Victoria University of Wellington begins research collaboration with Chinese oil research group

Staff from Victoria University of Wellington’s School of Engineering and Computer Science and Robinson Research Institute met last month with a research organisation that is part of China National Petroleum Company (CNPC), a major oil and gas company in China.

23 November 2020

The CNPC research group is collaborating with several researchers from the Faculty of Engineering to develop better mass flow meters, which measure the composition of fluid coming off oil wells.

“The aim of this collaboration is to help CNPC better manage their resources, increase efficiency, and reduce the environmental impact of their operation,” says Dr Robin Dykstra, one of the Victoria University of Wellington researchers involved in the project.

The research group is also interested in collaborating with the University in other areas like machine learning and big data, Dr Dykstra says. Eventually, they hope to be able to award joint PhDs with the University.

The School of Engineering and Computer Science plans to establish a formal agreement to introduce joint PhDs and further research collaborations. They hope to have a research agreement formalised by the end of 2018, with the director of the research group visiting New Zealand to formally ratify the agreement in February 2019.

“This is a massive organisation, and any links we have with them could give us a lot of credibility in China,” Dr Dykstra says. “We are the first group in New Zealand to work with them – they usually work with much larger countries and with organisations like Harvard or MIT, so this collaboration is very exciting for us.”