Published by the DTI Oil & Gas Directorate for the reservoir engineering and IOR community in the UK.
Send comments on this issue and contributions for next issue to iornewsletter@senergyltd.com by 15 December 2002.

Subsurface Engineering Business Unit of AEA Technology acquired by ECL (Exploration Consultants Group, plc)

It’s the end of an era (and the start of a new one) with the acquisition on 1 August 2002 by ECL (Exploration Consultants Group, plc) of the Subsurface Engineering Business Unit of AEA Technology plc. ECL is retaining the acquired business as a going concern trading as ECL Technology Ltd.  Around 20 consultantcy and laboratory staff based at Winfrith in Dorset and Aberdeen have transferred to the new business. [link to full press release]

Some of the staff of ECL Technology Ltd transferred from AEA Technology, with Ashti Abdullah, Head of ECL (seated on bench in the middle) and Roy Kelly, Petroleum Engineering Director (to Ashti's left).

The staff have a proven track-record and exceptional expertise in reservoir engineering, reservoir simulation, production optimisation, decision risk management, IOR screening and SCAL laboratory services.  The team has had a long-term and ongoing role as an advisor to the UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and counts most of the major North Sea operators amongst its clients.

Work in the oil sector began at Winfrith in the mid-1970s. With the advent of numerical reservoir simulators, the Department of Energy (DEn) - now incorporated into the DTI - were looking for assistance in the area of reservoir simulation.  Operators were beginning to use simulators to plan the development, and for the management of their fields and the DEn sought expert help in the appraisal and application of these methods.  The then UKAEA's expertise in the mathematical modelling of nuclear reactor systems was judged a suitable background and these skills were soon adapted to the oil industry.  In fact UKAEA staff, mainly at Harwell, went on to write the first British reservoir simulator (PORES).

In the late-1970s the DEn were interested in the possibly of using enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques to increase the recovery factor from UK fields which were generally being developed by water injection.  EOR covered gas injection (including N2 and CO2), polymer flooding, surfactant injection, steam injection and in situ combustion. The DEn funded both laboratory and mathematical modelling programmes at Winfrith.  These continue to this day although during the lower oil price regime of the 1980s the programmes were adapted to include all improved oil recovery techniques (not just the tertiary EOR techniques).

All the work was originally placed with the UKAEA (later AEA Technology plc) by direct contract.  As the AEA Technology staff began to work more and more as consultants to the industry itself, and as part of a wider initiative, the DTI introduced competitive tendering.  Never the less the team has maintained an unbroken relationship with the DTI and its predecessor the DEn from the outset over a quarter of a century ago.

Over the years the programmes were managed by such luminaries as John Fayers, Wilf Fox , Bob Hawes, Fred Allen, Nigel Bailey, Bob Foulser, Eugene Balbinski. On the DTI/DEn side the staff involved included Terry Robinson, Peter Parris, Peter Haile, Brian McDonald, Tissa Jayasekera.

Many staff whose first experience in the oil sector was obtained at Winfrith have gone on to work in the industry elsewhere.  It is estimated that around 250 such staff have passed through Winfrith.  If one of these is you, and you have a particular memory of life at Winfrith that you would like to share with IOR eNewsletter readers please send your memory and a relevant photo if you have one to iornewsletter@senergyltd.com.  To the current staff of the new ECL Technology Ltd, best wishes for the future.

Photo shows (left to right) Dave Mann (then Head of DEn Petroleum Engineering Directorate), Peter Parris, David Hughes (editor of this newsletter), Nigel Bailey, Mrs Suzanne Hawes and Bob Hawes dining out at Alfredo's during the European IOR Seminar in Rome, April 1985.

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