Petroleum engineering
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Petroleum engineering is involved in the exploration and production activities of petroleum as an upstream end of the energy sector. Upstream refers to the process of finding and extracting oil, which is usually buried deep beneath the earth's surface, to provide a continuous supply to consumers "downstream". Petroleum engineering covers a wide range of topics, including economics, geology, geochemistry, geomechanics, geophysics, oil drilling, geopolitics, knowledge management, seismology, tectonics, thermodynamics, well logging, well completion, oil and gas production, reservoir development, and pipelines.
Contents |
[edit] Overview
Petroleum engineering has become a technical profession that involves extracting oil in increasingly difficult situations as the "low hanging fruit" of the world's oil fields are found and depleted. Improvements in computer modeling, materials and the application of statistics, probability analysis, and new technologies like horizontal drilling and enhanced oil recovery, have drastically improved the toolbox of the petroleum engineer in recent decades.
As mistakes may be measured in millions of dollars, petroleum engineers are held to a high standard. Deepwater operations can arguably be compared to space travel in terms of technical challenges. Arctic conditions and conditions of extreme heat have to be contended with. High Temperature and High Pressure (HTHP) environments that have become increasingly commonplace in today's operations require the petroleum engineer to be savvy in topics as wide ranging as thermohydraulics, geomechanics, and intelligent systems.
Petroleum engineers must implement high technology plans with the use of manpower, highly coordinated and often in dangerous conditions. The drilling rig crew and machines they use become the remote partner of the petroleum engineer in implementing every drilling program. Understanding and accounting for the issues and communication challenges of building these teams remain just as vital to the petroleum engineer as ever.
The Society of Petroleum Engineers is the largest professional society for petroleum engineers and publishes much information concerning the industry. Petroleum engineering education is available at 17 universities in the United States and many more throughout the world - primarily in oil producing states - but not only top producers, and some oil companies have considerable in house petroleum engineering training classes.
Petroleum engineers have historically been one of the highest paid engineering disciplines; this is offset by a tendency for mass layoffs when oil prices decline. According to a survey published in Dec 2006 the average income was $116,834.
[edit] Types
Petroleum engineers divide themselves into several types:
- Reservoir engineers work to optimize production of oil and gas via proper well placement, production levels, and enhanced oil recovery techniques.
- Drilling engineers manage the technical aspects of drilling both production and injection wells.
- Production engineers (also known as completion or subsurface engineers) manage the interface between the reservoir and the well, including perforations, sand control, artificial lift, downhole flow control, and downhole monitoring equipment.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- The Society of Petroleum Engineers
- Marietta College, Edwy R. Brown Department of Petroleum Engineering
- KFUPM Department of Petroleum Engineers
- PennEnergyJOBS; The Career Site for Petroleum Engineers
- Schlumberger Oilfield Glossary: An Online Glossary of Oilfield Terms
- The Colorado School of Mines, Department of Petroleum Engineering
- Imperial College, London
- USC Petroleum Engineering, Los Angeles
- The Indian School of Mines
- Mining University of Leoben, Austria
- Texas A&M University, Department of Petroleum Engineering
- Texas Tech University, Petroleum Engineering Department
- The University of Texas at Austin, Petroleum & Geosystems Engineering
- University of Oklahoma, Mewbourne School of Petroleum Engineering
- Stanford University, Department of Petroleum Engineering
- The University of Tulsa, Petroleum Engineering Department
- Indian School of Mines, Department of Petroleum Engineering
- University of Missouri-Rolla, Department of Geological Sciences & Engineering
- Montana Tech of the University of Montana, School of Mines & Engineering
- School of Petroleum Engineering, UNSW, Sydney
- Institut Français du Pétrole
- Australian School of Petroleum
- Heriot Watt, Institute of Petroleum Engineering
- NTNU - Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Department of
- LSU, Craft & Hawkins School of Petroleum Engineering Petroleum Engineering & Applied Geophysics
- Robert Gordon University, The Energy Centre
- Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Petroleum Engineering Department
- Institute of Petroleum Engineering, TU Clausthal, Germany
- JobMonkey - Petroleum Engineering Jobs Overview and Listings
- Universidad de Oriente, Monagas, Venezuela
