A recent gift from Chevron ETC to Kostarelos’ research lab, which is dedicated to subsurface research including enhanced oil recovery (EOR), made a huge difference to him. The donation of fluid accumulators, high pressure pumps and more will aid the professor’s research – related to EOR for conventional and unconventional oil reservoirs – and help teach students for years to come. EOR methods are needed to recover residual oil from an oil reservoir that has been producing oil for some time and the remaining oil cannot be extracted by other means.
“Since many of these pieces of equipment need to be rated for high pressure and high temperature in order to simulate reservoir conditions, they can be rather expensive due to the special material used in manufacturing them,” Kostarelos said. Looking around at the many boxes of equipment, he said “purchasing these items outright would have required substantial funding. As a result, this donation is greatly appreciated.”
The donation was made after Kostarelos discussed his needs with several employees of Chevron, who helped identify equipment the company was no longer using and arranged for it to be donated to UH.