Petroleum Engineering is involved in the exploration and production activities of petroleum at the upstream end of the energy sector. The diverse topics covered by petroleum engineering are closely related to the earth sciences. Petroleum engineering topics include geology, geochemistry, geophysics, oil drilling, well logging, well completion, oil and gas production, reservoir development, and pipelining.

The Society of Petroleum Engineers is the largest professional society for petroleum engineers and is a good source of information. Petroleum engineering education is available at dozens of universities in the United States; primarily in oil producing states. A growing number of international programs offer petroleum engineering.

Petroleum engineers have historically been one of the highest paid engineering disciplines; this is offset by a tendency for mass layoffs when oil prices decline. Petroleum engineering offers a challenging blend of geology, operations, advanced mathematics and the opportunity to risk massive amounts of money. The rewards for successful engineers range from high paying jobs to the opportunities to start oil companies. See also: engineering

External link

• http://www.spe.org The Society of Petroleum Engineers