Center for Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering

Welcome to the Center for Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering Research (CPGE). Our mission is to

encourage and develop interdisciplinary research in petroleum and geosystems engineering as well as other areas related to energy and the environment,
provide educational opportunities for graduate students.
provide an organizational structure for funding new areas of research, and
conduct meetings, symposia, and workshops on research topics and provide a mechanism for technology transfer.

Please explore our many research programs and contact the Program Managers or myself if you would like additional information.

Thank you,
Gary A. Pope, Director (gpope@mail.utexas.edu)

November 2007
[Photo of
Gary Pope] More congratulations are in order. CPGE Director Gary Pope has been selected to receive the AIME Environmental Conservation Distinguished Service Award for 2008. The award is given "to recognize significant contributions to environmental conservation by addition to knowledge, by design or invention of useful equipment or procedure, or by outstanding service to government or private organizations devoted to conservation." The award will be presented next fall at the Society of Petroleum Engineers Annual Banquet and Awards Ceremony in Denver, Colorado.

August 2007
[Photo of
Matthew Balhoff and David DiCarlo] Please join us in welcoming two new assistant professors to the department and CPGE. Matthew Balhoff has been on campus working as a Postdoctoral Fellow for the Center for Subsurface Modeling since 2005. Matt's research interests include pore-scale and multiscale modeling as well as flow and transport in porous media. David DiCarlo has most recently been working for the USDA's Agricultural Research Service in Mississippi. David's research interests include using advanced experimental techniques such as multi-energy CT scanning, synchrotron radiation, and acoustical measurements. Welcome, Matt and David!

July 2007
[Photo of
Janeen Judah and Juan Sanchez] We're pleased to announce the establishment of the UT-Chevron Alliance for Enhanced Oil Recovery. The new research alliance will develop new technology to increase the amount of oil recovered from mature and challenging reservoirs. Under the alliance, Chevron will provide up to $5 million over the next five years to the Center for Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering. The joint research initiative will focus on non-thermal enhanced oil recovery technologies. Areas of study include surfactants and polymers that target oil trapped and bypassed by conventional recovery methods, and numerical models that accurately capture enhanced oil recovery processes. Please see the press release for more information. In the news: Daily Texan, and San Francisco Business Times.

April 2007
Please take a moment to explore our new Methane Hydrate Project Information page where we'll be highlighing research results from the Mechanisms Leading to Co-Existence of Gas and Hydrate in Ocean Sediments project. This is a 4-year project recently funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory. We're working to quantify how methane is distributed and transported within a hydrate resource area which will help us better understand the complex systems containing hydrate, water, free gas, and sediment.

We've recently established a new CPGE research laboratory: the Rheology Laboratory for Petroleum-Industry Fluids. The current focus is on the rheological characterization of EOR-related fluids, such as aqueous polymer solutions, polymer gels and microemulsions; but the existing capability for drilling fluids and completion fluids is being incorporated, and new capability will be gradually added.