University Collaboration Program

To submit a technical  proposal, please follow the below steps:

1. Download the electronic version of the proposal template by clicking here 

2. Fill in the required fields and note the following:

    • Attach investigation team members’ résumés with the proposal.
    • The submitted proposals must be within the specified scope of research areas. For more information about the scope of each research area, please consult the accompanying brief description of each. The research areas are as follows:
       
      • Whole Crude Oil Desulfurization   
      • Petroleum Fuels and Combustion
      • Oil to Chemicals
      • Natural Gas and Sulfur Utilization
      • Carbon Management
      • Oil to Hydrogen and Fuel Cells
      • Biotechnology
      • Advanced and Nano-structured Materials
      • Advanced Analytical Sciences
      • Applied Mathematics and Computational Modeling

3. Proposal Timetable

 Title

 Due Date
 Deadline for pre-proposal submission  January 29, 2011
 Notification for pre-proposal acceptance  February 13, 2011
 Deadline for submission of detailed proposal  March 12, 2011
 


 

 

Research Area

 Brief Description
Whole Crude Desulfurization The average barrel of crude oil in the world is getting sourer and heavier, while specifications for fuels are getting more stringent on sulfur content.  Therefore, in a constrained refining environment, sweet crude oils enjoy positive price movements relative to sour crude oils. Success in developing a new pre-refining process to desulfurize whole crude oil, would allow Saudi Aramco to capture price premiums and potentially allow for sales into new markets of sweetened crude oil. Saudi Aramco is pursuing research activities to investigate and develop low cost, non-conventional processes for whole crude oil desulfurization targeting Arabian Heavy Crude Oil.
Petroleum Fuels and Combustion Conventional petroleum fuel formulations (gasoline and diesel) have evolved from the need to exclusively fuel the internal combustion engine technology available today. To address the technical requirements of the future engines and to fulfill the environmental regulations, however, Saudi Aramco is pursuing the development of new fuel formulations. The market and industry outlook suggests that future fuel properties will be less reliant on octane, cetane and vapor pressure and more dependent on the ability of the fuel to release energy, and burn cleanly during the combustion process. Therefore, Saudi Aramco is interested in research & development activities in the areas of new fuel formulation, combustion, combustion kinetics and modeling.
Oil to Chemicals Utilization of oil as a feedstock for petrochemicals industries is an attractive and strategic objective to increase the long-term viability of oil markets.  In order to support and grow oil-based petrochemical business, Saudi Aramco is pursuing the development of new processes to enhance refining – petrochemical integration for the production of petrochemicals, specifically light olefins and aromatics. Some refining streams have low value components in their current configuration either due to diminishing market or limited use in fuel pools because of environmental and safety regulations. The development of new petrochemical processes to utilize these streams has strategic importance. Saudi Aramco is, therefore, interested in pursuing research & development activities, which utilize low value refining streams to produce high value petrochemicals, specifically olefins and aromatics.
Natural Gas and Sulfur Utilization Saudi Aramco has many sub quality natural gas reserves with high inert and/or acid gas contents which can be utilized to meet the near future industry and the market demand.  Saudi Aramco has a comprehensive Natural gas and sulfur disposition strategy to provide scientific and engineering solutions, based on research & development, for monetization of these sub quality natural gas reserves.   Examples of potential research activities are natural gas supply to specification, non-cryogenic technology solutions for field separation of inert & acid sub quality natural gases (e.g. membranes, adsorbents), storage of gas for electricity generation, sulfur product market development (e.g. sulfur modified asphalt, sulfur cement formulations, fertilizers / fungicides, sulfur based advanced materials).
Carbon Management Possibly the greatest long term oil market challenge relates to legislation to address climate change and responsibly manage carbon release. Saudi Aramco is pursuing research & development activities to develop novel, low cost processes for CO2 capture from both stationary and mobile sources and to convert it into valuable products. Stationary sources include processes and combustion sources and mobile sources include transportation. Saudi Aramco, is, therefore, interested in research & development activities pertinent to novel, low cost process development for CO2 capture from flue gas and transportation vehicles and its utilization.
Oil to Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Hydrogen fuel cell technology is inherently clean, highly efficient and able to meet increasingly more stringent environmental standards. Of interest to Saudi Aramco are market applications of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies for transportation and distributed power generation. They represent potential business opportunities, while underpinning the continued dominant role of oil for possible future mobility scenarios. Saudi Aramco is exploring low cost, non-conventional, novel processes that can produce high purity hydrogen from liquid petroleum feedstocks. Potential research activities include: advanced reforming catalyst and novel reactor design, high temperature catalytic membrane reactor, and advanced anode materials for direct hydrocarbon fuel cell.
Biotechnology Biotechnology offers new approaches to the oil industry, in both upstream and downstream operations. Saudi Aramco has a comprehensive Biotechnology strategy to investigate ways to improve the quality of the oil, increase oil production, implement biotechnology based microbial control strategies, and to develop new microbial detection systems based on molecular microbiology.  Examples of potential research activities are biodesulfurization, competitive microbes to control microbially influenced corrosion (MIC) and souring, biosensors and bacterial production of novel oilfield chemicals
Advanced and Nano-structured Materials The advanced materials are in great demand throughout the entire industry to provide alternatives to overcome the limitations of existing materials. Saudi Aramco is taking the lead to expand the use of clean, efficient, and affordable fossil energy. This can be achieved through improved advanced materials production technologies in the areas of fuel cells, hydrogen sources and delivery, catalysts and other advanced technologies that require superior materials properties. Examples of potential research activities include functionalizing and synthesizing nanomaterials, Nano-structured materials for sensors and corrosion/erosion resistance, advance materials allowing the use of clean technologies, high strength materials,  advanced materials for high temperature applications (turbines, hydrocracking, and crude distillation unit furnaces), and functionalized composite materials.
Advanced Analytical Sciences Advanced analytical techniques focus on molecular level characterization of hydrocarbon matrices such as crude oil, and petroleum products. Accurate measurement of sulfur & nitrogen speciation in crude oil and middle distillate, aromatic heterocyclic, polycycles and fluorinated hetero compounds have been identified as key enabler to the success of the downstream research activities. In addition, the presence of metallic elements in fuel is usually undesirable, even at low concentrations, and their quantification is necessary to evaluate fuel quality and control atmospheric pollution. Therefore, heavy metal determination and speciation in crude and its fraction has also been identified as an area of interest to Saudi Aramco.
Applied Mathematics and Computational Modeling Applied mathematics and computational modeling provide ample opportunities for practice and cover a wide range of interdisciplinary topics from engineering to the area of research and development. Saudi Aramco desires collaboration with Saudi academic centers to enlarge the research area in numerical modeling in such scientific domains as multiphase fluid dynamics, fuel efficiency and performance, exploring future fuel combustion/engine interactions, process simulation, molecular chemistry, real-time simulation and process control, structural mechanics, biology and more. This raises a number of challenging subjects for academic researchers that range from the elaboration of suitable equations governing the phenomena and translated into powerful algorithms and numerical schemes to predict the physics and the chemical reactions and solve the problems efficiently.