Purpose & Mission

The Need

Benefits

Scope of Research

U of C's Contribution

Dr. Donald Lawton and his research team develop advanced seismic-imaging methods that help industry extract more oil and gas.

In the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin, less than 30 per cent of conventional oil is recovered

Investing in R&D on utilizing CO2 to boost current oil recovery by just one per cent would deliver 600 million more barrels of oil – adding almost $3 billion to provincial revenues.

Finding ways to efficiently and cost-effectively capture and permanently store CO2 underground will reduce Alberta’s greenhouse gas emissions and help Canada meet its Kyoto accord obligations.

Research will also help develop regulatory policy on geological sequestration to address technical, governance and harmonization issues at the corporate, provincial, federal and international level.