ANPERC members Dr. Victor Torrealba and Wardana Saputra attended the 2018 ATS&E conference in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. They presented a paper and spoke in the Young Professional's panel.

Visiting Professor Clayton Radke spent five months working together with staff and students at ANPERC. Radke, who is Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California Berkeley and a member of the prestigious US National Academy of Engineering, came to KAUST to teach a variety of courses within applied surface and colloid chemistry. He's also working on various research projects.

At ANPERC Senior Research Scientist Thomas Finkbeiner is leading the Rock Geomechanics Reseach Group. We asked Thomas about his background and research.

The EGEL group hosted a seven-member Turkish Academic Delegation from April 18 – 19. The delegates from Istanbul University, Bogazici University and Middle East Technical University viewed KAUST research facilities and met with EGEL team members and ANPERC faculty.

During the celebration of Earth Day on Thursday April 19, ANPERC was awarded the very first KAUST Certified Green Lab Award with the highest score in sustainability. The Green Lab award, given to ANPERC by the KAUST Sustainability Group, is an indication of how green the labs of the centers are.

This March ANPERC welcomed Postdoctoral Fellow Pankaj Khanna. At KAUST Pankaj joined the growing Carbonate Reservoirs Geology group of Professor Volker Vahrenkamp.

The days of easy oil extraction are dwindling across the globe, bringing an imperative for careful and inventive ways to utilize the Earth’s remaining fossil fuel resources. Tadeusz Patzek at KAUST is a leading expert in onshore and offshore oil recovery processes. He is committed to maintaining oil and gas production at sustainable levels to give scientists and engineers the opportunity to find replacement fuels for the future.

Over the next 30 to 50 years, the oil and gas industry will face a number of challenges. Chief among these is the difficulty of meeting growing global hydrocarbon demand as energy and feedstock within 21st century constraints. The industry must achieve a balance between environmental sensitivities, market pressures and rising costs. During the recent KAUST Research Conference: Recovery of Difficult Hydrocarbons organized by the Ali I. Al-Naimi Petroleum Engineering Research Center (ANPERC), attendees wrestled with these and other questions. The conference, which was held from February 12 to 14, also examined technical solutions to enhance environmentally sound recovery from complex oil and gas fields at low cost within the Middle East.

Deemah AlAshban, who completed a six-week SRSI internship supervised by Prof. Hussein Hoteit in 2017, has qualified for the prestigious INTEL ISEF Science Fair in Pittsburgh, USA. The prestigious Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) is the largest pre-college scientific research event in the world. Each year in May, more than 1500 students from roughly 70 countries and territories compete in the Fair for scholarships, tuition grants, internships, scientific field trips and college scholarships.

ANPERC welcomed its newest Ph.D. student David Gonczi in February. Gonczi comes from Hungary, where he studied Earth Science and Engineering with a specialization in Oil and Gas Engineering at the University of Miskolc. At ANPERC, David is pursuing his Ph.D. in Earth Science and Engineering under the supervision of Professor Hussein Hoteit.

Professor Hussein Hoteit will represent ANPERC at the AIEC 2018, 5th Ajman International Environment Conference on Climate Change and Sustainability. He will be speaking on March 6, from 1pm to 3pm. In his talk he will give an assessment of CO2 Emissions from major industries in Saudi Arabia.

A delegation of ANPERC faculty and students will attend the Geo2018 Conference and Exhibition, 5-8 March 2018 in Bahrain. Geo2018 is the Middle East's pre-eminent event for presenting and learning about new developments, applications, geology, geophysics and for networking with community peers and industry experts.

EGEL hosted a six member Korean Academic Delegation from January 8 - 10, 2018. The Korean delegation included Assistant Professor Tae-Hyuk Kwon and Professor Gye-Chun Cho (KAIST), Assistant Professor Changho Lee (Chonnam National University), Professor Hyunki Kim (Kookmin University), Principal Investigator Joo-Yong Lee (Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources) and Professor Jong-Sub Lee (Korea University).

This month, Dr. Joshua Smith joined the EGEL-group under supervision of Professor Carlos Santamarina. Smith is a Postdoctoral Fellow and comes from the United States of America.

This week the EGEL group of Professor Santamarina welcomed Professor Kenichi Soga. Professor Soga is Professor in Geosystems at the University of California, Berkeley.

A new soil classification, and tools to implement it, helps understanding of the properties of the ground underpinning geo-engineering projects.

While most of us take soils for granted, researchers from KAUST’s Energy Geo-Engineering Laboratory literally know soils inside out. Their research has important implications for diverse geotechnical projects, including mining, oil extraction, bridge and tower foundations, coastal and offshore structures, analyzing tunnels and sinkholes, and designing earthquake-resilient infrastructure.

The EAGE regional manager Middle East, Ms. Emily Bell, recently paid a visit to KAUST to discuss EAGE's developing role in the Middle East with a strong emphasis on students and their future progression within the industry. Ms. Bell invited to make a presentation to the Earth Science and Engineering Department and was kindly hosted by ANPERC's Senior Research Scientist, Dr. Thomas Finkbeiner.

Since its beginning in 2015 the ANPERC lab team has been growing steadily. Over the past few months two more lab technicians joined our team, which now consists of four people.

The world heralds the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as one of the most important producers of the hydrocarbons that power modern life. But can the Kingdom also be one of the primary drivers in addressing the environmental challenge?

October saw the arrival of our new Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Victor Torrealba. Torrealba got his Bachelor's and Master's Degree in Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University and at the same university, he was awarded his Ph.D in 2017.