Distinguished Engineering Keynote Seminar by Prof Ann Muggeridge (Imperial College London): 'It's not oil gone...'

It's not oil gone ...

Today crude oil forms a major source of our energy, particularly for transport, and is projected to remain so for many decades to come. It is, however, as many of us are aware, a finite resource and will eventually run out. Not only this, but the carbon dioxide produced by burning oil is believed to make it a significant contributor to climate change.

This lecture will start off by exploring oil’s place in the world’s energy mix and whether this is likely to change in the future. It will then describe how oil is recovered, focussing particularly on how much conventional oil is left behind by current recovery methods and the opportunities to exploit that remaining oil through new and emerging technologies.  It will conclude by looking briefly at the practical, economic, environmental and political drivers that will affect the take-up of these new technologies.

Ann Muggeridge holds the Total Chair in Reservoir Physics and EOR. She been employed at Imperial as a petroleum engineer since 1995 although she originally trained as a physicist, studying for her undergraduate degree at Imperial and then a DPhil in Atmospheric Physics at the University of Oxford.  She moved into petroleum engineering after completing her DPhil, initially working at BP’s (then) Sunbury Research Centre developing methods for modelling and upscaling miscible gas injection and waterflooding, then working in a service company developing and supporting reservoir simulation software. Since joining Imperial, Ann has continued her research into improving oil recovery for both conventional light oils and, more recently, heavy, high viscosity oils. She is particularly interested in evaluating the impact of geological heterogeneity on these processes and mitigating the risks associated with them. From 2006-08 she was a Technology Fellow at BP where she became interested in the applications of nano-science and microbes in oil recovery as well as the social and environmental impact of using hydrocarbons as a source of energy.