May 1, 2014
Rick Chalaturnyk joined the University of Alberta in 1997 and is currently a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and holds a Foundation CMG Chair in Reservoir Geomechanics. Prior to joining the University, Rick helped co-found a reservoir surveillance company called PROMORE Engineering and continues his involvement in the area of reservoir surveillance as Executive VP of Opsens Solutions, a company providing fibre-optic and non-fibre monitoring solutions to the SAGD and CO2 storage world. At the University of Alberta, Rick has created the Reservoir Geomechanics Research Group, working primarily in the area of unconventional resource geomechanics, and geological storage of CO2. He is currently establishing GeoREF – a Geomechanical Reservoir Experimental Facility at the University of Alberta designed specifically for high temperature/high pressure testing and a facility that will include Western Canada’s first geotechnical beam centrifuge. He is involved in the IEA GHG Weyburn-Midale CO2 Storage and Monitoring Research Project and the Canadian Centre for Clean Coal, Carbon and Mineral Processing. He is a theme lead for the carbon storage theme in the Helmholtz Alberta Initiative; is a member of the scientific and engineering research committee for the Aquistore project in Saskatchewan, a member of CO2CARE, an EU funded program looking at storage project abandonment; and is involved in several other CCS initiatives. He continues to serve on the organizing committees of IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Networks in Risk Assessment, Wellbore Integrity and Monitoring, and currently serves as Chair of a Canadian Standards Association Technical Committee developing a standard for the geological storage of CO2.