What does a petroleum engineering really do?

What does a petroleum engineering really do?
10 Dimensions International WHAT IS PETROLEUM? Most people associate petroleum with transportation, but petroleum is not just used for fuel. Thousands of everyday vital products come from petroleum. One 42-gallon barrel of oil creates 20 gallons of gasoline and four gallons of jet fuel. The remaining 18 gallons are used to make things like solvents, ink, tires, motor oil, ice cube trays, house paint, roofing material, surf boards, hand lotion, candles, shampoo, food preservatives, toothpaste, golf balls, ice cream, heart valves, trash bags, anti- freeze, eyeglasses, shower curtains, and so on. All these petroleum and associated products come from hydrocarbon resources found under the earth’s surface and require human intervention to produce them. Hydrocarbon is the result of the decomposition of organic matter over the course of millions of years, which is why the derived fuel or energy is a “nonrenewable” source of energy. This means that any depletion of such a deposit cannot be replenished in the foreseeable future. Consequently, there is an absolute neces- sity for other sources of energy to be developed to support the depleting global petroleum reservoirs that have been subjected to intense demand from energy consumers. FIELD OF PETROLEUM ENGINEERING The field of petroleum engineering is all about the exploration and production of various petroleum-based hydrocarbons, particularly natural gas and crude oil. These are some of the most significant sources of energy. Exploration is the phase prior to actually finding a commercial hydrocarbon resource, and the tasks are mainly carried out by geoscientists with the cooperation of petroleum engineers. Subsequently, the resource is transferred to the petroleum engineers who become responsible for development, management, operations and production. Petroleum engineering, as an academic discipline, originat- ed in 1914 at the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgi- cal and Petroleum Engineers (AIME) and the first degree was awarded by the University of Pittsburgh, PA, in 1915. The number of petroleum engineer students is low compared to the other known engineering departments, such as mechanical or electrical; therefore, there is a worldwide industry demand for petroleum engineers. The petroleum engineers formed a society — the history begins within AIME. AIME was founded in 1871 in Penn- Integrated task cycle for a typical Reservoir Management Engineer. WHAT DOES A PETROLEUM ENGINEER REALLY DO? Few career paths in today’s world offer the amazing variety of key roles that petroleum engineers play in the global economy, and as the world’s demand for hydrocarbons and their products continues to rise, petroleum engineers will play a crucial role in ensuring that demand is met, new technologies are deployed, costs and risks are managed, the environment is protected, and the world’s economic future remains secure. BY DR. ZILLUR RAHIM, ADNAN AL-KANAAN AND DR. HAMOUD A. AL-ANAZI
sylvania to advance the production of metals, minerals, and energy resources through the application of engineering. The Petroleum Branch of AIME became a full-fledged profes- sional society — the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) — in 1957 and the first Board of Directors meeting was held in Dallas, Texas, with president John H. Hammond presiding. The number of SPE members in 2014 exceeded 124,000, making the society the largest in the engineering industry. WHAT IS A RESERVOIR? “Reservoir” is one of the most common terms in petroleum engineering. What is a reservoir? In a general sense, a reservoir is a large natural or artificial lake used as a source of water supply. In petroleum engineering terms, a reservoir is where the hydrocarbon migrates into and resides — an underground source usually thousands of feet deep — sitting in very harsh conditions of pressure and temperature, and bounded by impermeable layers above and below to contain the hydrocarbon. The two main fabrics of reservoirs are carbonates and sandstones. They possess different chemistry and character- istics, and do not provide open space like lakes. Rather, they are tightly grained, often consolidated, and hydrocarbon is stored in the very small pore spaces of the rock fabric, known as “porosity.” When these pore spaces are connected and the fluid can pass from one set of pores to the other, the rock becomes permeable. This phenomenon is defined as “permeability,” and the higher the permeability, the greater is the potential for hydrocarbon flow. The flow of hydrocarbon from the reservoir reaches the wellbore due to pressure differential between the reservoir and wellbore, making the reservoir producible. Saturation is an important aspect of a reservoir as different fluids, such as water, oil and gas, can coexist in the same structure. No single fluid is usually found to saturate the entire reservoir. Even if a single fluid existed, such as in a very dry gas reservoir, not all the gas can be produced by virtue of some