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1999-2000 Catalog

Course Descriptions


Degrees and Programs Index


Petroleum Engineering

A $25.00 per semester student computing facility user fee is assessed for Petroleum Engineering courses at the 400-level or higher. This fee is in addition to any material/lab fees.


PETE 103 (1 Credit) Fall
Survey of the Energy Industries (1+0)
Overview of global energy supply and demand, alternate energy options, and petroleum production technology.


PETE 205 (3 Credits) Fall
Introduction to Petroleum Drilling and Productions (3+0)
Fundamental principles of drilling, well completions, production engineering; field trips to Alaskan oil fields if possible. (Prerequisite: MATH 200.)


PETE 211 (1 - 2 Credits) Spring
Drilling Laboratory (0+3 or 6)
Measurement of physical properties of drilling mud; optional BOP certification and drilling rig operation experience during spring break. (Prerequisite: PETE 205 or permission of instructor.)


PETE 301 (4 Credits) Fall
Reservoir Rock and Fluid Properties (4+0)
Fundamental concepts of reservoir rock and fluid properties including porosity, permeability, fluid saturations, capillary pressure, relative permeabilities, classification of petroleum reservoirs by fluid phase contents, oil, gas and water properties, fluid sampling, and PVT analysis. (Prerequisites: MATH 201, ES 346 and GEOS 101 or GE 261.)


PETE 302 (3 Credits) Spring
Well Logging (3+0)
Comprehensive treatment of modern well logging methods including formation and production logging tools and techniques and basic concepts of log interpretation. (Prerequisite: Junior standing in engineering or geoscience.)


PETE 303W (1 Credit) Spring
Reservoir Rock and Fluid Properties Laboratory (0+3)
Measurement of properties of reservoir rock and reservoir fluids; determination of porosity, permeability, fluid saturations, capillary pressures, specific gravity density, viscosity, surface tension, PVT properties and interpretation of PVT reports for reservoir fluid samples. (Prerequisite: PETE 301.)


PETE 407 (3 Credits) Fall
Petroleum Production Engineering (3+0)
Production System Analysis, Inflow Performance Analysis, Gas Lift Design, Sucker Rod Pumping and Production Decline Analysis. (Prerequisites: ES 341 and ES 346.)


PETE 411W (1 Credit) Spring
Drilling Fluids Laboratory (0+3)
Design, composition and measurement of drilling fluid properties, evaluation of mud activities and chemical treatment of contaminated drilling fluid. (Prerequisites: PETE 205 and concurrent enrollment in PETE 426.)


PETE 421 (3 Credits) Spring
Reservoir Characterization (3+0)
Application of well logs to delineate reservoir rock properties and its spatial variations. Estimation of petroleum in place. Impact of facies variation and depositional models for the design of production policies. Impact of formation structure on enhanced oil recovery methods. Reservoir surveillance. (Prerequisites: PETE 301, 302, and GEOS 370)


PETE 426 (3 Credits) Spring
Drilling Engineering (3+0)
Principles of drilling, drilling fluids and rheology, drilling problems, drilling hydraulics, well control techniques and casing seat selection. (Prerequisites: ES 331, 341.)


PETE 431 (2 Credits) Fall
Natural Gas Engineering (2+0)
Natural gas production and condensate reservoirs. Design of processing, transportation, distribution and flow measurement systems. (Prerequisite: PETE 301.)


PETE 456 (3 Credits) Spring
Petroleum Evaluation and Economic Decisions (3+0)
Economic appraisal methods for oil field developmental project evaluations including risk analysis, probability, and statistics in decision making and evaluations. Case studies. (Prerequisites: MATH 202 and PETE 476.)


PETE 466 (3 Credits) Fall
Petroleum Recovery Methods (3+0)
Flow and physicochemical principles of oil recovery by water, chemical, thermal and miscible floods. Prediction of recovery for each of these methods. (Prerequisites: PETE 301 and PETE 476.)


PETE 476 (3 Credits) Spring
Petroleum Reservoir Engineering (3+0)
Quantitative study and prediction of the behavior of oil and gas reservoirs under primary, secondary, and tertiary recovery mechanisms. (Prerequisites: PETE 301, 405.)


PETE 478 (2 Credits) Spring
Well Test Analysis (2+0)
Transient flow of fluids through porous media, application of solutions of the diffusivity equation to pressure buildup, drawdown, interference testing and log-log type curve analysis and effect of reservoir heterogeneities on pressure behavior. (Prerequisites: PETE 476 and MATH 302)


PETE 481W (3 Credits) Fall
Well Completions and Stimulation Design (2+3)
Design of casing programs, cementing, open-hole and set-through completions, well stimulation; completion and workover fluids; and evaluation of sand control and workover operations. (Prerequisites: PETE 205, ES 341 and PETE 426.)


PETE 487W,O (2 Credits) Fall
Petroleum Project Design (2+0)
Emphasis on design and analysis of petroleum exploration, production and reservoir engineering systems by analytical, experimental and computer methods. Identification of requirements, conceptual and detailed project design and cost analysis. Completion of an engineering project. (Prerequisite: Senior standing.)


PETE 489 (2 Credits) Spring
Reservoir Simulation (2+0)
The theory and use of computer reservoir simulation in petroleum reservoir and production engineering. (Prerequisites: MATH 310 and PETE 476.)


