The American University of Ras Al Khaimah (Aurak) recently hosted a workshop addressing the issue of energy sustainability, including the latest trends and developments within the field of oil and gas production.

The workshop, titled ‘The Role of Innovation in Sustainability of Petroleum and Petrochemical Industries’, was organised by Aurak’s School of Engineering, said a statement from university.

Launching the workshop with his opening remarks, Prof Hassan Hamdan Al Alkim, president, Aurak, praised the initiative, and commented on the importance of innovation within the field bearing in mind the finite resources.

Hassan also highlighted the ‘zero-energy house’ which is being produced by the School of Engineering.

He said: “Workshops like these will be very important in our project’s success. It pleases me when I see experts from a range of different fields and industries coming to the university, as we can all learn from their knowledge and experience.”

Engineer Ahmed Al Kaabi, Opec governor of the UAE and assistant undersecretary for petroleum gas and mineral resources at the Ministry of Energy, was one of several guest speakers at the workshop, said a statement.

Mark Scarbrough, a senior petroleum engineer at RAK Gas, focused on the rapid change that the industry has experienced throughout his 35 years of involvement, going back to 1981, emphasising that innovation and improvement should be a continuous process, it said.

Other speakers included Dr Marc Durandeau, senior vice president of research and development at the Abu Dhabi Petroleum Institute’s research centre, and Dr Christopher Fredd, manager of Schlumberger Unconventional Resources Technology Integration, it added.

Aurak’s School of Engineering offers two top-class programmes in this field, BS in Petroleum Engineering and BS in Chemical Engineering, with vastly experienced faculty members such as the programme chair, Prof Mohammad Awal, who before joining Aurak was team lead of the fracture mechanics research programme at the Bartlesville Research Center of ConocoPhillips in Oklahoma, the largest independent US oil company, it stated. – TradeArabia News Service