of the gas sticking to the porosity walls, termed as resid- ual saturation. Porosity, movable hydrocarbon saturation, reservoir thick- ness and extent generally define the amount of hydrocarbon accumulated in a field and permeability defines the production potential. WHO IS A PETROLEUM ENGINEER? A petroleum engineer is employed by an oil company to design, test, and implement methods to produce petroleum products from the earth and sea floor. These engineers are involved in confirming the commercial presence of oil or gas, locating the drilling sites, designing products by combining their efforts with other engineering groups, contributing to the development of software to control and run equipment and simulate hydrocarbon flow through the reservoir, planning field development, and oversee the removal and processing of the petroleum itself. A petroleum engineer possesses a mix of various skills in mathematics, chemistry, geology, physics, finance, etc., over Dimensions International 11 A cut out view of a hydrocarbon reservoir illustrating rock bedding and layering. THIS GRAPH SHOWS THE MEMBERSHIP GROWTH OF THE SOCIETY OF PETROLEUM ENGINEERS (SPE) FROM THE LATE 1950s TO 2014. MEMBERSHIP CURRENTLY EXCEEDS 124,000. SOCIETY OF PETROLEUM ENGINEERS (SPE) MEMBERSHIP COUNT BY REGION. 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 YEAR 0 (THOUSANDS) 16 12 8 4 Africa Canadian Eastern North Am erica GulfCoastNorth Am erica M id-ContinentNorth Am erica M iddleEast North Sea Northern Asia Pacific RockyM ountain North Am erica Russian & Caspian South Am erica & Caribbean South Central& Eastern Europe Southern AsiaPacific Southwestern North Am erica Unassigned W estern North Am erica
12 Dimensions International12 Dimensions International and above the core petroleum engineering subjects. The discipline also overlaps several other engineering branches that include chemical, civil, and mechanical engineering; however, the work is focused on the evaluation and production of gas and oil reservoirs, making them available to the consumer in various forms and stages. Given the vast scope of petroleum engineering, a single person obviously cannot champion all the tasks. The petroleum engineering functions are broadly divided into three categories: Upstream, Midstream, and Downstream. The very onset of exploration with the drilling of exploratory wells and subsequent development and production of the field is considered Upstream and is often referred to as Exploration and Production (E&P). The Midstream sector includes all the complex pipeline networks to transport the hydrocarbon from the wells to the purification plants, refineries and other installations. The ultimate refining and processing of the crude, purification of natural gas, operating pet- rochemical plants, deriving products from oil and gas, etc., compose the Downstream industry. The delineation of a field (identifying field boundaries) and its development by drilling a sufficient number of wells, ensuring that the hydrocarbon production target is met and the field is produced optimally and economically, and managed diligently by using proper production strategies are important tasks carried out by the Upstream petroleum engineers. They ensure that the reservoir life cycle is maximized by applying the most appropriate engineering and earth science technologies while fully complying with safety and environmental regulations. There are four areas of concern for a petroleum engineer: finding the oil/gas, evaluating hydrocarbon potential, maximizing recovery and transportation and stor- age. The major specialties include: design, oversee and run multimillion dollar drilling and production operations, perform laboratory tests, studies, and experiments to understand the reservoir and enhanced recovery methods, and develop computer simulation models to determine the optimal recovery process. Upstream petroleum engineers are further divided according to their specialties; some specialize in drilling engineering and are responsible for designing and actual drilling of the wells. “Production” engineers ensure proper completion and tie-in of the well to the processing plants, Left A computer model of a field development plan simulated by the petroleum engineers with optimal well spacing and configuration. Right A reservoir simulation model combined with geology showing well placement and hydrocarbon movement. 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040 YEAR QUADRILLIONBTU 250 200 150 100 50 0 BSENROLLMENT(THOUSANDS) 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 M echanical Electrical/Com puter CivilOther Com puterScience Chem ical Engineering (General) Biom edical Aerospace Industrial M etallurgical Petroleum Environm ental Biological& Agricultural Architectural Civil/Environm ental Eng.Sciences& PhysicsNuclear Engineering M anagem entM ining HISTORIC AND FUTURE ENERGY DEMAND WORLDWIDE. ENROLLMENT OF ENGINEERING STUDENTS IN BACHELOR DEGREE PROGRAMS (2013). SOURCE: U.S. ENERGY INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION (RELEASE DATE JULY 25, 2013).
