News Release

2019

November 15, 2019

Execution of Sponsored Research Agreement with The University of Texas at Austin

PRESS RELEASE

JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration Corporation ("JX") (President and CEO: Hiroshi Hosoi) is pleased to announce that it has executed a Sponsored Research Agreement ("SRA") with The University of Texas at Austin ("UT Austin"), to conduct a research on Chemical Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR).

It is forecasted that the robust demand for oil and gas will continue particularly in Asia, however, oil and gas fields are getting depleted all over the world and it has become much more difficult to access oil and gas at low cost. On the other hand, exploration of new oil and gas fields is curtailed due to a stagnant oil price after 2014.

Under these circumstances, JX has been focusing on EOR technologies, which can maximize the values of existing oil fields, and trying to acquire knowledge and experience of Gas EOR technology through projects in Vietnam and the United States.
At the same time, UT Austin has been conducting state-of-the-art researches in the field of Chemical EOR, and JX decided to sponsor its research to establish new technology in addition to Gas EOR.

The objectives of this research are to optimize chemical compositions and injection methods for a producing oil field and to maximize the value of the project at low cost and low risk.

JX considers EOR as one of our focused technologies and intends to maximize its cash flow and to expand its business by utilizing Chemical EOR.

Summary of the SRA

  1. Term: July 2019 ~ June 2023
  2. Principal Investigator: Dr. Ryosuke Okuno (The University of Texas at Austin)
  3. Sponsor: JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration Corporation
  4. Scope: Lab experiments and reservoir simulation to optimize and demonstrate Chemical EOR application to JX's project