Engineering firm donates software to UAF

The University of Alaska Fairbanks says an engineering company has made a $1.6 million software donation to the school's petroleum engineering department.

Petroleum Experts, based in Edinburgh, Scotland, is donating 10 copies of a suite of six programs plus a network license required to run the programs at UAF.

The university says the software will allow students to learn on programs they will use when they get jobs in the industry.

Petroleum engineering Professor Shirish Patil (sher- REESH' peh-TEEL') says in the UAF announcement that the software helps model oil reservoirs, wells and pipeline networks.

The university says the Petroleum Experts developed the "integrated production modeling" software to improve the efficiency of oil and gas fields and that it's used by more than 350 oil and gas companies.