2001 Alumni Newsletter - petroleum engineering colorado school of ...
2001 Alumni Newsletter - petroleum engineering colorado school of ...
2001 Alumni Newsletter - petroleum engineering colorado school of ...
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14<br />
Erdal Ozkan<br />
Another year has<br />
passed and it is the time<br />
to say hello again. It was<br />
a good year until early<br />
summer when we lost<br />
Robert Thompson. As<br />
in the previous two<br />
years, we had spent two<br />
weeks in Massodona<br />
with Robert and it was<br />
another excellent PE 316<br />
Field Session. I could Erdal Ozkan<br />
not believe it when I<br />
heard the shocking news. It will take me a long<br />
time to get use to the fact that I cannot rely<br />
on Robert’s experience, wisdom, and friendship<br />
anymore.<br />
So many other things have happened during<br />
the last year. In general it was a busy year but<br />
not out <strong>of</strong> the ordinary. I enjoyed teaching and<br />
research. In addition to the ongoing Horizontal<br />
Well Completion Project, I obtained funding for<br />
another project on the Optimization <strong>of</strong> Plunger<br />
Lift Performance in Stripper Gas Wells. These<br />
projects and my other research should keep me<br />
busy for some time.<br />
My family and I spent most <strong>of</strong> the summer<br />
in Turkey. It was a hot summer. (Global warming<br />
must be for real!) Coming back was nice but I<br />
am still trying to finish the work accumulated<br />
in my absence. My goal is to clean my desk by<br />
the time we meet in New Orleans for the SPE<br />
Conference (looking at my desk, it looks like<br />
an ambitious plan).<br />
Two <strong>of</strong> my students, Jamir Gil and<br />
Mohammed Al-khamis, will present papers at the<br />
SPE conference this year. I am very proud <strong>of</strong><br />
them and I hope you can come to listen to their<br />
presentations and support them.<br />
Hoping to see you in New Orleans in October.<br />
Turhan Yildiz<br />
This is the very first newsletter I am writing<br />
as I have just joined the faculty <strong>of</strong> <strong>petroleum</strong><br />
<strong>engineering</strong>. Prior to joining CSM, I have worked<br />
at three other universities and spent several years<br />
in the oil industry. I have taught courses on production<br />
and reservoir <strong>engineering</strong>. I was involved<br />
in projects ranging from the development <strong>of</strong> a<br />
new formation testing tool for tight gas sands<br />
to integrated surface facility/pipeline network/<br />
reservoir simulation <strong>of</strong> gas fields with commingled<br />
multiple reservoirs.<br />
I received my BS degree from Istanbul<br />
Technical University and MS and PhD degrees<br />
from Louisiana State University, all in <strong>petroleum</strong><br />
<strong>engineering</strong>.<br />
My main objective in teaching basic undergraduate<br />
level courses is to convey critical<br />
thinking and problem solving capabilities to the<br />
students. Besides teaching algorithms and <strong>engineering</strong><br />
calculation procedures, I try to cover<br />
how the algorithms and models can be tied with<br />
the physical phenomena and blend the theory with<br />
the open-ended projects based on incomplete,<br />
partial, and contradictory real field data. I see<br />
the graduate study as the making <strong>of</strong> a researcher<br />
and an advanced technology practitioner. As a<br />
research advisor, I make the effort to see that<br />
the advisee grows to be a better researcher than<br />
the advisor.<br />
In my research<br />
work, I search for practical<br />
solutions to real<br />
field problems, based on<br />
fundamental physical<br />
principles and the advanced<br />
computing technology.<br />
Currently, I am<br />
one <strong>of</strong> the co-principal<br />
investigators <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Joint-Industry-Project<br />
titled “Optimization <strong>of</strong><br />
Horizontal Well Comple-<br />
Turhan Yildiz<br />
tions." In conjunction with this project, we are<br />
developing s<strong>of</strong>tware for evaluating different completion<br />
options for horizontal/multilateral wells.<br />
Last year, I spent most <strong>of</strong> my time developing<br />
and teaching a Capstone Design Course,<br />
which is required by ABET. The goals set for<br />
the design course are to integrate fundamentals<br />
and design concepts <strong>of</strong> <strong>petroleum</strong> geology, formation<br />
evaluation, reservoir, production, drilling<br />
aspects <strong>of</strong> <strong>petroleum</strong> <strong>engineering</strong>, to work<br />
with real field data in a multi-disciplinary team<br />
environment, and to expose the students to openended<br />
problems. The design problems are selected<br />
to cover as many aspects <strong>of</strong> real oilfield operations<br />
as possible. In the summer, I taught a graduate<br />
class on Advanced/Intelligent/Multilateral Well<br />
Performance. I also spent part <strong>of</strong> the summer<br />
doing research for the JIP on horizontal wells.<br />
At CSM, I started teaching a course on<br />
well completion and stimulation. I plan to develop<br />
new courses on natural gas field operations and<br />
<strong>engineering</strong> and surface facility design.<br />
I look forward to meeting the alumni during<br />
the SPE Annual Meeting in New Orleans.