ATILHAN RECEIVES RESEARCH AWARD FROM QATAR UNIVERSITY

I just wanted share some good news about myself through these lines. Last week, Sep. 18th, I was honored by Qatar University with 2008 Qatar University Research Award during Academic Convocation. It was a little bit surprize for me. President of the Qatar University Prof. Sheikha Abdulla Al Misnad honored me with the award along with VP for Research Dr. Hassan Al Derham. 

In the early beginning of my career, I was honored with such award... I would like to thank to colleagues in Doha, Qatar; College Station, TX/US; in Burgos - Spain; in Celeya - Mexico and in Santa Barbara - CA/USA.

Let's keep up the good work...

Some reflections from press and www

Nanotella

The Peninsula

Gulf Times

QU Campus Life

Texas A&M University

What is happening with the "Oil Prices"?

There has been a debate going on the recent spikes and fluctuations in the oil prices. A colleague of mine was telling me about the benchmark of the lowest oil prices will be revisited in most of the middle-east countries especially Saudi Arabia. Having said that, it reminded me what OPEC president Chakib Khelil said about how the future oil prices will be determined by the evolution of the U.S. dollar and its geopolitical situation. 

We all have been reading about the rumors and speculations on how the oil prices are kept artificially high. Recently, oil prices spiked again due to shocking economical earthquake started last week in Wall Street. This obvious increase was expected. But the question is after few weeks of reversed trend in oil prices, whether this strong spike is inflated or not by the speculators. 

Qatar has highest CO2 emission

“Qatar has the highest carbon dioxide emissions per capita,” Mohammed Jassim Al-Maslamani, Member of Supreme Council for the Environment and Natural Reserves (SCENR), said yesterday while talking to the media. He was speaking on the sidelines of the GCC Prize for "Best Environmental Activities" announcement. This is not a good indicator for Qatar's booming economy. Qatar has world's 15% of proven natural gas reserves and its booming gas processing industry has already started to give back to Qatar. However, as a side dish, Qatar now facing huge amount of CO2 emissions. Researchers at Gas Processing Center (GPC) of Qatar University and Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP) have already started tacking CO2 absorption and sequestration issues.

Qatar: Petroleum Sector Contributes 55.7%

According to Al-Sharq newspaper (June, 2008), a recently released report by the Qatari Chamber of Commerce shows that the product value of Qatar petroleum and gas sector's GDP rose to QR 129.4 billion in 2007, up from QR 103 billion in the previous year. This value represented 55.7% of Qatar's total GDP compared with 44.3% in 2006.

Gulf and Gas

These days, the persian gulf and natural gas is more important than ever. As a professor in Qatar University, I'll be blogging about recent activities and breaking news.