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Producing oil and gas and other
resources from the earth is the primary challenge of the
petroleum engineer. Petroleum now provides over 70% of the
world’s energy and is likely to do so for at least another
50, and probably 100, years. In a sense, no other branch of
engineering is more concerned with our everyday lives.
Economic and environmentally safe production of petroleum
resources requires creative application of a wide spectrum of
knowledge, ranging from the basic sciences of mathematics,
physics, geology, and chemistry to almost all engineering
disciplines (mechanical, chemical, electrical, etc.).
The petroleum engineer evaluates
potential oil and gas reservoirs, oversees drilling
activities, selects and implements recovery schemes, and
designs surface collection and treatment facilities. The
petroleum engineer increasingly uses advanced computers in
this work, not only in analysis of exploration data and
simulation of reservoir behavior, but also in automation of
oilfield production and drilling operations. Petroleum
companies own many of the world’s supercomputers.
Petroleum engineers have a future full
of challenges and opportunities. They must develop and apply
new technology to recover hydrocarbons from oil shale, tar
sands, and offshore oil and gas fields. They must also devise
new techniques to recover oil left in the ground after
application of conventional producing techniques. Example of
these “enhanced” recovery methods are steam injection,
underground combustion, and injection of chemically treated
water to release oil trapped in the pores of rock. These new
methods are aimed at recovering additional petroleum from
known reservoirs, beyond the 25% typically recovered with
conventional technology.
Techniques developed for the recovery of
petroleum will increasingly be applied to the extraction of
other important minerals as in-situ uranium leaching,
geothermal energy production, and coal gasification. Petroleum
engineers are also able to contribute to such non-energy
activities as pollutant remediation, underground waste
disposal and hydrology.
Since many petroleum companies conduct
worldwide operations, the petroleum engineer may have the
opportunity for assignments all over the world. Petroleum
engineers must solve the variety of technological, political,
and economic problems encountered in these assignments. These
exciting technological challenges combine to offer the
petroleum engineer a most rewarding career.
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