Our Story

THE OIL GRID began inside the oil industry, with an engineer who saw that studies and repairs, however costly, could not settle the problems of the facilities he worked on.

1996 · An engineer in the field

In 1996, a year after he graduated in chemical and process engineering from Newcastle University, Eng. Mubarak Taher joined Kuwait Oil Company as a process engineer. His work took him across process engineering, production and field operations.

In his first months he saw a pattern in the production plans in front of him. The same technical, commercial and logistical problems appeared in every one.

He also saw what the field itself was losing. The heat and pressure of the fluid rising from the wells, and the movement of the fluid itself, were natural energy. In the conventional model that energy was spent on the long journey to a distant plant, and power was then brought in from outside to do the work.

The idea of the grid dates from those first months, in late 1996. It would take ten years to reach the outline of a complete system.

1997 · The fault lay in the whole

In 1997, he began work on one complete answer to the problems he had seen in the field. He studied the gathering centres closely and looked past each symptom to find its cause. Within a year of joining the company, he had reached a conclusion: the way the industry gathers oil and gas needed to be rebuilt from the ground up.

The reason lay in the design itself. Raw fluid was carried a long way to one central plant. Product was stored above ground. Gas that could not be used was burned at the flare. Power was brought in from outside.

The cost of fixing the parts

Throughout his career he watched how the industry answered the problems he had seen in those first years.

Each problem was treated on its own. Consultants were called in, and studies were commissioned to verify what had gone wrong. Further work was then ordered to put it right. When the next problem appeared, the same cycle began again. Large sums were paid in this way, for one piece of a problem at a time.

They were the kinds of problems set out on The Shortfalls: hydrates, corrosion and erosion, wells a plant could not take, and stoppages that halted every well behind them.

The effort was serious. It was still not enough. The studies and repairs did not solve the problems, and they did not stabilise the facilities, their logistics or their maintenance.

Each study examined one part of the central model. None could change the model itself. The problems were structural, and a study of one part could not remove them.

2000 · One problem at a time

The causes he traced fell under a few headings: project size, implementation time, cost, health, safety and environment (HSE), security, wasted energy, product allocation and expansion. Each heading was a question to answer.

From 2000 he answered them one problem at a time, and he checked each answer before he moved to the next.

Some of his answers were put to work during his career. His idea for real-time field data over Wi-Fi and WiMAX was, in his account, adopted across the industry worldwide. His work on power from the heat of oil wells later became the basis of the self-energising design of the SERM-GC. His full record is set out on his own page.

2006 · Turning the model around

By 2006 his separate answers had joined into the outline of one integrated system.

Its principle can be stated in one sentence. If the trouble came from carrying raw fluid to a distant factory, then the factory should go to the fluid.

2015 to 2018 · Patented and presented

He filed for a United States patent on 18 November 2015. US Patent 9,334,722 B1, "Dynamic Oil and Natural Gas Grid Production System", was granted on 10 May 2016. It is in force until 2035.

The design did not stop at the patent. It has been refined continuously since, and today's design carries the principle through. In it, a small, sealed, self-powered gathering centre, the SERM-GC, sits at each well, with no flare system and no tanks. A buried ring joins the units and holds the product. One intelligence is designed to run the field. A compact station is designed to hand finished product to the customer. The system is known today as THE OIL GRID.

Recognition came in Kuwait. Kuwait International Bank honoured the work in 2016, and the Kuwait Excellence Award followed in 2017. In December 2017 the grid appeared in its first exhibition film, and in March 2018 he presented it, in Arabic, to Kuwait's institutions.

2020 to 2023 · From an invention to a company

In 2020, after twenty-four years, he took early retirement from Kuwait Oil Company.

On 18 May 2023 he founded Global Grid Alpha Corporation Limited in Dublin, Ireland, to carry THE OIL GRID from the patent to the field, and to producing nations and operators around the world.

Today · Where the story stands

THE OIL GRID is engineered and patented. No installation has yet been built; next comes the one-time design stage — full engineering and manufacturing design, prototype testing, certification and licensing — then the first standard units are manufactured, ready for the first customer. Where the Company stands today is told on Our Company.

Timeline

1995

B.Eng. (Honours), Chemical and Process Engineering, Newcastle University

1996

Joins Kuwait Oil Company as a process engineer; the first idea of the grid, late in the year

1997

Work begins on one complete answer to real field problems

2000

First answers put to the test in the field, one problem at a time

2006

The outline of the integrated system takes shape

2015

United States patent application filed, 18 November

2016

US Patent 9,334,722 B1 granted, 10 May; Kuwait International Bank honour

2017

Kuwait Excellence Award; first exhibition film of the grid

2018

Arabic presentation of the grid to Kuwait's institutions

2020

Early retirement from Kuwait Oil Company after 24 years

2023

Global Grid Alpha Corporation Limited incorporated in Dublin, 18 May

2026

The Company's foundation phase

Next

The one-time design stage, then the first standard units