Petroleum Recovery Research Center 

Objectives of the PRRC  

- Addressing Key Technical Challenge 

- Facilitating Data Collection, Sharing, and Analysis 

- Evaluating Regional Infrastructure 

- Promoting Regional Technology Transfer 

In order to sustain a diversified program, the PRRC's research continuously expands to embrace important new areas. Currently these include membrane technology, nanotechnology, and chemical/optics sensors; areas of study undertaken by our newest research groups. Research on the traditional areas of enhanced oil recovery with gas and chemical flooding continues as well, including the use of computational intelligence for reservoir characterization, and numerical simulation of oil and gas reservoirs using data of all scales. The PRRC is the lead organization for the Carbon Utilization and Storage Partnership (CUSP). CUSP is a Department of Energy-funded regional initiative established to accelerate onshore Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS) technology deployment in the Western Region of the United States. The CUSP project is a research consortium of 13 states, consisting of organizations throughout the western United States including academia, government agencies, national laboratories, and industry. We have been actively involved in CO2 research almost from our earliest days, first as a means of enhanced oil recovery, and now putting that knowledge to use in advancing CO2 capture and storage. PRRC is the lead organization for one of CUSP'S predecessors, the Southwest Regional Partnership on Carbon Sequestration, and has several active research projects examining CCUS opportunities in the region including CUSP, CarbonSAFE Phase III in the San Juan Basin, the SWP’s Phase III project in the Texas panhandle, and a second project at that site focused on particular scientific aspects of the work there.