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Reservoir engineering is a branch of petroleum engineering that applies scientific principles to the fluid flow through porous medium during the development and production of oil and gas reservoirs so as to obtain a high economic recovery. The working tools of the reservoir engineer are subsurface geology, applied mathematics, and the basic laws of physics and chemistry governing the behavior of liquid and vapor phases of crude oil, natural gas, and water in reservoir rock. Of particular interest to reservoir engineers is generating accurate reserves estimates for use in financial reporting to the SEC and other regulatory bodies. Other job responsibilities include numerical reservoir modeling, production forecasting, well testing, well drilling and workover planning, economic modeling, and PVT analysis of reservoir fluids. Reservoir engineers also play a central role in field development planning, recommending appropriate and cost effective reservoir depletion schemes such as waterflooding or gas injection to maximize hydrocarbon recovery. Due to legislative changes in many hydrocarbon producing countries, they are also involved in the design and implementation of
Society of Petroleum EngineersDefining Reservoir Engineering
Engineering disciplines Petroleum engineering
Reservoir engineering is a branch of petroleum engineering that applies scientific principles to the fluid flow through porous medium during the development and production of oil and gas reservoirs so as to obtain a high economic recovery. The working tools of the reservoir engineer are subsurface geology, applied mathematics, and the basic laws of physics and chemistry governing the behavior of liquid and vapor phases of crude oil, natural gas, and water in reservoir rock. Of particular interest to reservoir engineers is generating accurate reserves estimates for use in financial reporting to the SEC and other regulatory bodies. Other job responsibilities include numerical reservoir modeling, production forecasting, well testing, well drilling and workover planning, economic modeling, and PVT analysis of reservoir fluids. Reservoir engineers also play a central role in field development planning, recommending appropriate and cost effective reservoir depletion schemes such as waterflooding or gas injection to maximize hydrocarbon recovery. Due to legislative changes in many hydrocarbon producing countries, they are also involved in the design and implementation of carbon sequestration
Carbon sequestration is the process of storing carbon in a carbon pool. Carbon dioxide () is naturally captured from the atmosphere through biological, chemical, and physical processes. These changes can be accelerated through changes in lan ...
projects in order to minimise the emission of greenhouse gases.
Types
Reservoir engineers often specialize in two areas: * Surveillance engineering, i.e. monitoring of existing fields and optimization of production and injection rates. Surveillance engineers typically use analytical andempirical
Empirical evidence for a proposition is evidence, i.e. what supports or counters this proposition, that is constituted by or accessible to sense experience or experimental procedure. Empirical evidence is of central importance to the sciences and ...
techniques to perform their work, including decline curve analysis, material balance modeling, and inflow/outflow analysis.
* Dynamic modeling, i.e. the conduct of reservoir simulation
Reservoir simulation is an area of reservoir engineering in which computer models are used to predict the flow of fluids (typically, oil, water, and gas) through porous media.
The creation of models of oil fields and the implementation of ca ...
studies to determine optimal development plans for oil and gas reservoirs. Also, reservoir engineers perform and integrate well tests into their data for reservoirs in geothermal drilling.
See also
*Enhanced oil recovery
Enhanced oil recovery (abbreviated EOR), also called tertiary recovery, is the extraction of crude oil from an oil field that cannot be extracted otherwise. EOR can extract 30% to 60% or more of a reservoir's oil, compared to 20% to 40% using ...
* Flow Zone Unit
*Fluid dynamics
In physics and engineering, fluid dynamics is a subdiscipline of fluid mechanics that describes the flow of fluids— liquids and gases. It has several subdisciplines, including ''aerodynamics'' (the study of air and other gases in motion) a ...
* Gas/oil ratio
*Geothermal energy
Geothermal energy is the thermal energy in the Earth's crust which originates from the formation of the planet and from radioactive decay of materials in currently uncertain but possibly roughly equal proportions. The high temperature and pr ...
*Petroleum
Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crud ...
* Petroleum engineering
*Petroleum geology
Petroleum geology is the study of origin, occurrence, movement, accumulation, and exploration of hydrocarbon fuels. It refers to the specific set of geological disciplines that are applied to the search for hydrocarbons ( oil exploration).
Sedim ...
*Reservoir simulation
Reservoir simulation is an area of reservoir engineering in which computer models are used to predict the flow of fluids (typically, oil, water, and gas) through porous media.
The creation of models of oil fields and the implementation of ca ...
* Reservoir modelling
Notes
{{reflistReferences
*Craft, B.C. & Hawkins, M. Revised by Terry, R.E. 1990 "Applied Petroleum Reservoir Engineering" ''Second Edition'' (Prentice Hall). *Dake, L.P., 1978, "Fundamentals of Reservoir Engineering" (Elsevier) *Frick, Thomas C. 1962 "Petroleum Production Handbook, Vol II" (Society of Petroleum Engineers). *Slider, H.C. 1976 "Practical Petroleum Reservoir Engineering Methods" (The Petroleum Publishing Company). *Charles R. Smith, G. W. Tracy, R. Lance Farrar. 1999 "Applied Reservoir Engineering" (Oil & Gas Consultants International)External links
Society of Petroleum Engineers
Engineering disciplines Petroleum engineering