Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Oil and Gas Company Limited (KPOGCL) and CECOS University Peshawar have entered an agreement to explore the use of cutting-edge biological technologies for oil and gas exploration in the province.
The MoU was signed by Prof Dr Riaz A Khattak, Vice Chancellor CECOS University and Engr Sadaqat Said, Senior GM (RMD and Drilling), KPOGCL on behalf of their respective organizations during a seminar hosted by the CECOS University in collaboration with KPOGCL.
The event included a talk by Irfan Ullah, Assistant Reservoir Engineer, KPOGCL, who gave an overview of how oil and gas exploration is conducted and how it fits in the entire petroleum system. He also gave a summary of the efforts being made by KPOGCL and the current status of oil and gas exploration in the province.
This was followed by an engaging discussion between chemists, geologists and petroleum engineers from KPOGCL and biotechnologists, synthetic biologists and genomicists from the CECOS community to share ideas and brainstorm on challenges and opportunities that lie ahead at this unique interface in science.
After that Afia Azam, a student from Dr Faisal Khan's research group, gave an introductory talk on what microbial prospecting is and how could bacterial populations be used as proxies for exploring oil and gas seepages.
CECOS University's Institute of Integrative Biosciences is an interdisciplinary biology institute that focuses on education and research in within latest biological sciences disciplines and at the interfaces with others fields. The institute has already demonstrated leadership in cutting areas including synthetic biology and precision medicine.
"Oil and gas exploration is pretty much like Drug Discovery. Both are expensive endeavours and both are always looking add additional data points to help in deciding which oil site or drug to bet on or not", said Dr Sohail Qureshi, Director of the Institute of Integrative Biosciences, CECOS University.
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