Research

Petroleum Development Laboratory

The Petroleum Development Laboratory (PDL) was established in 1984 to engage in practical research to develop and improve technology that will maximize the recovery of Alaska's petroleum and natural gas resources. The work conducted will assist industry and state agencies in their effort to effect additional recovery of these resources.

The primary function of the PDL as a research branch of the School of Mineral Engineering is to explore various aspects of enhanced oil recovery research, including the production of heavy oil through thermal recovery and miscible oil displacement. The goal is to transfer the information from the laboratory and field experiments to engineers who can apply it to problems in the oil fields.

Research programs include secondary (waterflooding) and enhanced oil recovery processes, a comprehensive study of Alaska's oil and gas reservoirs, development of thermal recovery projects to initiate production from Ugnu and West Sak fields, miscible flooding methods for tertiary recovery from Prudhoe Bay and estimation of gas hydrate reserves in northern Alaska.