 The project is funded jointly by Qatar Petroleum, Shell and the Qatar Science & Technology Park, who are together contributing up to $70 million over a 10-year period. Besides deepening the understanding of the fundamentals of carbonate reservoir properties and of the physical fluid flow process through these rocks and the chemical interactions. The collaboration aims to provide the foundation for new CO2 storage technologies that can be applied in Qatar, elsewhere in the Middle East and beyond.
An additional important pillar of the research collaboration is the development of young Qatari scientists. Imperial’s Departments of Chemical Engineering, and Earth Science and Engineering are recruiting 20 PhD students and 20 postdoctoral researchers to push forward research in the UK and in Qatar. In Qatar, the scientific work will be conducted jointly at Qatar Petroleum’s and Shell’s research centres at the Qatar Science & Technology Park. The researchers will characterise carbonate reservoirs in detail and develop advanced computer modelling and simulation tools to establish an in-depth knowledge of rock structures and the way fluids like oil, water, natural gas and CO2 move within them. This in turn will improve understanding of how these rocks trap gas and fluids for both production and storage. | 
Qatar Shell Qatar Shell Research & Technology Centre scientists are studying the Khuff formation, a vast geological carbonate platform that formed some 250 million years ago across most of the Arabian plate. This formation contains much of Qatar’s gas resources in the giant North Field.
