texas a&m university at qatar has established a new center in the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) after approval of the texas a&m university system board of regents on sept 4 the tees gas and fuels research center (gfrc) is a multidisciplinary research center led by texas a&m at qatar involving 19 professors from texas a&ms main campus in college station and the qatar campus and represents different engineering programs including chemical engineering petroleum engineering materials engineering and mechanical engineering dr mark h weichold dean and ceo at texas a&m at qatar said texas a&m at qatar is proud to launch this center in qatar because it will create new knowledge that has direct bearing on one of the pillars of qatars energy and industry sector the state-of-the-art gas and fuels research conducted at this center will integrate key qatar industries and internationally respected faculty from both the branch campus here in doha and texas a&ms main campus in college station through this collaborative effort with tees texas a&m at qatar will utilize its world-class doha-based laboratory facilities and expertise to export knowledge created here to the us and beyond the centers key objective is to lead the integrated research activities and the resources of texas a&m to support shale gas and natural gas exploration production and monetization activities both in the united states and in qatar the center of excellence involves leading scientists and researchers utilizing state-of-art research labs and facilities it will also support the us shale gas evolution and will be a part of texas a&m at qatars research strategic plant to support qatar national vision 2030 dr nimir elbashir gfrc director and associate professor of chemical engineering at texas a&m at qatar said the gas and fuels research center is a major initiative from texas a&m university to take the lead in the natural gas era texas a&m at qatar played a critical role in the establishment of this center because of the tremendous support received from the industry and from qatar foundations research funding agencies to build world-class research facilities and infrastructure that supports natural gas exploration treatment and processing the center provides a unique opportunity for leading researchers from the two campuses of texas a&m university to collaborate in supporting qatar and us industry and governmental institutions to build the future natural gas utilization technologies elbashir continued one of the centers main objectives is to train highly skilled engineers and technical staff to support the future of gas processing technologies and to educate the community about the role natural gas will play as a clean source of energy and fuels the launch of gfrc was envisioned during texas a&m at qatar gas and fuels research initiative (gfri) and a two-day workshop on natural gas monetization that took place at in montgomery texas in march 2014 dr eyad masad executive associate dean at texas a&m at qatar said texas a&m university at qatar continues to contribute to qatar national vision 2030 and this center supports qatars efforts in diversifying the economy by creating high value products from natural gas it will help foster the oil and gas industry diversification through the development of by-product industries such as polymers plastics recycling industrial polyolefins natural fibers and packaging it is set to become a training hub for researchers and graduate students in research areas of significant interest to qatars economy from the state of qatar we will be leading scientists and researches from industry and academia to share their insight and expertise on the future of natural gas in the energy market and its potential to become a major source of ultra-clean fuels and value-added chemicals dr mahmoud el-halwagi gfrc managing director and mcferrin professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m said this is a critical time for the gas and fuels industry the recent substantial discoveries of shale gas in the us are creating numerous opportunities and needs it is expected that the growth in shale-gas industry in the us will lead to investments exceeding $100 billion over the next decade the state of texas is regarded as the ‘energy capital of the world and the state of qatar is considered to be the ‘gas capital of the world therefore it is a great advantage to have texas a&m university both in qatar and college station to provide leadership through gfrc especially in areas such as research education and outreach for the gas and fuels industry el-halwagi added that the center will play a unique role in developing and adapting basic science and engineering to creative state-of-the-art pathways for gas and fuels processes that are economically attractive environmentally friendly and safer to operate we look forward to collaborating with talents and leaders in academia industry and government in a true partnership to achieve advancement and make a difference in technology and to help educate the next generation of leaders in the field of gas and fuels he said tees gas and fuels research center has just started and lessons learned from qatars experience in natural gas monetization will be a major focus as qatar is home to the worlds largest facilities in gas-to-liquid (gtl) and liquefied natural gas (lng) production in addition to a well-integrated supply chain of chemicals and petrochemicals