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Industry and Academia often partner to solve a family of problems. These consortiums or Joint Industry Programs (JIPs) typically are co-funded by an industry group for research conducted by universities of topics of interest to the members. One such entity is Advanced Energy Consortium (http://www.beg.utexas.edu/aec/index.php)
The Advanced Energy Consortium (AEC) is a joint research consortium that will focus on applications of nanotechnology to the exploration and production of oil and gas. The goal of the consortium is to develop subsurface nanosensors that can be injected into oil and gas well bores. By virtue of their very small size, these sensors can migrate out of well bores and into pores of the surrounding geological structure to collect data about the physical and spatial characteristics of hydrocarbon reservoirs. Data collected could enable more efficient exploitation of hydrocarbon resources. Consortium membership includes Baker Hughes, British Petroleum, ConocoPhillips, Halliburton, Marathon, Occidental, Schlumberger, Shell, and TOTAL. Projects include:
BEG08-013 Integrated fundamental and applied studies of nanoparticles to probe reservoir rock Develop paramagnetic iron- and vanadium-based metal oxide particles functionalized by organic ligands to act as contrast agents; approach is to enable quantification of the partition between water and oil-based phases using MRI for using enhanced sensitivity.
BEG08-011 Modeling and Synthesizing High Mobility Nanoparticles for Advanced Oil Recovery Develop an experimentally informed graphical and versatile model that can describe engineered nanoparticle transport and partitioning in a number of relevant reservoir matrices (from porous rock to fine clays to coarse sands).
For a complete listing of AECs 22 funded project see http://www.beg.utexas.edu/aec/projects.php
The Wyoming University Enhanced Oil Recovery Institute performs reservoir screening and characterization in collaboration with a number of local producers. It receives funding from a variety of government and industry sources. To view their activities go to |