Saudi Aramco's Expec research center Expec Arc has won for the first time the prestigious New Horizons Idea Award at the 2008 World Oil Awards. The award was granted for the research and innovation of Resbots (reservoir robots). Resbots, introduced by Expec Arc in 2007, are nanorobots, less than 1 100th the size of the human hair, that can move through the reservoir. They will be deployed as a microscopic army with injected water into the reservoir. During their journey, they will analyze reservoir pressure, temperature and fluid type, and store that information in onboard memory. They will then be picked up from the produced crude at the producing wells to download that information and tell us everything about the reservoir they have encountered during their journey, thus effectively mapping the reservoir. “Each time I visit Expec Arc and learn about their initiatives and accomplishments, I leave feeling energized and confident of the future,” Khalid Al-Falih, Aramco's executive vice president of operations, was quoted as saying by Saudi Aramco's website on Wednesday. He was speaking during a visit earlier this month to Exploration and Petroleum Engineering Center - Advanced Research Center (Ecpec Arc), which is located in Dhahran. The research center is responsible for upstream oil and gas technology development. It has approximately 200 scientists from various disciplines, spread across six technology teams which tackle various aspects of oil and gas exploration, development, and production. These teams are: Geophysics Technology, Geology Technology, Reservoir Engineering Technology, Computational Modeling Technology, Production Technology, and Drilling Technology. ‘World Oil' is considered the leading oil and gas upstream journal. It has been published for more than 90 years and has a worldwide circulation of 35,000 readers. Every year, it bestows its awards on the top companies in the industry. The winner of the award symbolizes how the industry will operate in the future and will serve as a guidepost to the next generation of leadership entering today's upstream energy sector. The awards are judged by an independent advisory board composed of 15 leading figures in the industry and academia.
