Agilent strikes oil

Agilent Technologies has agreed to collaborate with the University of Houston in Texas on investigating the geology and composition of crude oil and shale gas, with the aim of finding new oil and gas deposits and exploiting existing reserves to the full.

Under the three-year collaboration, Agilent will provide the University of Houston with more than $1 million worth of advanced analytical technology, including microwave plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy, inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy, gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy, gas chromatography-triple quadrupole mass spectroscopy and gas chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectroscopy.

Researchers at the University of Houston will use these instruments to identify and measure the constituents of geological specimens and crude oil samples, in order to help understand the geology of oil and gas-bearing formations. In addition, they plan to develop improved methods for chemically characterizing crude oil; this will allow oil to be processed more efficiently, improving the yield from each barrel and lowering the cost of refined products.

'The University of Houston is pleased to be a part of this collaboration, which is an important research effort for the oil and gas industry and its ongoing efforts to better assess proven reserves and discover new deposits,' says Rathindra Bose, the university's vice chancellor and vice president for research and technology transfer.