TO
:
FROM :
DATE:
SUBJECT:
DR. CLIFFORD FEDDLER
M. Y. SOLIMAN
NOVEMBER 28, 2011
POST GRADUATE PROGRAM REVIEW
THE DOCUMENT BELOW ADDRESSES THE VARIOUS CONCERNS ADDRESSED IN THE DOCUMENT
THAT WAS SENT TO ME ON SEPTEMBER 30, 2011.
OVERALL QUALITY AND DIRECTION OF THE GRADUATE PROGRAM
The undergraduate education remains important to the Bob L. Herd Department of Petroleum
Engineering; however it is no longer the sole focus. As a new department head I am
encouraging the addition of a research focus as discussed in the steps below.
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Stipends of TA’s and RA’s have increased to a competitive level. This will help the
department attract and keep top candidates. This will help reduce or eliminate flight of our
top candidates.
Increased focus on PhD students. PhD students represent the main force for getting
research done and getting funded research.
In the absence of funded research we are attracting operating companies sponsored
students. Several sponsored PhD students have joined the department this semester.
Used the chair funds to further jump start a research program by offering RA’s to top
students that could not join the department with our sponsorship.
Encourage submitting proposals for funded research. List of submitted proposals is attached
in the appendix. Several other proposals have been submitted to the industry. One proposal
in particular to Saudi Aramco is very promising discussing a new method for fracturing wells.
The research expenditure during the since January 2011 is $453,294, another $60,000
approved but yet to be ordered. This is more than what was spent during the previous 5
years.
The department has 2 full professors, three associate professors, three assistant professors,
1 full time instructor and one part time instructor. We have active search for one more
position. One of the assistant professor has applied for tenure and promotion. The
department committee has recommended approval of both tenure and promotion. The
department also added a post-doc position to help in performing further research.
Faculty Quality and Productivity
The teaching load is still high, however the addition of two new professors have reducced that
load a little. Consequently, the number of courses taught by each professor has
declined. The teaching load for professors working towards tenure has been reduced to
1 class each semester. Addition of more professors, as expected, will further improve
the situation.
Quality of Graduate Students
With better stipends, the department should be able to reverse the trend of losing its best
students. The plan is to be very focused on graduate student productivity demanding
publication from MS thesis and PhD dissertations.
The curriculum for both undergraduate and graduate classes will be studied carefully and
greatly updated. Several graduate courses that are not being taught have been
eliminated from the catalog. More focused changes are planned.
Facilities and resources
Expenditure on research equipment and software has significantly increased as given in the
attached list. In addition a new Petroleum Engineering building is planned. The new
building will help foster a new emphasis on research and cooperation.
Summary
Most importantly the emphasis is on changing the culture from one solely focusing on teaching
and “complacency” to culture of both teaching and research and urgency to perform at
the highest level.
List of equipment bought/ordered by Bob L. Herd Department of Petroleum Engineering
in 2011
Equipment/software
Autolab Workstation
Grace Instrument Company
Core Lab Instruments Texas
Cole-Parmer Instrument Company
Lab View
cost
$183,775
$20,995
$213,604
$982
$3,938
A drilling simulator ($60,000) has been approved but not yet ordered.
Research Proposals Submitted Since January 2011
1. QP & Weatherford, cement issues, $900,000 per year for three years, PI: Heinze, CoPIs: Ziaja, Watson, Soliman, Siddiqui, and Awal. Submitted: April 2011. Not funded.
2. BP-Canada, small fracture stimulation via pulse power, $300,000 for two years, PI:
Awal, Co-PIs: Heinze, Neuber (ECE). Submitted: May 2011. Pending.
3. GRI (Gulf Research Initiative), prevention and clean up oil spills offshore, $875,000 per
year for three years, PI: Heinze, Co-PIs: Watson, Awal, Siddiqui, and Soliman.
Submitted: July 2011. Not Funded.
4. Basic Energy, Cementing Software, $200,000, PI: Watson, Co-PI: Heinze.
5. Apache, Data Mining, $300,000 per year for multiple years, PI: Watson, Co-PI: Heinze.
6. Saudi Aramco. Technical Feasibility and Scale-up study of REDStim Technology,
submitted to, Aug. 2011. PI: Dr. Mohammad Rafiqul Awal, Budget (100% client):
$1,100,000 million, Status: Pending approval by client
7. Shell Canada, Feasibility Study of Unconventional Gas Reservoir Fracturing Stimulation
by Plasma Frac Tool, submitted Aug. 2011, PI: Dr. Mohammad Rafiqul Awal , Budget
(100% client): $723,312, Status: Pending approval by client
8. Occidental Oil & Gas Corporation, Study of Bakken Shale Reservoir for Optimization of
Hydraulic Fracturing, submitted to, Apr. 2011, PI: Dr. Mohamed Y. Soliman, Co-PI: Dr.
Mohammad Rafiqul Awal; Dr. Shameem Siddiqui, Budget (100% client): $200,000,
Status: Pending approval by client
9. Chemical EOR Expert System (Sheng and Soliman, to The Industry Technology
Facilitator, ITF)
10. Chemical EOR in Fractured Carbonate Reservoirs(Sheng and Soliman, to The Industry
Technology Facilitator, ITF)
11. Heavy Oil Recovery from Thin Reservoirs by Cyclic Chemical Stimulation (CCS) (Sheng
and Soliman, to The Industry Technology Facilitator, ITF)
12. Proof of Concept Research into Applicability of Low Concentration Diverting Agents and
EOR Chemicals in Deepwater Gulf of Mexico Reservoirs (Sheng and Soliman, and
Knowledge Reservoir, to DOE/RPSEA)
13. Effect of Alkaline Ions on Reducing Surfactant Adsorption on Carbonate Rocks(Sheng
and Soliman, American Chemical Society-Petroleum Research Fund)
14. PI: NSF CAREER proposal: “Two-phase flow simulation in a large domain of natural
porous media using LBM.” Pending, 100% of $409,200, submitted to NSF CBET in July,
2011.
