The ConocoPhillips Global Water Sustainability Centre (GWSC) received an award in the Energy & Environment category at the closing ceremony of Qatar Foundation’s Annual Research Conference (ARC) 2016, held at Qatar National Convention Centre last month.
The award was for GWSC’s research project on osmotic concentration to reduce the volume of produced and process water sent to injection wells in the North Field, Qatar. It was presented to Dr Samer Adham, managing director of GWSC and principal investigator of the project, by Nabil Salem, chairman of ARC ’16, in the presence of Faisal al-Suwaidi, president of Qatar Foundation Research & Development. 
The application of osmotic concentration for produced and process water treatment using thermal brine as draw solution is considered novel and the results concluded that osmotic concentration can reduce produced and process water volumes from Qatari gas fields in a cost-efficient and environmentally sustainable manner.  
The project was funded by Qatar National Research Fund and led by GWSC in collaboration with Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. The research was evaluated along with more than 1,000 other scientific abstracts from around the world, which is a testament to the quality and relevance of their work. 
Moving forward, the GWSC research team is planning to evaluate the process in the field to validate the process stability and assess alternative pretreatment options. This research programme will look to engage Qatari government organisations as well as to collaborate with academic institutions to support capacity building. 
The research team included Joel Minier-Matar, research engineer at GWSC, who was also awarded first place in the Young Professional contest - Today’s Young Professionals… Tomorrow’s Global Leaders. 
The contest took place in conjunction with the ninth IPTC held in December 2015 in Doha. 
Minier-Matar received the accolade for his technical presentation on “Advances in application of forward osmosis technology for volume reduction of produced/process water from gas-field operations”. 
The award was presented by Khalid al-Hitmi, manager, gas development at Qatar Petroleum, during the IPTC closing ceremony. 
Minier-Matar was one of seven participants from leading companies across Qatar to enter the competition. 
Dr Adham said, “With these awards, our industry peers have recognised the leading-edge research contributions of GWSC.”  
Minier-Matar noted, “This achievement was a team effort, which I am proud of.”