Reducing Prices At Gas Pump Goal Of University Of Houston Engineers

Developing radios no larger than a grain of sand to increase the drilling efficiency of oil wells, University of Houston engineers see promise for reducing prices at the gas pump.

“Our research could have a great impact on oil prices,” said Richard Liu, UH professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of the university’s Well Logging Laboratory. “Oil prices include everything, and drilling and exploration are pretty big portions of the cost. If the technology we’re developing is viable, then costs would get tremendously reduced.”

Liu is referring to a new technology that UH’s Well Logging Laboratory presented at the group’s recent Industrial Consortium hosted by the Cullen College of Engineering. The meeting focused on the essential aspect of oil exploration that records key attributes of oil wells during drilling, from the density of the rock being drilled to the size of oil deposits encountered.

Well logging, a technique used in the oil and gas industry for recording rock and fluid properties to find hydrocarbon zones below the Earth’s crust, faces many obstacles. One of the biggest is transmitting data from the bottom of a well to the surface where it can be analyzed and drilling decisions can be made. Liu anticipates that this new technology, which provides more information to the individuals making drilling decisions, will improve the transmission of data, resulting in faster and more efficient drilling.

“It will allow for faster and more accurate drilling,” Liu said. “When you get more information from downhole, you have a better understanding of the well’s formation. The drilling becomes more efficient, which could result in lower gas prices for everyone.”

Science Daily