24 Years of Industry Collaboration: FAST JIP Delivered Eighth-Phase Results and Launched FAST9
The Flow Assurance and Scale Team (FAST) at Heriot-Watt University recently prepared a report and software for delivery to industrial funders on completion of the 8th three-year phase of the FAST JIP, marking 24 years of FAST – which itself was preceded by 12 years of the Oilfield Scale Research Group (OSRG). The report was summarised during two afternoons of presentations, which were delivered by staff and PhD researchers from Heriot-Watt University and our partners in the University of Leeds to representatives from the 15 industrial sponsor companies. On the third afternoon, FAST launched the next three-year phase, FAST9, which runs from 1st April 2025 to 31st March 2028.
The photograph shows members of FAST and sponsors who attended in person – with about twice as many sponsor representatives also attending online.
Welcome to Flow Assurance and Scale Team (FAST)
The Flow Assurance and Scale Team (FAST) is a group of over 20 academic, research, and support staff and research students, based at Heriot-Watt University and the University of Leeds.
We deliver research and consultancy, focusing on the management of oilfield scale. However, we also work on many other topics where brine-rock geochemical interactions are important.
Current sponsors of the FAST8 Joint Industry Project are below.
Post Graduate Research
Postgraduate research opportunities that culminate in 1 year MSc, 2 years MPhil or 3 years PhD qualifications.
- Opportunities
- PhD Theses
- Academic Contacts
Research to address field applied problems
Consultancy
FASTrac is a series of bespoke one-to-one research projects, training, consultancy and equipment manufacture, where arising IP rights are assigned to the funder and results may be treated as commercial in confidence. Building on over 30 years of experience in the area of Scale Management, Core Flooding, and Chemical Enhanced Oil Recovery, the activity provides tailored research and consultancy projects to Oil Operators, Service Companies and Chemical Manufacturers to solve field related challenges.
FASTrac’s proven track record to deliver high quality results and interpretation has gained us international recognition and a satisfied client base. FASTrac provided one of the industry impact statements for the Heriot-Watt University submission to the UK wide Research Evaluation Framework (REF). FAST and FASTrac also contributed to Heriot-Watt University successful submission to the Queen’s Anniversary Award for 2015.
FASTrac projects include:
- Scale Health Checks
- Scale Inhibitor Evaluation – Performance (Sulphate, Carbonate and Sulphide Scales)
- Scale Inhibitor Evaluation – Retention
- Scale Management – Best in Class Studies
- Detailed Core Flooding to evaluate oil/water/chemical interactions within Porous Media
- Polymer Flooding
- Reservoir Geochemistry
- Field Modelling of Scale Inhibitor Squeeze Treatments
- Reservoir Simulation
- Equipment Manufacture
- Training