Discussed below are the natures of work of various engineers in the field of petroleum engineering, their work environment and employment avenues.

Nature of Work

Petroleum Engineers

Petroleum engineers design and develop the most efficient production methods. These will include injection of water, chemicals or steam into an oil reservoir to push out more oil, and horizontal drilling or fracturing to connect a gas reservoir to a well. Petroleum engineering includes several specialties which play important role in oil exploration, drilling and recovery.

Geosciences engineers

Geo-science engineering is closely linked to petroleum engineering and this specialty deals with exploration of prospective sites in association with geophysicists and geologists. The geosciences engineer analyzes the geologist’s environmental and seismic studies with the field engineer’s analysis and prepares estimates of the reservoir size.

Petro physical specialist

The petro physical specialist studies the rock formations and estimates the oil content in the rock.

Field petroleum engineer

Field petroleum engineers analyze the oil bearing rock sediment and study the productivity. Field petroleum engineers are in charge of drilling operations and when significant oil is identified in a location, they aim to maximize the oil production at the site. The specialists at the site are drilling engineers, production engineers and reservoir engineers.

Drilling Engineers

The design and supervision of drilling operations are done by the Drilling engineers. They also have the additional responsibility of supervising the building of the drilling platform; decide upon drilling equipment and methods.

Production engineer

Production engineers analyze and determine the most efficient methods and equipment to optimize the oil and gas production. They plan the primary, secondary and tertiary recovery methods.

Reservoir engineer

Reservoir engineers prepare estimates of the commercial viability for exploring oil reserves in wells and work on evaluating the value of fresh sites due for commercial exploration.

Work environment

Petroleum engineers work in oil exploration on the seas, forests, deserts, plains and mountains.

Employment avenues

Petroleum engineers work mostly with the petroleum industry, the major employees being oil companies, oil exploration, production and service companies. Engineering consulting firms, government agencies, oil field services, and equipment suppliers require petroleum engineers for their work. ONGC, Indian Oil, Oil India and Bharat Petroleum are the main employers.

For recovery, development and processing of petroleum, the petroleum engineers apply the principles of geology, physics and engineering sciences. It is the duty of Petroleum Engineers to locate the sources of oil and gas and the best location for drilling wells. Petroleum engineers have to function using their maximum capacity to check the oil and gas facilities, monitoring and forecasting reservoir performance. Optimum recovery of oil and natural gas from reservoirs is their major work.