Head of Curtin University’s Petroleum Engineering Department visits Malaysian campus

Miri – 10 April 2015 – Professor Brian Evans, Head of the Petroleum Engineering Department of Curtin University, Western Australia, recently paid a visit to his counterparts at Curtin University, Sarawak Malaysia (Curtin Sarawak), Curtin’s largest international campus located in Miri, Sarawak.

The purpose of Professor Evan’s visit was to enhance ties between the petroleum engineering departments of the parent and branch campus, particularly in the areas of teaching and research.

He was accompanied by Dr. Paul Choate, a leading consultant in energy and environmental engineering from Cambridge, United Kingdom.

On hand to receive them were the dean of Curtin Sarawak’s Faculty of Engineering and Science, Professor Michael Cloke; head of the faculty’s Petroleum Engineering Department, Associate Professor Sharul Sham bin Dol, and academic staff of the department.

Located in the hub of the oil and gas industry in Perth, Western Australia, Curtin University is building a reputation for excellence in the energy and resources sector. Its Department of Petroleum Engineering is the largest petroleum engineering department in the Southern Hemisphere.

Similarly, Curtin Sarawak is located in the hub of the oil and gas industry in East Malaysia and is one of five universities in Malaysia offering programmes in petroleum engineering.

According to Associate Professor Sharul, this has led to a significant increase in enrolments in the Curtin Bachelor of Petroleum Engineering programme offered at Curtin Sarawak over the last five years to over 250 students today.

The highly-specialised 4-year programme was developed in collaboration with global players like Chevron, Woodside, Shell, BHP Biliton and BP, which continue to support Curtin’s petroleum engineering programmes.

At Curtin Sarawak, the programme has been further refined to meet the needs of the national Oil & Gas sector with the involvement of industry players like Petronas, Shell, Nippon Oil, Murphy Oil, Schlumberger, Technip and Talisman, which operate extensively in East Malaysia.

Associate Professor Sharul added that the parent campus is committed to ensuring the continued success of the petroleum engineering programmes at Curtin Sarawak and one of the aims of Professor Evan’s visit was to see how it can further support the Department of Petroleum Engineering here, including the utilisation of its expertise and facilities in Perth for programme delivery and research.

While in Miri, Professor Evans and Dr. Choate, accompanied by academic staff of Curtin Sarawak, visited Sarawak Shell’s Geomechanics Department to explore the possibilities for research collaboration.

They also toured Curtin Sarawak’s petroleum engineering laboratories and its newly-established Turbulence and Energy Research Laboratory housing a crude oil flow loop research project led by Associate Professor Sharul.

They then attended a PhD candidacy presentation by graduate student Arshad Reza on ‘Reservoir Characterisation for CO2 Injectivity and Flooding in Petroleum Reservoirs Offshore Malaysia’, a Curtin Sarawak Research Institute (CSRI) flagship research project he is working on.

Professor Evans (2nd left) and Dr. Choate (2nd right) touring the drilling laboratory at Curtin Sarawak.

Professor Evans (4th left), Dr. Choate (5th left), Professor Cloke (2nd right), Associate Professor Sharul (right) and academic staff of Curtin Sarawak posing for a group photo.