Definition of Petroleum Engineering

As a general concept, engineering It is a set of procedures techniques applied to a specific field. In the case that concerns us, engineering focuses on oil and, more specifically, on everything related to the process of extraction of this substance.

Petroleum engineers collaborate with other professionals to find this valuable black liquid and bring it to the surface. Once extracted, the crude is transported to refineries through pipelines. The activity of these engineering professionals should be governed by two general parameters: that extraction is economically feasible and there is no impact environmental

The activities of petroleum engineering

The main task is to explore the terrain, that is, to find where the oil is, under what conditions and what technical difficulties are there to remove it from the bottom of the earth or the sea. These functions are carried out jointly with other professionals (geologists, chemists and geophysicists, among others). Once the oil is found, it is necessary to reach it, for which the collaboration of other engineering professionals (from the field of mechanical, industrial or chemistry). When the oil reserve has already been reached, it is necessary to produce it, that is, bring it to the surface, the most complex part from a technological point of view.

Tasks understood by the engineer

In oilfields, engineers have to deal with a whole series of procedures: safety labor, measures for the preservation of environment, legislation, as well as mechanics issues, electricity, physics, and, in short, a whole series of knowledge associated with the technology that extracts oil. It must be taken into account that oil is found within porous rocks and interacts with other fluids (gaseous or liquid) and all this conditions the different forms of extraction.

Data analysis

A fundamental aspect of petroleum engineering is the data analysis of all those parameters that intervene in the extraction of crude oil and oil itself (its quality, its quantity, its composition ...).

Finally, we must remember one piece of evidence: that petroleum engineering depends on the oil reserves that exist. According to specialists in this field, reserves are calculated as follows: dividing the amount of oil that is known to be available by the consumption real. As new deposits appear periodically, this causes the existing reserve amount to change over the years.