Staff Reporter
SOME 50 delegates attending the first meeting of officials from petroleum research and development institutions in Opec member countries – held in Doha last week – visited Qatar Foundation’s Education City.
There the delegates were briefed on the Science and Technology Park (STP) – a research centre and business “incubator” – being developed by the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development.
STP has been proposed as the location for a research and development institute that the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) is now considering.
“The STP is fast becoming a leading home for international oil, gas and petrochemical-related research and technology development, through the investments being made by its initial clients, which include ExxonMobil, Shell and Total,” project manager Dr Eulian Roberts told the delegates in a presentation.
Earlier, in his opening speech at the two-day meeting hosted by Qatar Petroleum, Qatar’s Governor for the Opec Abdulla Salatt, who is also senior adviser to the Second Deputy Premier and Minister of Energy and Industry, formally invited Opec to consider locating any collective research and development activities at the STP.
“The State of Qatar would provide the infrastructure, the support and the logistics for such a project to succeed,” Salatt had said.
According to Dr Roberts, the STP is a natural location for such an institute.
“The 2,500-acre Education City, of which the STP is a part, is home to branch campuses of some of the world’s leading research universities,” he pointed out.
These include Texas A&M University at Qatar (TAMUQ), which offers degree programmes in chemical, electrical, mechanical and petroleum engineering, and Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMUQ), which offers degree programmes in computer science and business management.
“Texas A&M University has a long and rich history of partnerships with the energy industry and is also industry research oriented,” said TAMUQ associate dean for academic affairs Dr James C Holste. “We’re ready to contribute our technical resources to the energy industry in many aspects.”
“At Carnegie Mellon we are proud of our approach to solving real problems,” said CMUQ dean Dr Charles E Thorpe. “We are delighted to partner with STP and its tenants to find opportunities for our students and faculty to work on the important science and technology issues of our time.”.
The STP’s early tenants include some of the world’s largest gas and oil companies, many of whom have already begun to establish research programmes tackling subjects of great importance to Opec member countries, including environmental issues, gas-to-liquid technologies, LNG safety and management systems and much more.
“These activities, in parallel and in collaboration with those of the academic partners at Education City, have the potential to create new avenues to explore common industry problems of international significance,” Dr Roberts said.
“The opportunity to share our approach and ambitions with representatives of R&D centres in other Opec member countries has proved invaluable in gaining an insight into what the key issues are for the Opec, and where Qatar can assist in addressing globally relevant matters,” he explained.
“I hope that we can develop this relationship to foster collaboration across the Opec member states to ensure that common solutions can be researched, evaluated and implemented to solve our mutual challenges,” he added. |
