Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali Al-Naimi inaugurated the high-tech center in the presence of Saudi Aramco CEO Khalid Al-Falih, KFUPM Rector Khaled S. Al-Sultan, Baker Hughes President and CEO Martin Craighead; Executive Chairman Chad C. Deaton and Saudi Aramco's Senior Vice President (Upstream) Amin H. Nasser.
"The newly constructed, world-class technology and research center is the result of years of planning and a partnership between Baker Hughes and Saudi Aramco that sets out to solve the challenges in world energy production," said Craighead.
"Baker Hughes has made massive technological advances in unconventional resources, and as a result we have completely redefined the baseline," he said. "We recognize that the key to success and performance in unconventionals lies in the decisions made in the early phases of development. At Baker Hughes, we have established a multidisciplinary, integrated approach to understanding and analyzing shale reserves that allows us to model and predict how reservoirs will perform."
Al-Sultan exuded confidence that the new center will have a huge impact. "While Baker Hughes needs no introduction, its research and technology center at DTV will bring along with it years of experience in the field of research and development which will be of great value to us at KFUPM," he said.
"The center, located close to KFUPM and Saudi Aramco, will have a significant impact on the activities of all parties concerned, especially in the field of developing technologies for gas production in the Kingdom," he said. "These efforts will help develop new techniques and technologies to address challenges unique to unconventional resources."
Several other companies are constructing their research and development centers at DTV. "While Schlumberger and Yokogawa have already built their facilities and are operational, Honeywell will be inaugurating their center in April; Halliburton, Sipchem, Amiantit, Weatherford, Rosen and General Electric are in an advanced stage of construction and will be operational late this year or early next year," Al-Sultan told Arab News. "I would like to reiterate that KFUPM is fully committed to building partnership between academia and industry."
Amin Nasser of Saudi Aramco congratulated Baker Hughes on the opening of the new center. "It clearly demonstrates a long-term commitment in meeting the world's energy challenges," he said. "For Saudi Aramco, the center is an example of our strategy to capitalize and strengthen mutually beneficial collaborative opportunities with international companies, and additionally, it will help to further leverage and develop our intellectual capital and technological capabilities."
The new research and technology center brings together the competencies of Baker Hughes' engineers and scientists with those from the oil and gas industry of the Kingdom and the KFUPM to develop application-specific solutions. The center is strategically located at the King Abdullah Science Park at Dhahran Techno-Valley.
Offering state-of-the-art rock and fluids laboratories, the center provides the equipment required to further the understanding of the complex science and technology involved in developing unconventional resources.
"By first understanding the reservoir, we have had great success in accessing shale gas in a cost efficient manner in North America, ensuring stability and enabling further economic growth by assisting with the supply of energy to a growing world population," said Craighead. "While our new research and technology center addresses specific challenges unique to unconventional resources, it also will provide research facilities and collaboration opportunities for other applications."
The new technology center further expands Baker Hughes' infrastructure in the Kingdom. Baker Hughes also has a manufacturing plant that opened last year and a 100,000-square-meter operations center that opened in 2010. The operations center houses labs, offices, repair and maintenance facilities, as well as a remote collaboration center.
According to Halim Hamid Redhwi, vice president, Dhahran Techno-Valley Co. (DTVC), the Baker Hughes research center is the third landmark in the direction of creating knowledge-based economy in the Kingdom. "The first two were Schlumberger and Yokogawa technology centers in DTV," he said. "It is a moment of honor and pride for us to promote the culture of technology development and commercialization."
Participants at the high-powered event recalled Baker Hughes' commendable history of service to Saudi Aramco and the Kingdom. This history began with Saudi Arabia's first commercial oil discovery when, in 1938, the "Prosperity Well" - Dammam No. 7 - was drilled with Baker drill bits. The cooperation that started with the discovery of oil in the Dammam field has continued for more than 70 years.
