Kuwait Oil Company (KOC)

KOC endorsed the USC Viterbi School’s DEN@Viterbi online delivery system through a partnership that provides its employees with research and graduate education opportunities in engineering.

An agreement was signed through a CCTV between KOC and the University of Southern California (USC) on January 25th, 2010. DMD (Exploration & Production Development), Khalid Al-Sumaiti, signed the agreement at the Main Office on behalf of KOC, whereas the Dean of the Viterbi School, Yannis C. Yortsos, signed it in Los Angeles on behalf of USC. Dean Yortsos said that the agreement with KOC reflected highly on the quality of the school’s petroleum engineering program.

The partnership is co-directed by USC Professor, Iraj Ershaghi, and Dr. Mohamed Osman of KOC. The research direction entails the characterization, modeling, and forecasting of fractured carbonate reservoirs using high-performance computing to analyze microseismic data, visualize and monitor the reservoir structure and dynamic fluid movement, develop technologies for heavy oil recovery in complex reservoirs, and systematically maximize resource recovery. A special focus is on smart fields as a vehicle to monitor such complicated reservoirs.