PETROLEUM ENGINEERING OVERVIEW.

OVERVIEW

Engineering Technology tells a story of the evolution of technological innovation in obtaining energy from oil and natural gas resources by the people who made it all happen.

The site includes Oral Histories from some of petroleum engineering’s most notable engineers and scientists, a Timeline of Technological Milestones and Innovation, and links to game-changing Technical Papers.

Explore the History of Petroleum Engineering Technology and discover for yourself how the evolution of innovation in the petroleum engineering industry unfolded, and what this innovation over the last 200 years has meant to improving the quality of life for people around the world.

Petroleum engineering is a field of engineering concerned with the activities related to the production of hydrocarbons, which can be either crude oil or natural gas. Exploration and Production are deemed to fall within the upstream sector of the oil and gas industry.

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 geologists 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, reservoir engineering, well engineering, artificial lift systems, completions and oil and gas facilities engineering.

Operation activities

The petroleum industry is quite complicated. Part of what makes it so complicated is the fact that most of the world’s oil supplies are control by state agencies and not by private corporations. In fact, well over half of total world oil reserves are controlled by state agencies in the Middle East. The somewhat complicated and intertwined operations of these major industry players can make it difficult to understand why the industry works as it does. To make it easier, the oil industry can be subdivided into two major categories: National Oil Companies (NOCs) and International Oil Companies (IOCs).