My placement has finally reached its last day and I will be sad to leave, but I do look forward to being back in the classroom tomorrow and interacting with the wonderful girls I have the pleasure of teaching.
We were back at BP Sunbury today meeting numerous geologists, geochemists and chemical engineers all giving us vivid insight into their roles and the science they employ daily in the process of exploration and drilling for oil/gas and the technicalities of getting this to the surface safely – what BP call their upstream operations.
It is the role of these scientists to “keep the oil flowing”. Problems they might encounter include precipitation of minerals that prevent the flow of oil. This is due to the types of rock the oil is found in. Precipitates can be barium sulfate or calcium carbonate (the same as the limescale that builds up in appliances in the home). However, the formation of waxy deposits from the oil itself are also a problem that requires immediate attention in this industry. The geochemists role in creating models to work out the environment that the oil/gas formed in is paramount in understanding the composition of an oil field and hence its suitability for exploration prior to full scale extraction. Considering an exploration rig can cost upto $1 000 000 per day, it is imperative that the potential for a particular oil field is fully understood. BP employs a number of risk assessors that will be looking at this and they will advise on the potential for exploration and further development in addition to the work of the numerous scientists and engineers.
Meeting a couple of chemical engineers was fascinating as was the tour the gave us of the simulation rigs and training facilities used for employees prior to their deployment on land or sea. Any scenario can be replicated in these simulators and this system is regularly used to test an operators ability to deal with incidents and potential problems that may occur before being allowed loose on the actual rigs.
A session in HIVE followed (Highly Immersive Visualisation Environment) that allows seismic data from exploration to be developed into an immersive 3D representation of a potential oil/gas field. Technology and its development in the field of oil exploration plays an important role in R & D within BP. This type of imaging allows drilling rigs to avoid potentially explosive pockets of near surface gas. We have seen so many examples of science taught in schools being applied to the industry through the last five days. We finished by hearing how standard A-level Chemistry concepts such as Le Chatelier’s Principle and basic thermodynamics are used in new technology to extract oil from the rock it is found in. Considering that a company such as BP, with all its finances, technology and research can still only manage to successfully extract about 30-40% of the total amount of oil present in any given oil field shows how much more research and development is needed to release the oil from the rock it is found in.
I have tried to keep this blog impersonal and not name any of the employees that have kindly given up their time to accommodate us over the last five days. This is partly due to the cutting edge science they are involved in and the level of security required at such global companies. However, I cannot finish this blog without expressing my sincere gratitude and thanks to our host Samantha Bulkeley. She has worked tirelessly to ensure our days are full at all of the sites we have been fortunate to visit and I am hugely grateful for all her efforts to make our visits worthwhile.
If you haven’t already done so, do check out all the educational tools available to teachers, both primary and secondary, through the BP Educational Service at http://bpes.bp.com/
Doc R (aka Dr Adrian Rowley, Head of Science, Bromley High School)
Doc Rs Blog 