Dimensions International 13 managing production operations, and optimizing operating expenses. “Stimulation” engineers fracture and rejuvenate wells to enhance productivity, making unconventional reservoirs commercially producible. “Reservoir” engineers fully eval- uate reservoir properties, potential, and forecast oil and gas production rates. Petroleum reservoir management is one of the main branches of petroleum engineering and includes: overall field development and planning, maximizing property value, evaluating production performance, ensuring reservoir health, and being responsible in supplying and sustaining a substantial portion of world energy. Among all aspects of petroleum engineering, reservoir management engineering, mainly comprised of reservoir engineers, is the final authority and responsible entity for the supply of petroleum to a country. Reservoir management engineers forecast 1- to 5-year operating and business plans by running complex simulation models that include field development design and strategy, optimal drilling direction and well configuration, production performance forecasts, long- term production sustainability and financial budgeting. Their work is office-based and a significant part of it is spent inter- acting and working with the drilling engineers, log and core specialists, laboratory scientists, and completion, stimulation, and production technologists to ensure that field development progresses as per design and requirement. During the initial training and assignments, a petroleum engineer rotates between fields and offices, such as manufac- turing installation, production plants, well sites, labo- ratories and computing centers. Petroleum engineers can work in offices or in the field, or at both places, depending on the specialization and focus. Therefore, a reservoir management engineer who deals with well productivity enhancement, designing field development, managing and optimizing reservoir performance, can spend their career in an office environment with infrequent visits to operation facilities. A production engineer, on the other hand, deal- ing with well completion, reservoir stimulation, and surface installations splits his or her job between the office and operation sites, as needed. A drilling engineer who is responsible for the actual drilling of a well, mostly needs to stay on-site during the duration of time assigned to him. An experienced drilling engineer can choose to work on designing wells, optimizing technologies, supervising operations, and managing logistics, thereby spending much time in the office. When petroleum engineering is mentioned, it most likely refers to the Upstream. Downstream engineers, often called petrochemi- cal engineers, are more skilled in fluids and chemistry, and are responsible for the proper separation, processing and purification of crude, running the refinery plants, and working in the process of converting petroleum raw materials to develop and produce a diverse range of products, commodities, and specialty chemicals, including medicines. As demands increase for alternative energy, some for- ward-thinking petroleum engineers are turning their talents to working on clean energy products that produce lower carbon emissions. Many petroleum engineers travel the world or live in for- eign countries — wherever their explorations take them to find and recover these valuable natural reserves. Petroleum engineers interact with world industry professionals on a regular basis through meetings and conferences, to become familiar with each other’s challenges, share and disseminate Left A well log showing formation lithology, reservoir development and gas saturation. Right A computer model of a gas field. SAUDI ARAMCO CRUDE OIL PRODUCTION. IN 2013, THE AVERAGE PRODUCTION WAS 9.4 MILLION BARRELS OF OIL PER DAY. YEAR MILLIONBARRELSPERDAY 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
14 Dimensions International14 Dimensions International information, and deduce solutions to tough problems. Another facet of petroleum engineering is the financial analysis of each project. Petroleum engineers must gauge financial viability and determine if the entire process will be economical. Organization, integration, and analysis of data are important parameters for engineers to carry out such evalu- ations. Petroleum engineers have a future full of challenges and oppor- tunities. In addition to working in the onshore conventional fields, they must develop and apply new technology to recover hydrocarbons from offshore oil and gas fields and from unconventional shale oil and gas, tar sands, and tight gas. They must also devise new techniques — enhancing second- ary and tertiary modes of exploitation — to recover oil and gas left in the ground after exhausting conventional producing methods. This can include injecting chemicals in the reservoir and making it preferential to oil flow or using in situ combustion and heating techniques to make heavy oil lighter in the reservoir so that it can be easily flowed back to the well. In practice, “conventional oil and gas,” or the term “conventional resources,” applies to oil and gas that become producible after the drilling, completion and perforation operations, just by the natural reservoir pressure or sometimes by applying compression. After the reservoir has been producing for a long period of time — usually decades — the natural pressure of the wells may be too low to produce the remaining quantities of oil and gas. At that time, different recovery techniques are used to boost production, which may include water and gas injection or sophisticated compression mecha- nisms; but these oil and gas fields will still be considered conventional resources. Unconventional reservoirs cannot produce commercially except by the use of sophisticated drilling methods and extensive hydraulic fracturing conducted from the very onset of the development initiative. As opposed to a conventional field, an unconventional field produces with a much larger number of wells at a much lower production rate, requiring the application of numerous optimization techniques to bring the cost down so as to make the project economical. In either case, careful planning and design, along with the application of high-end technology for commercial and economic extraction of hydrocarbon, is required. A petroleum engineer is responsible for working with engineers of other disciplines during explora- Total >85 (MMBPD) OILPRODUCTION(MMBPD) 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 Russia KSA USA IranChinaCanada Iraq UAE VenezuelaM exicoKuwaitBrazilNigeriaNorwayAlgeriaAngola KazakstanQatar UK Colum bia Total >260 billion cubic ft per day (Bcfd) GASPRODUCTION(Bcfd) 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 USARussia EU IranCanada QatarNorwayChina KSAAlgeria Netherlands Indonesia M alaysia UzbekistanEgypt Turkm enistanM exico UAEBolivia Australia UK DAILY OIL PRODUCTION BY COUNTRY IN 2013. DAILY NATURAL GAS PRODUCTION BY COUNTRY IN 2012. Trucks carrying state-of- the-art service equipment to well sites in the desert. SOURCE: THE WORLD FACTBOOK, 2013. SOURCE: THE WORLD FACTBOOK, 2012.
