Petroleum engineering

Petroleum engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the subsurface activities related to the production of hydrocarbons, which can be either crude oil or natural gas. These activities are deemed to fall within the upstream sector of the oil and gas industry, which are the activities of finding and producing hydrocarbons. (Refining and distribution to a market are referred to as the downstream sector.) Exploration, by earth scientists, and petroleum engineering are the oil and gas industry's two main subsurface disciplines, which focus on maximizing economic recovery of hydrocarbons from subsurface reservoirs. Petroleum geology and geophysics focus on provision of a static description of the hydrocarbon reservoir rock, while petroleum engineering focuses on estimation of the recoverable volume of this resource using a detailed understanding of the physical behavior of oil, water and gas within porous rock at very high pressure.

The combined efforts of explorationists and petroleum engineers throughout the life of a hydrocarbon accumulation determine the way in which a reservoir is developed and depleted, and usually they have the highest impact on field economics. Petroleum engineering requires a good knowledge of many other related disciplines, such as geophysics, petroleum geology, formation evaluation (well logging), drilling, economics, reservoir simulation, well engineering, artificial lift systems, and oil & gas facilities engineering.

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. Deep-water 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 thermo-hydraulics, geomechanics, and intelligent systems.

Petroleum engineers must implement high technology plans with manpower and high coordination, 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 September 2007 the average income is USD $122,458. In a June 4th, 2007 article, Forbes.com reported that Petroleum Engineering was the 24th best paying job in the United States.^[1]

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 exploratory, production and injection wells.
• Production engineers manage the interface between the reservoir and the well, including perforations, sand control, downhole flow control, and downhole monitoring equipment; evaluate artificial lift methods; and also select surface equipment that separates the produced fluids (oil, natural gas, and water).

See also

• Engineering
• Petroleum
• Society of Petroleum Engineers
• SPE Certified Petroleum Professional
• Seismic to Simulation

External links

• The Society of Petroleum Engineers
• Schlumberger Oilfield Glossary: An Online Glossary of Oilfield Terms
• Society of Petroleum Evaluation Engineers

References

v • d • e The petroleum industry Exploration Petroleum engineering (Reservoir simulation · Seismic to simulation) · Petroleum geology · Geophysics · Seismic (Seismic inversion) · Petrophysics · Core sampling Drilling Drilling engineering · Underbalanced drilling · Directional drilling · (Measurement while drilling · Geosteering) · Drilling fluid · Drill Stem Test Development Completion (Squeeze job) · Well logging · Pipeline transport · Tracers Production Artificial lift (Pumpjack · ESP · Gas lift) · EOR (Steam injection · Gas reinjection)  · Water injection · Well intervention · Upstream · Midstream · Downstream Technical challenges Differential sticking, Drilling fluid invasion, Blowouts, Lost circulation Oil and gas agreements Production sharing agreements, Concessions, Service Agreements, Risk agreements Data by country Total energy (consumption per capita · intensity) · Natural gas (consumption · production · reserves · imports · exports) · Petroleum (consumption · production · reserves · imports · exports) Supermajors ExxonMobil · Royal Dutch Shell · BP · Chevron Corporation · ConocoPhillips · Total S.A. (See also: National oil companies) Major oil provinces North Sea · East Texas · Persian Gulf · Athabasca oil sands · Gulf of Mexico · Venezuela · Niger Delta · Russia Related articles OPEC · Peak oil · Oil price increases since 2003 · Price of petroleum · Society of Petroleum Engineers