How nanotechnology can push Egypt through its energy crisis

Nanotechnology has been used in the oil and gas sector for decades, but in the last 15 years companies have been investing bigger sums than ever into the technology.

As Egypt struggles through an energy shortage, one scientist is hoping an entrepreneurial oil executive will notice – and utilize – his research on nanotechnology, and allow the field to finally take off in his country.

Dr. Adel Salem is only months into a new position at the brand new Future University in Cairo, where he heads research on ‘enhanced oil recovery,’ or EOR as it’s known in oil sector parlance, using nanoparticles.

That research could add 10-20 percent more oil to Egypt’s current production, he believes, which has been in decline since 1996. That’s between 70,000 and 140,000 extra barrels of oil per day. To put that in context, total production in major gas operations in the Kurdistan region of Iraq has grown steadily to reach 70,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Moreover, as current technology only allows for the extraction of about one-third of a reservoir’s oil, this technology could rejuvenate Egypt’s large number of brownfields (oil fields that have been developed and then shut down after the easy resources have been extracted). Therein lies an opportunity, Salem believes, for a forward-thinking businessman or woman.

Original article by Rachel Williamson

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How nanotechnology can push Egypt through its energy crisis