The New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology or New Mexico Tech (NMT) recently announced a new donation of industrial software, more than double a previous award. According to NMT, the imaging software presented to its Earth and Environmental Science and the Petroleum Engineering Department and the Petroleum Research Recovery Center have a commercial value of more than $5 million.
In January 2019, Petroleum Experts Limited donated packages worth $2.1 million to provide learning tools to NMT students interested in modeling and structural analysis. Houston-based Petroleum Experts Inc. (PetEx) specializes in petroleum engineering software products for the oil industry.
Petroleum engineering professor Dr. Tan Nguyen said the software packages relate to 2D and 3D modeling of the Earth’s subsurface. The packages also come with educational licenses to a number of accredited universities that offer graduate programs in geology and petroleum engineering.
“Thanks to this generous donation from PetEx, our students and scientists will have greater opportunities to use this leading edge technology to better understand the subsurface and gain experience in modeling,” Nguyen said in a statement.
Brandon Lutz, a Ph.D. student in geology, told NMT that he is using the software for his dissertation work. Lutz and Dr. Gary Axen, a former geology professor, are also using the software for a National Science Foundation-funded project to make a 3D model of an area covering Las Vegas, Nevada, and Sierra Nevada in California.
“You can simulate all sorts of structural deformation in the Earth,” Lutz told NMT. “You can do 2D and 3D models on just about anything – rock layers, fault systems, fracture mechanics. I’ve used it to build a 3D reconstruction of the Death Valley area.”
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