Undergraduate Courses | Petroleum Engineering

Introduction to Petroleum Engineering: origin and migration of petroleum, petroleum traps, petroleum reservoirs, petroleum exploration methods, properties of petroleum fluids, properties of reservoir rocks, drilling operations, production operations (primary and enhanced recovery), estimation of petroleum reserves, importance of petroleum industry in Kuwait economy, effects of petroleum operations on the environment, comparison of petroleum with other forms of energy , Kuwait oil fields, petroleum production in the Arab countries and the world.

Origin and accumulation of hydrocarbon fluids, exploration for oil and gas, basic concepts of hydrocarbon traps, introduction to various Petroleum Engineering disciplines formulation of physical concepts into mathematical equations, application of engineering methods to problem solving, graphic, analytic, and numeric solution methods .

Measurement of rock properties and interpretation of petrophysical parameters, interaction of residents fluids with rocks, application of petrophysics to reservoir engineering problems.

This is an introduction to the basic phenomena and principles of fluid mechanics with petroleum engineering applications. The course covers fluid statics, conservation of mass, momentum and energy. Emphasis is on the quantitative analysis of velocities, pressures, shear stresses, and flow forces. The application of basic fluid mechanics concepts to the analysis of mud flow, and two-phase flow in pipes and annuli is stressed.

This course introduces students to the principles of engineering design in a broad context. The course then provides students with the opportunity to apply these principles for designing simple petroleum engineering systems. Some emphasis will be on communication skills and on computer tools that can support the design process.

Origin of petroleum fluids, identify the different types of reservoir fluids and reservoir traps, petroleum exploration methods, familiarize the student with the properties of petroleum reservoir fluids, properties of reservoir rocks, types of oil and gas accumulations, familiarize the student with different methods of drilling a well, components of drilling rig, methods of oil production, calculation of oil in place, famous oil fields in Kuwait.

Discussion of various petroleum industry processes, identify types of reservoir exploration methods, recognize the properties of reservoir rocks and petroleum fluids, describe oil and gas production facilities downstream and upstream of the well choke, identify petroleum products, describe the handling, transportation, and marketing of petroleum products.

Measurement of rock petrophysical properties such as porosity, permeability, saturation, capillary pressure and electrical resistivity of fluid saturated rocks.

Phase behavior of pure substances, two-component and multi-component mixtures, phase behavior classification of oil and gas reservoirs, gas condensates, retrograde phenomena.

Classification of reservoirs by type and recovery mechanism, reserve and production rate estimate based on material balance, acquifer modeling and water influx calculation methods.

Properties of fluid-saturated rocks. Steady state and transient fluid flow in porous reservoir rocks as applied to petroleum engineering.

Measurements of reservoir fluid properties: flash liberation test, constant volume depletion test, constant composition expansion and separator test, preparation of PVT reports.

Rotary drilling equipment, operational procedures and drilling cost evaluation, primary functions and the composition of the drilling fluids, well control, well completion principles and methods.

Functions of drilling fluids, rheology and filtration of fluids with various concentrations of reactive and non-reactive solids, effects on plastic viscosity, yield point, gel strength, use of thinners.

Overview of stratigraphy and structural geology. Aspects of seismo-stratigraphy, morphology and development of oil and gas traps. Overview of stratigraphy and structural geology. Correlation and interpretation of stratigraphic sections. Interpretation of structural contour maps. Application to the Middle East oil fields.

Principles, applications, and interpretation of wireline well logs as applied to petroleum exploration and reservoir evaluation.

Problem-oriented applications of well-log combinations for petroleum exploration and evaluation, application of resistivity, sonic and dipmeter logs to determining lithological boundaries, faulting, and abnormal pressure zones, well Log correlations, programming well log interpretation, Shaly sand analysis.

Interpretation of gas and oil well performance using nodal system analysis, two-phase flow in pipes, design of continuous gas lift projects, rate decline analysis and production forecasting.

Review methods of calculations of IOIP, models of water influx, estimation of IOIP or IGIP and aquifer properties, understanding abnormal pressure gas reservoirs, production mechanisms of abnormal pressure gas reservoir, method of estimating IGIP for abnormal pressure gas reservoirs.

Properties of natural gas, flash calculations and types of gas reservoirs, gas reservoir performance: well deliverability tests, pressure transient tests, and reserve estimates, gas well performance, calculation of pressure losses and unloading gas wells, gas compression and gas metering, total system analysis of gas wells, gas processing.

