Petroleum engineering is a field of engineering concerned with the activities related to the production of hydrocarbons, which can be either crude oil or natural gas. Exploration and production are deemed to fall within the upstream sector of the oil and gas industry. Exploration, by earth scientists, and petroleum engineering are the oil and gas industry's two main subsurface disciplines, which focus on maximizing economic recovery of hydrocarbons from subsurface reservoirs. Petroleum geology and geophysics focus on provision of a static description of the hydrocarbon reservoir rock, while petroleum engineering focuses on estimation of the recoverable volume of this resource using a detailed understanding of the physical behavior of oil, water and gas within porous rock at very high pressure.
An oil well is a boring in the Earth that is designed to bring petroleum oil hydrocarbons to the surface. Usually some natural gas is released along with the oil. A well that is designed to produce only gas may be termed a gas well.
Baker Hughes, a GE company (BHGE) is an international industrial service company and one of the world's largest oil field services companies. As of December 2018 Baker Hughes is 50.4% owned by General Electric Company and 49.6% publicly traded (NYSE:BHGE). It operates in more than 120 countries, providing the oil and gas industry with products and services for oil drilling, formation evaluation, completion, production and reservoir consulting. Baker Hughes, a GE Company has its headquarters in the legacy BHI headquarters in Houston, Texas.
Well logging, also known as borehole logging is the practice of making a detailed record of the geologic formations penetrated by a borehole. The log may be based either on visual inspection of samples brought to the surface or on physical measurements made by instruments lowered into the hole. Some types of geophysical well logs can be done during any phase of a well's history: drilling, completing, producing, or abandoning. Well logging is performed in boreholes drilled for the oil and gas, groundwater, mineral and geothermal exploration, as well as part of environmental and geotechnical studies.
A mud engineer works on an oil well or gas well drilling rig, and is responsible ensuring the properties of the drilling fluid, also known as drilling mud, are within designed specifications.
Production fluid is the fluid mixture of oil, gas and water in formation fluid that flows to the surface of an oil well from a reservoir. Its consistency and composition varies.
Logging while drilling (LWD) is a technique of conveying well logging tools into the well borehole downhole as part of the bottom hole assembly (BHA).
The annulus of an oil well or water well is any void between any piping, tubing or casing and the piping, tubing, or casing immediately surrounding it. It is named after the corresponding geometric concept. The presence of an annulus gives the ability to circulate fluid in the well, provided that excess drill cuttings have not accumulated in the annulus, preventing fluid movement and possibly sticking the pipe in the borehole.
A drill stem test (DST) is a procedure for isolating and testing the pressure, permeability and productive capacity of a geological formation during the drilling of a well. The test is an important measurement of pressure behaviour at the drill stem and is a valuable way of obtaining information on the formation fluid and establishing whether a well has found a commercial hydrocarbon reservoir.
Geosteering is the optimal placement of a wellbore based on the results of realtime downhole geological and geophysical logging measurements rather than three-dimensional targets in space. The objective is usually to keep a directional wellbore within a hydrocarbon pay zone defined in terms of its resistivity, density or even biostratigraphy. In mature areas, geosteering may be used to keep a wellbore in a particular section of a reservoir to minimize gas or water breakthrough and maximize economic production from the well. In the process of drilling a borehole, geosteering is the act of adjusting the borehole position on the fly to reach one or more geological targets. These changes are based on geological information gathered while drilling. Originally only a projected target would be aimed for with crude directional tools. Now the advent of rotary steerable tools and an ever-increasing arsenal of geophysical tools enables well placement with ever-increasing accuracy. Typically a basic tool configuration will have directional and inclination sensors, along with a gamma ray tool. Other options are neutron density, look ahead seismic, downhole pressure readings et al. Due to the vast volume of data generated, especially by imaging tools, the data transmitted to surface is a carefully selected fraction of what is available. Data is collected in memory for a data dump when back on surface with the tool.
Petrophysics is the study of physical and chemical rock properties and their interactions with fluids.
Differential sticking is a problem that occurs when drilling a well with a greater well bore pressure than formation pressure, as is usually the case. The drill pipe is pressed against the wellbore wall so that part of its circumference will see only reservoir pressure, while the rest will continue to be pushed by wellbore pressure. As a result, the pipe becomes stuck to the wall, and can require millions of pounds of force to remove, which may prove impossible. In many cases the drilling fluid (mud) weight is reduced, thus relieving the pressure difference and releasing the stuck pipe string. Should this option be unavailable, as in sour gas wells, a specialty fishing company is called to retrieve the stuck pipe or 'fish'. Many options exist once a fishing company is on site: oil or nitrogen may be pumped down the well, or the fish may be 'washed over' using a carbide shoe on a string of washpipe. Jarring is not usually attempted with differential sticking due to the massive amount of pressure that holds the pipe in place.
Estimated pore pressure, as used in the oil industry and mud logging, is an approximation of the amount of force that is being exerted into the borehole by fluids or gases within the formation that has been penetrated.
Oilfield terminology refers to the jargon used by those working in fields within and related to the upstream segment of the petroleum industry. It includes words and phrases describing professions, equipment, and procedures specific to the industry. It may also include slang terms used by oilfield workers to describe the same.
Cementing Equipment includes various items used while drilling oil/gas/water wells.
Oil well control is the management of the dangerous effects caused by the unexpected release of formation fluid, such as natural gas and/or crude oil, upon surface equipment of oil or gas drilling rigs and escaping into the atmosphere. Technically, oil well control involves preventing the formation fluid, usually referred to as kick, from entering into the wellbore during drilling.
In petroleum science, reservoir fluids are the fluids mixture contained within the petroleum reservoir which technically are placed in the reservoir rock. Reservoir fluids normally include liquid hydrocarbon, aqueous solutions with dissolved salt, hydrocarbon and non-hydrocarbon gases such as methane and hydrogen sulfide respectively.
Mud cake is the layer of particulates from drill mud coating (caking) the inside of a borehole after the suspension medium has seeped through a porous geological formation. Similar to filter cake.
