Almost all of the research in this UoA is officially classified as world-leading or internationally excellent in terms of originality, significance and rigour.
The following academic units formed the submission to UoA 7:
All three schools are central stakeholders in the Institute for Sustainability which promotes and provides an umbrella for cross-disciplinary research, University wide.
Major companies from across the petroleum exploration sector have used algorithms, concepts and software generated within the research programme to enhance their protocols for:
estimating and predicting pore pressure
basin/fluid flow modelling and
risking of seals to petroleum reservoirs
The research has resulted in financial savings and the reduction of drilling risks.
Through the provision of internationally adopted guidelines on best practice research at Newcastle University between 1993 and 2008 has impacted on how coral reefs are managed by industry, government, marine park authorities and communities.
Research led by Professor Alasdair Edwards has addressed knowledge gaps which hindered coral reef restoration and then communicated findings to decision makers to change policy and improve the success of restoration projects. In the face of climate change, a key impact has been to expose the risks of failure of short-term active interventions and the cost-effectiveness of longer term management approaches that increase resilience.
Our research on biodegraded petroleum systems has had a number of broad reaching impacts on the oil industry. Major international oil companies and related service companies use the output of our research which has provided:
new approaches to well-placement, targeting lower viscosity areas in biodegraded oil fields
oil viscosity determination using geochemical proxies rather than rheological measurements that can be challenging in heavy oil
modelling oil composition and properties in biodegraded oil fields to identify production sweet spots (using fundamental insights, models and software tools that the research generated)
a biodegradation module for a widely used basin modelling software package and proprietary in house, oil company software tools
a spin out company Gushor, which provides services to the heavy oil sector
Collectively these have saved money for oil companies who have used our research by avoiding poorly producing viscous zones in biodegraded heavy oil reservoirs, contributed to the success of a basin modelling software company (Permedia, subsequently acquired by Halliburton) and generated a spin-out fluids characterisation company (Gushor, subsequently acquired by Schlumberger).