Dimensions International 15 tion, to development and production, to selecting the most optimized development plan. The petroleum engineer normal- ly works very closely with the Exploration team that includes geologists and geophysicists on estimating hydrocarbon potential and reserves, and when an exploration is successful and a discovery is made. “Reserves” is an important term often used by petroleum engineers and is defined as the amount of hydrocarbon that can be commercially produced under current technological constraints from a certain field. Reserves is closely synony- mous to the frequently used abbreviation “EUR” that stands for estimated ultimate recovery. With time, reserves can increase due to improvement and advancement in technical capability, application of innovative ideas, lowering of cost, extension of the developed area, or increase of field volumet- rics. The reserves numbers are always lower than the initial hydrocarbon in place, which is defined to be the total volume of naturally occurring underground accumulations, producible or not. Reserves divided by the hydrocarbon in place is known as the recovery factor. Petroleum engineers are able to continuously update field delineation more precisely and recompute hydrocarbon reserves estimates and the production potential with the increased data acquired throughout the development phase. When a delineation drilling confirms the availability of sufficient reserves that will lead to a commercial exploitation project, the petroleum engineers design the field development by evaluating reservoir and hydrocarbon properties, drilling and completion strategies, complexities, recovery methods, cost and safety issues. SAUDI ARABIA: AN EXAMPLE OF EXPLORATION AND PETROLEUM ENGINEERING One of the most outstanding examples of oil and gas — from discovery to production — lies with the history of Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom granted oil concessions to Standard Oil of California (Socal, today’s Chevron) in 1933, and the company started drilling exploratory wells in Dammam in 1935. Dammam-2 produced about 3,800 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil and the company had 1,150 employees. However, the well started producing water and Dammam-3, 4, 5 and 6 were not promising. Max Steinke was the chief geologist for Socal and due to his insistence, vision, hard work, and patience, Dammam-7, also known as the “prosperity well,” made the most outstanding discovery, which has led the Kingdom to eventually become the possessor of 20 percent of world oil reserves. The Dammam-7 well became the symbol of success that initially yielded 3,700 bpd, but opened up the vast horizon of more exploration, delineation and development. The company name was changed to the Arabian Ameri- can Oil Company (Aramco) in 1944 and eventually to Saudi Aramco in 1988. With the use of best-in-class technology, reservoir and petroleum engineering practices, application of innovative ideas and concepts, and above all, the best group of talents and highly skilled professionals, Saudi Arabia has made itself into a world-class oil and gas producing champion, providing the Kingdom and the world with the energy needed to meet the ever-challenging and growing demand. Throughout the 80-plus years of history, Saudi Arabia has become a world leader in exploration, production, refining, distribution and marketing. With 121 oil and gas fields, the country possesses 260.2 billion barrels of proven conventional crude oil and conden- sate reserves and 288.4 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves. In 2013, Saudi Aramco produced 3.4 billion barrels of oil, about one in every eight barrels of the world’s crude oil production and 4 trillion standard cubic feet (Tscf) of natural gas compared to the world's total production of 125 Tscf. While the crude oil is for export, Saudi gas production is entirely dedicated to support the domestic energy consump- tion: mainly for electricity, de-salination plants, turbines and machinaries, and downstream industry. Next time when you drive your car, travel by plane, sit in your home in air-conditioned comfort, plan your cruise, light your house, eat ice cream, play golf, or take your medica- tion, think of the contribution of the petroleum engineers to our society. Left: A hydraulic fracturing site to stimulate and improve production from unconventional reservoirs (Pennsylvania, U.S.). Right: A photo of a typical drilling rig. Photo by Mahdi Hussain

What does a petroleum engineering really do?

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What does a petroleum engineering really do?