15. PI for a research project: Western Michigan University: “Two-Phase Relative
Permeability Studies for Western Michigan University," Granted, 100% of $30,000,
June, 2011.
16. PI for a research project: Indiana University: “Two-Phase Relative Permeability Studies
for Indiana University," Granted, 100% of $10,000, June, 2011.
17. PI for industry research project: “Petrophysical Properties from Drilled Cuttings.”
Pending, 30% of $753,000, submitted to Saudi Aramco in July 2011.
18. Co-PI with Dr. Hashemi and two other TTU professors: NSF unsolicited proposal:
“Understanding Non-Contact Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injuries to Improve
Rehabilitation Procedures.” Did not get funded, submitted to NSF CBET for $322,700, in
March 2011.
Papers published or presented in 2011
1.
Li, Gang, Allison, D., Soliman, M. Y. “Geomechanical study of the multistage fracturing
process for horizontal Wells,” ARMA 11-2011 presentation at the 45th US Rock
Mechanics / Geomechanics Symposium held in San Francisco, CA, June 26–29, 2011.
2.
Loyd E. East, Jr., Leopoldo Sierra, and M. Y. Soliman, Altering Sweep Profiles during
Water flooding Using Near-Wellbore and Deep Reservoir Controls SPE-SAS-722, May
2011,
3.
M.Y. Soliman, Carlos Miranda, Hong (Max) Wang, and Kim Thornton, Halliburton
Investigation of Effect of Fracturing Fluid on After-Closure Analysis in Gas Reservoirs.
Production & Operations SPE Journal, May 2011
4.
Ravi Vadapalli, Alan Sill, Shameem Siddiqui, M. Y. Soliman, and Franz Deimbacher .
“Demonstration of the PE Grid Environment for Uncertainty based Optimization of
Subsurface Reservoirs,” presented at SIAM Conference on Mathematical &
Computational Issues in the Geosciences (GS11) March 21-24, 2011, Long Beach,
California, USA
5.
East, L. E., Soliman, M. Y., and Augustine, J. “Methods for Enhancing Far-Field
Complexity in Fracturing Operations,” SPE 133380 presented at the 2010 SPE Annual
Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE) to be held 19-22 September 2010 in
Florence, Italy. August 2011 Production and Operations.
6.
Platt F.M., Heinze, L. R, “A Historical Survey of Summer Internships with a Review of
Options for Increasing the Number of Interns Available for Industry,” SPE 147426, SPE
Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition, Denver, CO, USA, 30 October – 2 November
2011.
7.
Siddiqui, S. Sun, J., Burgess, M.J. and Al-Buraiki, M.S.: “Development of a Portable
Coreflooding System for Visualizing Multiphase Flow in Porous Media,” accepted for
publication, Journal of Nature Science and Sustainable Technology (JNSST), Vol. 5
8.
Funk, J J., Withjack, E.M., Siddiqui, S., Al-Enezi, S.M. and Caliskan S.: “Core Imaging:
Twenty Five Years of Equipment, Techniques, and Applications of X-Ray Computed
Tomography (CT) for Core Analysis,” SCA-A040, prepared for presentation at the
International Symposium of the Society of Core Analysts held in Austin, TX, September
18-21, 2011.
9.
Sun, J., Siddiqui, S. and Awal, M.R.: “Extraction of porosity and permeability for small
core plugs,” SCA- A060, prepared for presentation at the International Symposium of the
Society of Core Analysts held in Austin, TX, September 18-21, 2011
10.
Tembe, G. and Siddiqui, S.: “Applications of Computed Tomography to Museum
Conservation And Exhibit,” Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) conference to be
held in Las Vegas, NV, November 2-5, 2011.
Sarker, M.R.H., McIntyre, D.L., Crandall, D., Ferer, M., Siddiqui, S. and Bromhal, G.:
"Application of Real Rock Pore-throat Statistics to a Regular Pore Network Model for
Extracting Petrophysical Properties," SPE 145751-PP, prepared for presentation at the
2011 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition held in Denver, Colorado, 30
Oct. – 2 Nov., 2011.
11.
12.
13.
Ayyalasomayagula, K.K., McIntyre, D.L., Jain, J.C., Singh, J.P. and Siddiqui, S.:
"Analysis of calibration materials to improve dual-energy CT scanning for petrophysical
applications," SPE 146522-PP, , prepared for presentation at the 2011 SPE Annual
Technical Conference and Exhibition held in Denver, Colorado, 30 Oct. – 2 Nov., 2011.
Cao, P. and Siddiqui, S.: "Three-Phase Unsteady-State Relative Permeability
Measurements in Consolidated Cores Using Three Immiscible Liquids," SPE 145808PP, prepared for presentation at the 2011 SPE Annual Technical Conference and
Exhibition held in Denver, Colorado, 30 Oct. – 2 Nov., 2011.
14.
Winkler, H.W. and Shahri, M.A.: “Practical Method for Measurement of Injection-Gas
Throughput of each Gas-Lift Valve before Well Installation,” paper SPE 141055
presented at the 2011 SPEOKC Production and Operations Symposium, Oklahoma City,
OK, March 29.
15.
Lea, J.F.; and Winkler, H.W.: "What's New in Artificial Lift" Part 2, World Oil (May 2010)
231, No. 5, 95-103.