ANPERC has ambitious research goals, from seismicity to soil catalogs. A key to that research is having the right equipment, a task made easier by the hard work of the center's faculty and staff, and the commitment of the KAUST administration. As a result, the ANPERC laboratory in the basement of building 5 is well stocked to facilitate the latest research in petroleum engineering.

Dr. Munir Aldin is second from the right in this photograph, joined by his colleagues and ANPERC research scientist Thomas Finkbeiner.

When Center Director Tadeusz Patzek first commissioned MetaRock to build equipment for ANPERC, he is quoted as saying "I don't want machines. I want tools that our students can change to their needs." From the center's first piece of major equipment, the triaxial frame, to its latest acquisition, a high-speed centrifuge, MetaRock has been one of the many suppliers keeping ANPERC's lab up to date. As MetaRock President Munir Aldin explains, much of the equipment MetaRock builds for ANPERC is custom-built and not commercially available, such as a new tool for acoustic spontaneous imbibation: "This is something that doesn't exist on the market. Tad and Maxim dreamed it, and we made it a reality." Because many of MetaRock's creations are modular and unique in their design, proper training becomes essential, as shown in the photo below.

Dr. Aldin's most recent visit to ANPERC included a seminar Tuesday afternoon, on how this equipment can improve the science done at the center. Normally geologists and engineers must wait for core samples to become available, then build their knowledge of the rock's properties gradually. The Biot constant for a sample is generally something that takes time to determine experimentally, but can be studied simultaneously with other properties of a sample through the proper application of MetaRock technology. When recovery operations are ongoing, learning about a porous medium quickly can make the difference between cutting-edge science and old news.