SAN RAMON, Calif., July 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Chevron Corporation (NYSE:
CVX) today announced it has formed a research alliance with The University
of Texas at Austin to develop new technologies to increase the amount of
oil recovered from mature and challenging reservoirs.
Under the alliance, Chevron Energy Technology Company, 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 (EOR) technologies, including surfactants and
polymers that target oil trapped and bypassed by conventional recovery
methods, and numerical models that accurately simulate 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, Chevron Corporation.
"This alliance will bring together Chevron's historical leadership in EOR
and the world-class petroleum research capabilities of The University of
Texas to create the next generation of enhanced recovery technologies and
open up new opportunities to add reserves and production."
"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," said Dr. Larry W. Lake, chairman of
the Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering within the
university's College of Engineering.
"This funding will allow the center to greatly expand its oil recovery
research and play an important role in helping meet global energy needs,"
added 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, said through the alliance Chevron is providing the university
with long-term research and development funding, increasing its access to
economically important challenges, and expanding the nation's future work
force.
Chevron is one of the world's leading integrated energy companies. The
company has about 56,000 employees, and Chevron's subsidiaries conduct
business in more than 180 countries. Chevron operates across the entire
energy spectrum - exploring for, producing and transporting crude oil and
natural gas; refining, marketing and distributing fuels and other energy
products and services; generating power; designing and marketing
large-scale energy efficiency solutions and commercializing the energy
resources of the future, including biofuels and other renewables. Chevron
is based in San Ramon, Calif. More information on Chevron is available at
http://www.chevron.com.
SOURCE Chevron Corporation
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