EXPEC Advanced Research Center

EXPEC Advanced Research Centre, the research arm of “Saudi Aramco” in the field of exploration and production, and in enhancing research activity and technical development in the oil and gas sector, was inaugurated in 2006, and is headquartered at the company’s main headquarters in the city of Dhahran. The center aims to develop highly impactful technologies that create value in the company’s exploration and production operations.

Saudi Aramco developed the EXPEC Advanced Research Center to fulfil its role in exploration and production operations. In 2017, the construction phase began for a project to expand the center. The expansion included the construction of specialized laboratories and offices accommodating 850 employees in specialized professional fields and support services.

Its role in exploration and production

The efforts of the EXPEC Advanced Research Center are evident from the perspective of the three main pillars of exploration and production: exploration, production, and cost efficiency. This perspective is fundamental to ensuring the center continues to focus on its work and maintains a competitive advantage in the oil and gas sector. The EXPEC Advanced Research Center has played a major role in the success of Saudi Aramco’s exploration and production operations through its staff’s success in addressing field challenges.

Fields

The EXPEC Advanced Research Center covers the fields of geology, geophysics and engineering (drilling, reservoirs and production), as well as advanced technical services. Research in these fields aims to develop modern technologies in order to achieve Saudi Aramco’s main objectives in the exploration and production sector, namely increasing the discovery and recovery of hydrocarbons, and ensuring production reliability in a cost-effective manner.

The center’s innovations have brought about a shift in the way the exploration and production sector operates. This has been reflected in awards received by the center’s scientists and engineers.

Development

The EXPEC Advanced Research Center contributes to the development of Saudi Aramco’s technologies in exploration and production by developing highly impactful innovative tools and solutions that enable the company’s exploration and production sector to achieve its strategic objectives. The center’s new building was constructed with four glass-clad floors, covering an area of 56,000 m2. It contains more than eight hundred offices.

The expansion works included developing technical facilities, as it was equipped with three hundred laboratories(materials testing laboratories, computational analysis laboratories, and high-ceiling laboratories), in addition to specialized laboratories such as CT imaging, nanoparticles (nano), laser, high-pressure, and high-temperature laboratories that simulate reservoir conditions.

Awards

The EXPEC Advanced Research Center received the Energy Pioneer Award and the Young Energy Professional of the Year Award 2020, presented by the Energy Institute in the United Kingdom. The management’s efforts in research and development were also honored at the 2019 World Oil magazine awards ceremony in five categories, including: Best Enhanced Oil Recovery Technology Award, and in 2017 the center received the Deepwater Image Award in the Exploration category, the Best Well Integrity Technology Award, the “New Horizons Idea” Award, and the Distinguished Career Achievements Award.

The center’s researchers also won the “Best Presentation and Poster” award at events organized by a number of engineering and scientific associations in the fields of exploration and production. The Society of Petroleum Engineers comes at the forefront, having awarded the EXPEC Advanced Research Center more than 20 awards. Among the awards received by the center from the Society of Petroleum Engineers were two distinguished memberships recognizing the contributions of the center’s scientists.

At the regional level, the center received several awards, including: first and second place in the 2017 Innovation Award competition, held as part of the World Conference on Engineering Geophysics in Al-Ain, United Arab Emirates, as well as at the Middle East Oil & Gas Show “MEOS”, and the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference “ADIPEC”. Locally, the center also received five awards, including the Saudi Aramco Excellence Award 2019, for the 3D Distributed Source Arrays technology.