UW Porous Media Center Leads $50M Oil Field Revitalization Pilot Program with Industry

Wyoming generously funds its university, and a now-underway University of Wyoming partnership with Wyoming oil operators will drive up royalties for the state.

UW’s Center of Innovation for Flow Through Porous Media (COIFPM) is leading a $50 million private-public project called the Wyoming Gas Injection Initiative (WGII), which is expected to revitalize Wyoming’s legacy oil fields through cutting-edge lab experiments and field pilot tests. Private operators selected for WGII contribute $25 million to the pilot, matched by $25 million from the state.

Operator applications to WGII were accepted through the fall and, on Dec. 15, four successful applicant operators were notified of their selection to move forward to the negotiation phase for WGII. Those producers are Ballard Petroleum Holdings, Continental Resources, Devon Energy Corp. and Oxy USA Inc. Dow Chemical also is a partner in WGII, as Dow will offer operators expertise with injection chemical development and field execution.

Mohammad Piri, COIFPM’s founder and director, is excited about the top-tier partners who will participate in the pilot.

“We were thrilled to see the caliber of companies and level of capital commitment in these applications,” Piri says.

UW President Ed Seidel says WGII is a great addition to UW’s portfolio of partnerships with the state’s oil and gas industry.

“Dr. Piri’s Center of Innovation for Flow Through Porous Media is one of the university’s standout programs, with a highly respected international profile,” Seidel says. “We’re delighted to see this expertise leveraged for the state through the Wyoming Gas Injection Initiative.”

Piri is proud to bring the center’s avant-garde capabilities to benefit the state.

“We’ve helped create real successes for oil companies across the globe. That’s why they’ve brought us $100 million over the years,” Piri says. “We answer important questions at atomic, nano, micro and macro scales which enhance understanding that translates to production gains at the wellhead. The state of Wyoming and outstanding corporate partners built COIFPM. I’m ecstatic to see our world-class team and UW technology innovation shine as we partner with top companies here at home.” 

WGII will not fund any new wells. Instead, it focuses on boosting production in the state’s mature fields in Campbell, Converse and Johnson counties. COIFPM results elsewhere suggest that WGII will generate appreciable increases in total production in these oil fields. This would be a great benefit to the state in private-sector jobs growth as well as correlated mineral royalty gains.

WGII will devote two years to laboratory study of Wyoming reservoir rock along with tests to determine which processes and injected additives give optimal production results for each oil field. Piri points out this is what makes COIFPM special.

“We are one of a select few labs in the world that can replicate reservoir and production conditions while viewing what’s happening at multiple scales,” he says.

Starting in 2026, COIFPM and the WGII operators will apply the lab findings in pilot test wells and then advance to fieldwide production implementation.

Piri’s vision for UW as a magnet for energy innovation reaches far beyond WGII.

“Certainly, in oil and gas, and I think in renewables too, the word is getting out,” he says. “If you want next-level solutions and market-leading breakthroughs, the action is in Wyoming.”