High Bay Grand Opening

Grand opening ceremonies for the $68 million High Bay Research Facility, the newest educational and research building at the University of Wyoming, will take place later this month.

Events celebrating the opening of the High Bay will be Aug. 16-17 at 651 N. 19th St. in Laramie, adjacent to UW’s Central Energy Plant.

The High Bay Research Facility contains approximately 90,000 square feet of traditional and high-bay research laboratories, offices and meeting areas. The facility provides sufficient space, capacity and state-of-the-art equipment to grow niche areas of research being conducted at UW. It has been designed to be easily reconfigurable, modular and expandable as research areas grow or change over time.

A shared UW resource of the School of Energy Resources and the College of Engineering and Applied Science, it features space for the following research areas: the Center of Innovation for Flow Through Porous Media (COIFPM), improved oil recovery, geomechanics and structural engineering.

UW raised $15 million for the facility through corporate partnerships, with $15 million matched by the Legislature. UW raised an additional $10.5 million in instrumentation and technology, which also was doubled by the Wyoming Legislature. Additional funds were raised to support research within the facility.

Industry contributors to the facility and its programs include Hess Corp., Thermo Fisher Scientific (formerly FEI), Halliburton, Baker Hughes Inc., ExxonMobil, Alchemy Sciences Inc., Marathon Oil Corp., Shell Oil Co., Arch Coal and Saudi Aramco. Philanthropists Marian H. Rochelle and Tom and Shelley Botts also supported the project.

The grand opening event includes a welcome barbecue for early arrivals Aug. 16 at the Marian H. Rochelle Gateway Center in the Greg and Loren Hill Plaza. A technical symposium, titled “A New Era in Reservoir Characterization,” will be hosted in conjunction with the events, beginning in the morning of Aug. 17 at the High Bay.

The ribbon-cutting ceremony, which is open to the public, takes place at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 17, and attendees will include Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead, Wyoming Senate President Eli Bebout, UW President Laurie Nichols, UW Board of Trustees President John MacPherson, Hess Corp. President and COO Greg Hill, School of Energy Resources Executive Director Mark Northam and UW Foundation President Ben Blalock. Facility tours and refreshments will follow the ribbon cutting.