The Role Of The University Of Calgary In The Development Of A Centre Of Excellence In Petroleum Technology
Authors: Moore G. , Chakma A. 
Published: March 2010

Calgary is the recognized centre of the Canadian oil and gas industry, and as such it is home to a large concentration of engineers and technologists employed in the petroleum sector. The Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Calgary, has long recognized the importance of the petroleum industry to the economic well-being of Albertans, and has been serving various training and research needs of the industry since its inception. Dr. A.H. Younger was appointed special sessional lecturer in engineering in 1964, and the gas processing courses which he developed are still being offered today. The first full-time appointments to the department were Dr. D.W. Bennion and Dr. K. Aziz. The first Ph.D. and the first M.Eng. graduated by the Department were in the areas of petroleum reservoir and natural gas engineering respectively.

While the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering has never been able to grant either undergraduate or graduate Petroleum engineering degrees, it has continued to serve the petroleum industry in many ways. The Department offers a M.Eng. degree with specialization in petroleum reservoir engineering. By far, the vast majority of our M.Eng. graduates have this specialization. Approximately two thirds of the graduate level courses are oil or gas related. Undergraduate courses on Petroleum Reservoir Engineering, Petroleum Production Engineering and Waterflooding are very well subscribed by students from Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and by students from industry. The Department is very fortunate that it can draw on local expertise as it does not have sufficient fulltime faculty to teach all of the courses which are currently offered. External teaching and consultative support are provided by two Honourary Professors (Dr. N. Mungan and Dr. K. Aziz) and six Adjunct Professors (Dr. J.K. Donnelly, Dr. G.A. Gregory, Dr. A. Kantzas, Dr. B. Maini, Dr. A. Settari, and Dr. A. Younger). The Department also benefits from a large number of industrial personnel who provide specialized lectures in the gas processing and final year design courses.

Research interest in reservoir engineering in recent years, have emphasized thermal recovery processes which prompted the Department to develop world-class facilities in the areas of steam assisted gravity drainage processes (SAGD), solvent assisted process (VAPEX) and in situ combustion based processes. The Department has developed excellent thermodynamic property measurement capabilities for application to heavy oils and bitumens and a first-rate facility for determining the kinetics of gas hydrate formation. Property predictions for natural gas streams have long been a strong area of interest in the Department and our expertise in the area of computational thermodynamics using equations of state is world class.

The direct support of the petroleum industry has resulted in the placement of two research chairs in the Department (Petroleum Chair and Hydrogen Chair) a third chair (Bituminous Materials) is shared with the Department of Civil Engineering. A close association is maintained with TITM Laboratories, which is located on the campus and provides specialized core and flow imaging services. In addition, the Petroleum Recovery Institute provides both facilities and supervision to graduate students.