EXPEC ARC to Collaborate with KAUST

THUWAL, September 16, 2009 -- Saudi Aramco’s EXPEC Advanced Research Center (EXPEC ARC) held a workshop with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) at its Thuwal campus to develop a long-term collaborative relationship with the university on multiple upstream R&D fronts.

The EXPEC ARC team, headed by acting manager Samer S. AlAshgar, made several presentations to the KAUST faculty that gave a general overview of the center and some of its upstream challenges.

“The aim of this initial workshop was to have overviews of both organizations, stimulating discussions that will percolate into more focused meetings and lead to long-term collaborative research projects,” AlAshgar said

Several members of KAUST management and more than 20 faculty members attended the workshop. Presentations were given by faculty, which included overviews of the university, its research centers, labs and major facilities, with a focus on its computational and visualization capabilities.

EXPEC ARC professionals made presentations on challenges related to computational modeling, drilling, production, reservoir engineering, geophysics and geology. The workshop concluded with discussions, and specific collaboration areas were identified with researchers from both sides selected to serve as contacts.

KAUST faculty visits to EXPEC ARC are planned to meet with researchers for more detailed discussions. Areas indentified for collaboration include upstream nanotechnology applications, computational modeling and visualization, and geophysics.

The EXPEC ARC team toured the university campus and visited the visualization and computational center. “The EXPEC ARC team was very impressed with what they saw on the ground and was happy to meet and interact with the prominent faculty members who attended this workshop. We are looking forward to having a long-term collaborative partnership with KAUST,” AlAshgar said.

“I am confident that in the near future our collaboration will be more mature, and many research programs will be kicked off in the areas of computational modeling, geophysics, nanotechnology application in the oil and gas industry and pore scale physics. We envision that more KAUST graduate students will join us in EXPEC ARC,” said Abdulaziz O. Al-Kaabi, an EXPEC ARC chief technologist and team member.

EXPEC ARC formalized its partnership with KAUST over a year ago by sponsoring its students to intern with technology teams on various upstream research projects. This recent workshop sets the stage to strengthen this partnership and increase joint programs.