About Petroleum
Engineering
Everyone has seen images of oil spurting from the ground while oil-soaked workers battle to control the powerful geyser. But it's not always that easy to get oil out of the ground. Oil reservoirs can be thousands of feet below the surface, trapped in pockets of hard rock. Petroleum engineers are in charge of finding those pockets and then getting as much oil out of them as possible. It is a difficult job requiring years of education and training.
The Facts
The oil we have today is the result of dead organic matter spending millions of years being compressed by geological forces. After dying long ago, the organic matter fell to the bottom of the sea, forming layers. These layers of organic material slowly mixed with the mud at the bottom of the sea. The combination of the pressure of the new layers above them and the lack of oxygen caused a series of chemical changes. First, the organic matter solidified, becoming shale or "source rock." Then the source rock was liquefied and became oil and natural gas. Over time, geological changes shifted the ground, creating pockets of oil.
Function
Petroleum engineers find these pockets of oil. This may sound simple, but it is not. Petroleum engineers need to have an extensive knowledge of subsurface geology in order to seek out the most likely locations of oil reservoirs. Once an oil reservoir has been located, petroleum engineers have to find a way to access the oil and pump it out. To do this, they team up with geologists and other engineers in order to design the necessary equipment and to implement strategies that will maximize the amount of oil retrieved.
Methods of Finding Oil
Petroleum engineers and petroleum geologists work together to find oil reservoirs. One of the techniques they use is a "seismic survey." A seismic survey is a method of determining the structure of subsurface geology by creating shock waves and then reading the results. Because sound travels at different speeds depending on the substance it is passing through, the petroleum scientists are able to read the reflections of the shock waves and use that data to create maps of subsurface geology. They use these maps to figure out where oil pockets are likely to be found.
Methods of Extracting Oil
Although there are times when oil is under natural pressure and easy to get to the surface, very often petroleum engineers need to find a way to access oil deep below the surface that is not under pressure. One of their methods is to inject another substance (such as water or chemicals) into the oil reservoir in order to force the oil out. Another is drilling a deep hole and pumping out the oil. At times, petroleum engineers will even try to alter subsurface geology by breaking up rocks so that oil can flow into a single well.
Goals
Oil reservoirs are rarely completely drained due to the difficulty of getting the remaining oil to the surface. For this reason, petroleum engineers often focus on maximizing the amount of oil obtained from a single reservoir. When old wells run dry, petroleum engineers are often called in to try to find a new way to access any remaining oil. This means that petroleum engineers need to be able to adapt to new and complex situations all the time.
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