NEWS

Funding secured to tackle improved oil recovery challenge

Funding secured to tackle improved oil recovery challenge
Foundation CMG Chairs Professor Sebastian Geiger and Professor Eric Mackay

Foundation CMG (FCMG) has announced the extension of their sponsorship of the FCMG Chairs held by Professor Eric Mackay and Professor Sebastian Geiger, by committing another £1.1M to Heriot-Watt University over a five-year period. This investment, together with matching funds that could be as high as £6.5M, will enable Professors Mackay and Geiger to contribute significantly to the training of students in petroleum engineering, with over 25 PhD and 100 MSc students expected to graduate over the five year period.

“Foundation CMG is extremely pleased with the results of the first five year term with Professors Geiger and Mackay and is very excited to support these research Chairs for another five year period.”

Duke Anderson, President Foundation CMG

Together with their research teams, Professors Mackay and Geiger will tackle some of the key challenges faced by the oil and gas industry today. Professor Mackay is the Foundation CMG Chair in Reactive Flow Simulation. His research focuses on quantifying the interplay between fluid flow and chemical reactions and has applications to three key areas: it enables operators to maintain production in mature provinces that operate at high water production, such as the UK North Sea, whilst managing the resulting flow assurance risks, it helps to optimise production in mature and emerging provinces by investigating advanced hydrocarbon recovery methods and it translates to better modelling of CO2 storage in the subsurface as part of Carbon Capture and Storage projects.

Professor Geiger is the Foundation CMG Chair for Carbonate Reservoir Simulation. His research focuses on novel methods to improve the characterization, modelling, and simulation of (fractured) carbonate reservoirs. Carbonate reservoirs hold over 60% of the world’s remaining conventional oil reserves but much of the oil contained in them cannot be produced at present. Technical innovation in reservoir modelling and simulation that facilitate an increase in recovery factor and recovery efficiency from carbonate reservoirs will hence be among the most important contributions to the oil and gas industry for the next decade.

The Foundation CMG Chair programme at Heriot-Watt was first launched in 2010. Professors Mackay and Geiger said, “We are thankful for the great support we’ve received over the past five years from Foundation CMG as well as from our colleagues in the Institute of Petroleum Engineering. We are delighted that this continued funding from FCMG means that a further generation of students, and the wider industry, will benefit from the Chair programme’s expertise and innovative research.”

Renewable support of student education

Foundation CMG has a mission to ‘Promote and Fund University Research in Oil & Gas Reservoir Simulation with Industry Collaboration and Technology Transfer’. Foundation CMG has a vision to be the catalyst for investment of $700 Million in the training of 5000 graduate students and reservoir simulation research over a period of 25 years. Foundation CMG partners with Government, Industry and Universities to drive unique multiyear renewable support of student education and world leading researchers at universities, in Europe, Asia, South America and North America.