on drilling and producing tight carbonate formations and plans to start a graduate program on unconventionals in the near future.
The center has a 30-year relationship with the country’s national oil company, Saudi Aramco, and over the past 5 years, KFUPM and the steering board of Saudi Aramco have approved four target topics for future research collaboration. These topics are enhanced oil recovery (EOR), enhanced drilling, seismic imaging, and reservoir quality.
Facilities on campus for R&D include an EOR lab, core lab, fluid-characterization lab, geophysics lab, and imaging lab.
Center of Research Excellence in Petroleum Refining and Petrochemicals
In addition to KFUPM’s expansive upstream research, the university also does work on downstream topics. In 2007, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Higher Education created and provided funding for the Center of Research Excellence in Petroleum Refining and Petrochemicals. This center is focused mainly on the process of catalysis—particularly the study of olefins, aromatics, and polyolefins.
Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas, Moscow, Russia
Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas (GU) was formed in 1930, in Moscow, by the government of the former USSR. The university’s first generation of faculty was composed largely of students from the Moscow School of Mining’s first graduating class of petroleum degree-seekers (class of 1924).
First called Moscow Institute of Oil, the university was renamed in honor of celebrated Russian geologist, Ivan Gubkin. Among his accomplishments, Gubkin aided in studies of Russia’s Kursk Magnetic Anomaly—one of the largest documented deviations in the Earth’s magnetic field ever recorded in modern times—which led to the discovery of significant iron ore deposits in the region. He also authored textbooks on petroleum geology.
Academics
GU has a student population of roughly 11,000 spread throughout 76 departments. There are around 600 doctoral candidates and 327 doctorate-holders active in various roles. The university also has approximately 500 students pursuing graduate and postgraduate studies.
The school’s curriculum consists almost entirely of oil- and gas-related topics with the exception of a few focuses, such as liberal arts and law, which were added to the curriculum much later in GU’s history.
Research
Given the number of advanced petroleum-degree candidates in its ranks, the university is engaged in a wide range of research and development at a variety of points on the upstream/downstream spectrum.
According to GU professor and 2013–14 SPE Distinguished Lecturer Anatoly Zolotukhin, specialty areas for research at the university (other than standards like drilling or geology and geophysics) include the following:
- Reservoir and production engineering
- Reservoir stimulation
- Pipeline design
- Construction and maintenance
- Environmental protection
- Oil and gas chemistry
- Arctic resource development
- Automation and computer science
Funding
Zolotukhin said that, on average, several dozen large-scale projects are running continually, representing a total investment of around RUB 800 million (USD 22 million) annually. The number of skilled professionals actively engaged in research—including scientists, researchers, and faculty—is close to 1,000 at any given time. When students and advanced-degree candidates doing research are added to that count, Zolotukhin estimates that the number rises to a few thousand.
GU, being a state institution, receives the vast majority of its research budget from Russia’s government and has worked on projects for the Ministry of Education and Science, Ministry of Energy, and Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. However, the university does receive a portion—currently a very small one—of its resources from operators and service companies through various forms of collaboration and research.
Some companies GU has worked with include Gazprom, Gazprom Neft, Rosneft, Lukoil and Lukoil Overseas, KazMunayGas, Total, ExxonMobil, Statoil, BP, Schlumberger, and Weatherford, to name a few.