International Young Scientists School on Catalytic Refining of Heavy Oil held at KFU
The Institute of Geology and Petroleum Technologies headlined the event with support from Russian Science Foundation.
The event featured over 60 young scientists and contributions from Mexican Petroleum Institute, Xi’an Jiaotong University (China), the University of Alberta (Canada), Chengdu University of Technology (China), Niroo Research Institute (Iran), Samarkand State University (Uzbekistan), Topchiev Institute of Petrochemical Synthesis (Russian Academy of Sciences), the Institute of Petroleum Chemistry (Russian Academy of Sciences), and, of course, the hosts.
The organizing committee comprised Institute Director, Vice-Rector for Earth Sciences Danis Nurgaliev and Lead Research Associate of Mexican Petroleum Institute Jorge Ancheyta. Co-chairmen were Chair of the Department of Petroleum Engineering Mikhail Varfolomeev and Head of the Laboratory of In-Situ Combustion Aleksey Vakhin.
“The topic is the latest scientific developments and technologies for the development of hard-to-recover hydrocarbon deposits and their further processing. It is worth noting that the share of hard-to-recover reserves is more than 65 percent in Russia and the world, hence, it is these resources that are important for the oil and gas and energy industry in the future. It is already necessary to actively work on technological solutions and raise young scientists who will develop this scientific direction,” said Dr Varfolomeev.
Kazan University is among the global leaders of in-situ catalytic refining of heavy oil.
“We are not only increasing the efficiency of production of such complex systems as heavy oil, but we are already partially processing it in the reservoir. KFU has made progress in this direction both in terms of fundamentals, which allow us to create new catalytic systems for oils of various compositions, predict the behavior of these systems in oil reservoirs at a depth of several hundred meters, and in terms of practical implementation of the technology together with our industrial partners at facilities in Tatarstan, Samara Oblast and even abroad, in Cuba. Developments in this direction allowed our colleague Irek Mukhamatdinov to receive the Russian Presidential Prize in 2023,” added the interviewee.