The EGEL team is led by Professor J. Carlos Santamarina, ANPERC Associate Director. The team includes graduate students, Postdoctoral Fellows, Research Scientists and Research Staff.

Petroleum Geologist Volker Vahrenkamp joins ANPERC as Professor of Practice. Dr. Volker Vahrenkamp recently joined ANPERC as Professor of Practice in Geology. Prior to joining us he has had many years of experience in the petroleum industry with Shell E&P companies and was also Managing Director at NordicGeothermal in Dubai.

In a recent two-week visit to KAUST, Prof. Nur, the Wayne Loel Professor of Earth Sciences, Emeritus at Stanford University, explored these topics at length with a new generation of Earth Science and Engineering students in the Energy GeoEngineering Lab group and the broader ANPERC community.

ANPERC is pleased to announce the arrival of Xupeng He who recently joined Prof. Hoteit's group as its first MS/Ph.D. Student. Xupeng's research will be focusing on modeling and simulation of reservoir numerical, flow mechanisms and productivity analysis in unconventional reservoirs and enhanced oil recovery (EOR).

ANPERC is pleased to welcome Syed Haider who recently joined Prof. Patzek's Engineering Geosystems Group (EGG) as a Ph.D. Student and Ainur Sabirova who recently joined Prof. Carlos Santamarina's Energy GeoEngineering Laboratory Group (EGEL) also as a Ph.D. Student

Dr. Budi Zhao recently joined ANPERC as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Prof. Carlos Santamarina’s Energy GeoEngineering Laboratory Group (EGEL). Prior to join us he completed his Ph.D. in Geotechnical Engineering at City University of Hong Kong.

ANPERC proudly announces the arrival of Dr. Al-Talla who recently join us as Lab Manager. Zeyad Al- Talla has a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and he also has over ten years of lab experience primary in academics and research, most recently in the KAUST Analytical Chemistry Core Lab as a Research Scientist.

ANPERC welcomes Dr. Timofey Eltsov as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Prof. Patzek’s Engineering Geosystems Group (EGG). He completed his Ph.D. in Physics and Mathematics at Institute of Petroleum-Gas Geology and Geophysics of Siberian Branch of RAS (IPGG SB RAS) in Russia.

We are pleased to welcome Wonjun, Gloria, Eduardo and Rami to ANPERC and KAUST who recently joined Prof. Carlos Santamarina’s Energy GeoEngineering Laboratory Group (EGEL).

Among many provocative ideas, the problem of “messy” drilling and downhole data, and how to improve the quality of that data was a key theme of the KAUST Research Conference: Advances in Well Construction. The conference, hosted Nov 7-9 by ANPERC, brought together key industry and academic research leaders to delineate the main physical, mechanical, and chemical reasons for oil and gas drilling inefficiencies and mishaps, and propose a way forward using the best multidisciplinary approaches.

ANPERC is proud to announce the addition of one new Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr. Xunchang Fei, who has joined Prof. Carlos Santamarina’s Energy GeoEngineering Laboratory Group (EGEL). Dr.

Dr. Hussein Hoteit recently joined ANPERC as an Associate Professor. Prior to joining us he was Staff Reservoir Engineer at Chevron in the United States of America.

KAUST Research Conference: Advances in Well Construction set for Nov 7-9, 2016

Santhi Chandra recently joined ANPERC as a Research Scientist. During her Ph.D. and as a research intern at BG Group, Santhi’s focus was to develop a cross-disciplinary understanding of carbonate reservoirs, especially in; carbonate reservoir characterization, formation evaluation, reservoir modeling and simulation, and using production data for history matching.

ANPERC welcomed new students to both research groups in September 2016.

Beginning its second full year of operation at KAUST, ANPERC looks to the start of the 2016-17 academic year with a full slate of exciting events and activities. One of these milestones will be the completion of the center's cutting-edge laboratory.

Celebrating KAUST Achievements in the summer of 2016: #1 university in the world, in terms of citations per faculty, and #19 fastest growing university in terms of contributions by Nature Research

"The retreat was a fantastic opportunity for our team members to take time out from our laboratory work and to develop firm goals for the upcoming academic year" -Professor Carlos Santamarina

Members of ANPERC ventured out into the Red Sea to test a new tool—designed and built in-house with the assistance of KAUST's Central Workshops—that aims to provide a set of subsurface sediment analyses that can't be conducted in the lab.

ANPERC wishes to congratulate Senior Research Scientist Dr. Thomas Finkbeiner on his recent appointment to the Student Affairs Committee for the European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers. (SAC-EAGE).