HWU

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Institute of Petroleum Engineering (IPE) at Heriot-Watt University (HWU)

The Institute of Petroleum Engineering (IPE) at Heriot-Watt University (HWU) is widely recognised as one of the internationally leading centres of excellence in petroleum engineering and petroleum geoscience. Its industrially focused research covers the full range of activities related to the upstream oil and gas industry, from exploring hydrocarbon provinces to characterising the reservoirs, to developing new chemical and engineering solutions to optimise hydrocarbon production. In addition, IPE has carried out research into geological storage of CO2 for over a decade, being founder members of CO2GeoNet in 2004.

IPE is part of Scottish Carbon Capture and Storage (SCCS) which comprises a number of universities and the British Geological Survey. Through SCCS, IPE has taken part in several multidisciplinary studies to investigate the storage potential under the North Sea. In particular we have developed expertise in numerical simulation of CO2 storage and CO2 EOR. Our research is supported by software donations from Schlumberger and Computer Modeling Group.

IPE leads several major UK-wide and interdisciplinary research centres, such as the NERC Centre for Doctoral Training in Oil and Gas, the Oil and Gas Innovation Centre and the Centre for Energy Economics Research and Policy. In the Research Excellence Framework (REF) in 2014, IPE provided four highly ranked impact case studies and was a central component of the Edinburgh Research Partnership in Engineering (ERPE).

In 2015, IPE received the prestigious Queen’s Anniversary Prize, recognising its sustained pioneering work in innovation and research excellence.