PETE 607 (3 Credits) Fall
Advanced Production Engineering (3+0)
Production system analysis, production optimization, downhole equipment design, surface facilities design, oil and gas processing, gas and oil treating systems, disposal well systems, project organization and field development. (Prerequisites: Graduate standing, PETE 407 or equivalent, permission of instructor.)


PETE 610 (3 Credits) Fall
Advanced Reservoir Engineering (3+0)
Advanced treatment of topics in reservoir engineering including derivation and solution of the diffusivity equation, the real gas pseudo potential, and applications of materials balance equations to water influx calculations. (Prerequisite: PETE 476 or permission of instructor.)


PETE 630 (3 Credits) As Demand Warrants
Water Flooding (3+0)
A study of the fundamental concepts and procedures for the design of waterflooding processes in petroleum reservoirs. (Prerequisites: PETE 301 and PETE 476. Last offered: Fall 1991.)


PETE 656 (3 Credits) As Demand Warrants
Advanced Petroleum Economic Analysis (3+0)
Designed to present an advanced knowledge of economic analysis of petroleum production leading towards increasing cost efficiency in the petroleum and related industries. The course objectives provide qualitative and qualitative description of production forecasts and reserve estimation; oil and gas pricing; cash flow analysis; risk and uncertainty of operation of oil and gas production (financing, debt/equity ratio, depreciation and taxation). (Prerequisites: PETE 407, PETE 456; and/or permission of instructor.)


PETE 661 (3 Credits) Every Third Semester
Applied Well Testing (3+0)
Equations for transient flow of single phase fluids through porous media, extension to sample multiphase flow, isolated and developed multi-well flow, conventional drawdown and buildup analysis, log-log type curve analysis, interference testing, fractured wells, pulse tests, and drill stem tests. (Prerequisite: PETE 476 or PETE 610.)


PETE 662 (3 Credits) Every Third Semester
Enhanced Oil Recovery (3+0)
Secondary and tertiary oil recovery processes, including waterflooding and chemical and thermal recovery methods. (Prerequisite: PETE 476 or PETE 610.)


PETE 663 (3 Credits) Every Third Semester
Applied Reservoir Simulation (3+0)
Mathematical description of the reservoir, history matching, and prediction for several published case studies of reservoir simulations, class project application to simulation of an Alaskan reservoir. (Prerequisites: Advanced engineering mathematics elective and PETE 610.)


PETE 665 (3 Credits) Every Third Semester
Advanced Phase Behavior (3+0)
The development and application of phase equilibrium simulators to predict fluid properties for reservoir fluids. (Prerequisites: PETE 321 or permission of instructor.)


PETE 666 (3 Credits) Every Third Semester
Drilling Optimization (3+0)
Principles of drilling optimization: drilling cost analysis and control; rheological properties of drilling fluid for optimum hole cleaning; planning an optimum mud program for vertical, directional and horizontal wellbores; optimizing bit hydraulics. Use of software packages in optimized hydraulics. (Prerequisite: Graduate standing in engineering discipline or permission of instructor.)


PETE 670 (3 Credits) Fall
Fluid Flow Through Porous Media (3+0)
The study of transport phenomena in porous media and application to petroleum engineering. (Prerequisites: PETE 301 and PETE 476.)


PETE 680 (3 Credits) As Demand Warrants
Horizontal Well Technology (3+0)
Review of the state-of-the-art of horizontal well technology covering recent advances in drilling and completion of horizontal wells. Emphasis on field practices, reservoir engineering aspects including well testing and well performance estimation, application of horizontal wells to gas and water coning problems as well as enhanced oil recovery. (Prerequisites: PETE 426 and PETE 476 or permission of instructor.)


PETE 683 (3 Credits) Every Third Semester
Natural Gas Processing and Engineering (3+0)
The study of natural gas reservoir engineering and gas production practices; transient flow of real gases, gas field development, gas well testing, transportation and gas storage reservoirs. (Prerequisites: PETE 431 and PETE 476. Last offered Spring 1991.)


PETE 684 (3 Credits) Fall
Computational Methods in Petroleum Engineering (3+0)
Numerical methods used in the solution of problems in drilling, production and reservoir engineering. Application of operational calculus, numerical integration, Laplace transforms, Green's functions, statistical methods, and nonlinear optimization techniques to petroleum engineering. (Prerequisites: PETE 476, MATH 302, and MATH 310.)


PETE 685 (3 Credits) Every Third Semester
Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics (3+0)
Characteristics of stress in fluids, flow models of non-Newtonian fluids (Bingham plastic fluids, fluids without yield stress), couette flow analysis of non-Newtonian fluids, surge and swab pressure models for plugged and open-end pipes. (Prerequisites: ES 341, PETE 426 or permission of the instructor.)


PETE 689 (3 Credits) As Demand Warrants
Multiphase Fluid Flow in Pipes (3+0)
Multiphase flow in pipes, modeling of fluid flow of complex mixtures in pipes, empirical correlations developed in the literature, and calculation of pressure gradients and flow rates during the flow of multiphase fluids through vertical, inclined and horizontal pipes. (Prerequisites: ES 341, MATH 310 or ES 301, and PETE 407, or permission of the instructor.)