The University of Texas at Austin and Chevron Corp. have formed a research alliance to develop new technology to increase the amount of oil recovered from mature and challenging reservoirs.
Under the alliance, Chevron Energy Technology Co., a Chevron subsidiary, will provide up to $5 million over the next five years to The University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering. The joint research initiative will focus on non-thermal enhanced oil recovery technologies. Areas of study include surfactants and polymers that target oil trapped and bypassed by conventional recovery methods, and numerical models that accurately capture enhanced oil recovery processes.
“Conventional production methods have typically recovered about one third of the oil in place from light oil reservoirs, so applying advanced technologies to increase recovery factors can be an important source of reserve and production growth from existing fields” said Don Paul, vice president and chief technology officer for Chevron Corp. “This alliance will bring together Chevron's historical leadership in enhanced oil recovery and the world-class petroleum research capabilities of The University of Texas at Austin to create the next generation of enhanced recovery technologies and open up new opportunities to add reserves and production.”
“This funding will allow the center to greatly expand its oil recovery research and play an important role in helping meet global energy needs,” said Dr. Gary A. Pope, director of the Center for Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, which has the leading national academic research program in enhanced oil recovery.
Dr. Jairam Kamath, Chevron team leader of well performance and recovery mechanisms, added, "We have an unique opportunity to build on the rich relationship between The University of Texas at Austin and Chevron by providing long-term research and development funding, increasing the university’s access to economically important challenges, and expanding the nation’s future work force.”
“Most oil in existing fields cannot be recovered using conventional technology. Yet the volume of this oil is greater than all the conventional oil reserves known to exist globally,” according to Dr. Larry W. Lake, chairman of the Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering within the university’s College of Engineering.
This alliance was formalized at an event where a contract was signed by Juan M. Sanchez, vice president for research of the university, Chevron general managers Michael J. Allison and Janeen S. Judah, and Dr. Kamath.
Chevron is one of the world's leading integrated energy companies, and is based in San Ramon, Calif. More information on Chevron is available at www.chevron.com.
For photos of UT and Chevron representatives, go to: http://www.cpge.utexas.edu/utcaeor/photos.html.
