Active Vocabulary

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 616.

UNIT 1. Petroleum Engineering

Chapter 7.

C. Discussion

Topics:

1. Causes of kicks

2. Loss of well control (blowout)

3. Well control procedures

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

Having worked through this chapter the student will be able to:

• describe the branches of petroleum engineering;

• define the duties of drilling personnel;

• list and describe the companies involved in drilling.

Petroleum engineering is the branch of engineering that involves the optimized development and exploitation of crude oil and natural gas fields, as well as the technical analysis and forecasting of these fields' future performance. Its origins lie in both mining engineering and geology. The petroleum engineer, whose aim is to extract gaseous and liquid hydrocarbon products from the earth, is concerned with drilling, producing, processing, and transporting these products and handling all the related economic and regulatory considerations. In general, petroleum engineers are not involved in the exploration for new fields, but they may contribute to a joint effort of geologists, geophysicists, and engineers in such endeavours. Petroleum engineers are responsible for the development and production of oil reservoirs after discovery.

During the evolution of petroleum engineering, the areas of specialization developed: drilling engineering, production engineering, reservoir engineering, and petrophysical engineering. In each specialization engineers from other disciplines (mechanical, civil, electrical, geological, chemical) freely entered, and their contributions were significant; however, it remained the unique role of the petroleum engineer to integrate all the specializations into an efficient system of oil and gas drilling, production, and processing.

The drilling of exploratory wells requires engineers to design, plan, and supervise drilling operations. After a new reservoir has been discovered, drilling engineers are responsible for drilling development wells and preparing them for production. Engineering efforts during this stage concentrate on keeping drilling costs to a minimum while ensuring that the completed well is capable of efficient production of oil and gas from the reservoir.

After wells are completed and ready for production, production engineers design the equipment needed to pump fluids to the surface; to separate oil, gas, and water; and to store or transport the oil and gas. Production engineers are responsible for the efficient operation of producing wells and for the redesign of any well equipment or surface facilities.

Another type of petroleum engineer specialist is called a log analyst, whose responsibilities include evaluating data gathered on wells immediately after drilling. The log analyst determines reservoir properties such as thickness, areal extent, and the saturations of oil, gas, and water. These parameters are needed for calculating the amount of oil and gas in the reservoir.

Reservoir engineers are responsible for the overall recovery of petroleum from a reservoir. They study the reservoir's past behavior in order to forecast the future and ultimate recovery. The reservoir engineer determines if the use of secondary recovery or enhanced oil recovery techniques would be profitable.

To understand the reservoir rock-fluid system, the drilling, production, and reservoir engineers draw assistance from the petrophysical, or formation-evaluation, engineer, who provides tools and analytical techniques for determining rock and fluid characteristics. The petrophysical engineer measures the acoustic, radioactive, and electrical properties of the rock-fluid system and takes samples of the rocks and well fluids to determine porosity, permeability, and fluid content in the reservoir.

All petroleum engineers, regardless of their area of specialization, must do economic evaluations to determine which of several options or choices will yield optimum results. These conclusions are then presented to company management. The analytical methods used by petroleum engineers are similar to most other types of engineering, the major difference being that the petroleum reservoir exists far underground – frequently several thousand to 20,000 feet deep. This remoteness means that most petroleum-engineering calculations are based on indirect and imperfect measurements of underground phenomena.

Equipment and analytical procedures have been developed for measuring properties of the reservoir rocks and fluids, flow rates and pressures, downhole pump operation, and wellbore measurements while drilling. All these and other data are analyzed to assist the petroleum engineer. Computers have assumed increased importance in analyzing data.