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CSIRO – Technology for a Sustainable Energy Future
a report by
Keyu Liu
Principal Research Scientist and Research Team Leader, Fluid History Analysis, CSIRO Petroleum Resources, Perth
Regional Focus – Asia
With today’s conditions of growing energy needs and declining oil products. This strongly competitive international energy company
outlook, lowering greenhouse gas emissions, improving self- engages in a wide range of activities related to oil and natural gas
sufficiency and securing a sustainable energy future is a global and has won recognition in the international capital market for its
challenge. This challenge increases in the face of global uncertainty excellent corporate governance and high profitability.
and the fact that the energy demands of developing nations have
been rising rapidly. With projections that China and India will Delivering Industry Benefits
account for over half of the incremental energy demand up to 2030, The long-term partnership between CSIRO and China has involved
optimising our energy resources is paramount. The industry will joint research activities, such as training and development of staff,
require changes in production processes to become more efficient in exchange of graduate students, visiting scholars and post-doctoral
maximising existing oil resources, as well as the development of new researchers, and the sharing of research and information, and has
technologies that enable us to discover and access new resources. provided opportunities to interact and increase networks with other
collaborators in the energy field, such as the Western Australian
Ongoing consultation and collaboration with research organisations, Energy Research Alliance (WA:ERA). So far, the alliance has been
governments, industry and community has guided Australia’s mutually beneficial. It has provided PetroChina with access to a
leading science organisation, the Commonwealth Scientific and number of CSIRO-licensed technologies that improve the
Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), in developing programmes characterisation and prediction of the presence and quantity of oil.
and technologies that aim at improving the success of exploration, Applied through China University of Petroleum, CSIRO technologies
improving understanding and management of petroleum reservoirs are already delivering significant benefits, helping the oil and gas
and increasing the efficiency of production operations to maximise producer to discover a giant oilfield with a reserve of 1 billion tons,
precious oil reserves. or about 7.35 billion barrels, in the Bohai Bay area in 2007, making
it the largest discovery in China in four decades.
Partnering for Impact
Recognising the impact of collaboration, CSIRO, through its division China’s petroleum-producing basins are unique in many ways. In the
focused on oil and gas, CSIRO Petroleum Resources, signed a east, China has young lake basins, while in west China the
memorandum of understanding (MoU) with PetroChina, China’s petroleum-producing basins are older and have undergone several
largest oil and gas producer. The official signing of the agreement tectonic modifications such that they have a complicated history of
took place at PetroChina’s research arm, the Research Institute of oil generation, migration and accumulation. This poses a huge
Petroleum Exploration and Development (RIPED) President’s Forum, challenge in petroleum exploration because conventional methods
in Beijing, China on 23 October 2008, as part of its 50th Anniversary to characterise petroleum reservoirs and find oil in marine
celebrations. The MoU was signed by CSIRO’s Group Executive, environments are commonly ineffective and not practical in these
Energy and Petroleum Resources Chief Dr Beverley Ronalds and types of geological environment. CSIRO has developed and deployed
RIPED President Dr Wang Daofu. CSIRO has a long and established a number of technologies that have proved not only to provide
relationship with RIPED spanning 20 years. The agreement further valuable information on the presence and quantity of oil in China’s
strengthens the partnership and adds CSIRO to an elite group that unique basins by facilitating better exploration predictions and
includes Institut Français du Pétrole (IFP), Stanford University, the reducing the costly risk of drilling dry wells, but also to be
University of Texas at Austin and Gubkin Russian State University of inexpensive with short turnaround times (see Figure 1). A number of
Oil and Gas. Chinese petroleum companies and research organisations, including
PetroChina, have employed these technologies and they have now
CSIRO provides industry with access to a multidisciplinary pool of been applied to many of China’s basins, including South China Sea
talent and facilities that are at the forefront of international basins, Bohai Bay basins, Tarim Basin and Sichuan Basin.
research. Its strategic energy alliance with China’s oil and gas giant
aims to strengthen research into oil and gas technologies by Technologies Providing Solutions
combining the diverse capabilities and knowledge base of the CSIRO developed the quantitative grain fluorescence (QGF), QGF on
partners. The partnership enhances Australia’s working partnership extracts (QGF-E) and total scanning fluorescence (TSF) on oil
with China and establishes a formidable base to deliver world-class inclusions techniques for detecting oil zones and oil migration
technology and research for the oil and gas industry worldwide. pathways. These techniques measure the intensity of fluorescence
from ultraviolet-light-excited hydrocarbons present at the surface
PetroChina is one of the largest oil companies in the world and is a of rocks. The fluorescence intensity signal from a given amount of
global producer and distributor of petroleum and petrochemical reservoir grains or extract is proportional to the amount of oil
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© TOUCH BRIEFINGS 2009
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