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Posted: 10/15/21

Petroleum Experts Provides TAMIU $3+ Million Petroleum Engineering Software Donation

 

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Texas A&M International University’s (TAMIU) Petroleum Engineering program is the fortunate beneficiary of a generous $3.087 million software donation from Petroleum Experts (Petex), an international company that develops engineering software for the petroleum industry.

The state-of-the-art software addition will help drive complete modeling of oil and gas production systems in the petroleum industry for students and contribute to cutting-edge teaching, research, and training, said TAMIU president Dr. Pablo Arenaz.

“This is a remarkable and impactful addition to our petroleum engineering program, which launched last Spring.  Our students are excited to know that they will be working with the very same engineering software that drives the industry they’re studying here.  It provides them with a distinct market advantage as it helps to ensure their contemporary competitiveness within this industry,” Dr. Arenaz observed.

Dr. Claudia San Miguel, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences said the donation was a milestone in the program’s history and underscored the importance of collaboration.

 “Petroleum Engineering programs are expected to collaborate closely with the industry. This software will open up new horizons for collaboration between the Petroleum Engineering program and the petroleum industry.  It’s truly a significant milestone in the history of this newly-launched program,” Dr. San Miguel said.  

Dr. Mahmoud T. Khasawneh, interim director for the TAMIU School of Engineering, noted the initiative shown by Dr. Fatick Nath, TAMIU assistant professor of Petroleum Engineering, who led the effort to secure the 10 educational licenses.

“Mastery of this software will make our students more experienced and marketable. This goes hand-in-hand with one of the primary goals we have in our petroleum engineering program:  work-ready graduates. Our faculty pride themselves on fostering learning experiences that bridge the gap between classroom instruction and real-world engineering operational environments, and Dr. Nath’s work in securing this donation is further testament to our ability to do just that. It will also result in a significant reduction of on-the-job training for our graduates,” Dr. Khasawneh noted.

Dr. Nath explained the broad impact of the software donation.

“Petex is providing TAMIU with the company's Integrated Production Modeling (IPM) software, which is a suite of programs used by companies to model their complete oil and gas production systems, including reservoir, wells, and the surface network. This is a significant boost to the teaching and research mission for the program. With this software, students will be able to develop predictive models of production systems… a significant area that petroleum companies have a keen interest in,” Nath said.

Founded in 1990, Scotland-based company Petex has more than 400 clients worldwide and has been recognized as the market leader in developing petroleum engineering software products for the oil industry. It offers educational licenses to a limited number of universities that offer petroleum engineering programs. The company's Houston office, Petroleum Experts Inc., facilitated the TAMIU donation.  Additional information is available at www.petex.com.

Nath said that Petex assessed TAMIU's program to determine how much of an impact the donation would have on the community and the industry before donating the software.

He said TAMIU’s Petroleum Engineering curriculum is built to provide students with solid foundations in the three main petroleum engineering areas; reservoir, drilling, and production engineering.

“With IPM, students will be able to see the ‘big picture’ of the entire petroleum production system and how the knowledge from all the courses in their curriculum comes together in one integrated software package. IPM will be available in a state-of-the-art computer lab in TAMIU’s Academic Innovation Center. Several junior and senior-level courses will be using IPM, including Reservoir Engineering, Production Engineering, Petroleum Economics, and Petroleum Engineering Capstone Design. The Capstone course is a senior field project course where students get data from companies and model hydrocarbon inside the reservoir or wellbore,” Nath explained.

TAMIU’s School of Engineering offers three different programs and a pre-engineering program:

    • B.S. in Systems Engineering. ABET-accredited.
    • B.S. in Computer Engineering, launched in Spring 2021.
    • B.S. in Petroleum Engineering, launched in Spring 2021.
    • Pre-Engineering Program that makes it possible for Laredo students to have access to Engineering programs of their choice at other institutions.

TAMIU teams of student engineers working in faculty research collaborations have routinely placed in local, state and national competitions.  They have also created seven distinct student clubs and organizations that provide additional service and rich collaborative opportunities.

Khasawneh observed that TAMIU School of Engineering graduates are securing impressive employment and graduate school opportunities.

“Our graduates have had excellent job employment in a wide range of settings, including Fortune 500 companies and various business enterprises, as well as prestigious federal, state, and local government agencies. Those hiring our graduates in recent years include Lockheed Martin, JP Morgan and Chase, Boeing, USAA, Goldman Sachs, Northrop Grumman, IBM, Microsoft, UPS, NASA, the U.S. Department of Defense, the Texas Department of Transportation, the City of Laredo, Prolamsa Inc., and Midwest Sterilization Corporation. 

“We’ve also had graduates join prestigious graduate programs at other institutions in Texas such as Texas A&M University-College Station, the University of Texas at Austin, UT- San Antonio, UT-Dallas, and UT-Rio Grande Valley -- as well as universities across the country like the University of Rochester and Florida International University,” he said.

TAMIU’s School of Engineering has attracted a gifted and highly qualified faculty focused on both teaching and service.  With the opening of the Academic Innovation Center in 2019, the School manages six laboratories equipped with state-of-the-art computers and instruments to facilitate teaching and research.

To learn more about TAMIU’s School of Engineering and expanded engineering degrees, call 956.326.2669, email Dr. Khasawneh at mahmoud.khasawneh@tamiu.edu, or click on http://www.tamiu.edu/coas/soen

 

 

 

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Video: Petroleum Engineering at TAMIU