This course is designed for students to learn the basic skills of monitoring, analyzing and projecting the performance of various secondary recovery methods. Emphasis is given to gas cycling and water flooding. Students are also introduced to tertiary recovery methods.

Exploring mechanisms that cause low productivity either because of formation damage far in the reservoir, or near the wellbore, or because of wellbore problems, modeling formation damage, use of capillary pressure analysis for rock characterization.

Derivation and solutions of the diffusivity equation, principle of superposition, and different types of transient pressure analysis tests as applied to oil and gas wells, type-curve analysis, well test analysis of fractured formations.

An overview of all artificial lift methods. Selection, design, and operation of common methods of artificial lift, including continuous and intermittent gas lift, sucker rod pumps, electrical submersible pumps, and progressing cavity pumps. Design of crude oil and natural gas surface processing facilities. Design of two- and three-phase separators, design of natural gas and crude oil dehydrators, sweetening units, stabilization units, boosting stations, and transportation pipelines.

Solution of partial differential equations commonly encountered in petroleum engineering applications, introduction to the principles of model formulation for both linear and nonlinear systems.

Solution of partial differential equations commonly encountered in petroleum engineering applications, introduction to the principles of model formulation for both linear and nonlinear systems.

Fundamental principles underlying casing, tubing, and cementing design, packers, well completion and planning of vertical, horizontal and multilateral wells.

The course enables the audience to gain expertise in diagnosing all types of hazardous faults of a variety of engineering related operations including: storage and transportation of oil and gas, gas flaring, drilling and completion of oil wells, and safe production of hydrocarbon reservoirs. The course emphasizes the various techniques for controlling various hazardous situations and teaches the audience skills for designing inherently safe plants, and proposing changes to existing ones.

Introduction to offshore operations, procedure for the design and construction of the equipment and facilities of offshore operations, selection of offshore equipment.

Methods of crude oil and gas transportation, types of storage tanks and pressure vessels, design and selection of storage tanks according to API standards, maintenance of storage tanks.

Theories of corrosion, causes of corrosion in drill strings, casing, tubing and production equipment, evaluation of corrosion, methods of detecting corrosion, preventive measures.

Economics of the upstream sector in all its aspects: reserves, players (international oil companies, national oil companies, service companies), investments, costs and benchmarking, certainty economics applied to petroleum projects cash flow including taxation, decline curve analysis and oil and gas reserve estimate, application of uncertainty analysis and the use of statistical and probabilistic properties of reservoir description, standard methods of investment analysis when risk has to be coped with.

Development of the general material balance equation, solution of PDE using numerical methods, prediction of reservoir performance.

Application of chemical thermodynamics to the behavior of reservoir fluids, with emphasis on phase behavior of multi-component mixtures.

Geological aspects, well testing and well log analysis of naturally fractured reservoirs, reservoir performance.

Momentum, energy and mass balances as applied to the field of transport phenomena and their implications on the fluid flow in porous media .

Mechanical behavior of rocks with application to petroleum exploration, drilling, production, and stimulation.

Planning and calculating directional well trajectory, survey calculation techniques, equipment and bottomhole assembly used in directional drilling operations, torque and drag problems in directional wells.

Drilling and completion of horizontal wells, different types of horizontal wells based on build-radius, logging systems, performance and analysis of horizontal wells.

Estimating the naturally occurring pressure of subsurface formation fluids and the maximum wellbore pressure that a given formation can withstand without fracture, well control in abnormal pressure zones.

The course focuses on practical experience that a rig crew should have to control an oil well during drilling operations. This includes various methods for handling gas and liquid kicks, handling lost circulation and performing leak-off tests, the course trains students extensively on an interactive drilling simulator in order to sharpen their drilling skills and develop reliable safety records.

Well design and planning using general drilling software packages and the ADS 9800 drilling simulator system.

An overall view of natural gas engineering with particular emphasis on occurrence of gas hydrates and their prevention, treatment of recovered natural gas for marketing.

The course emphasizes the basic fundamentals and design aspects of sandstone and carbonate reservoir stimulation by acid treatment, and by hydraulic fracturing.

Spatial correlations, use of optimal interpolation schemes (Kriging), use of synthetic field generation, use of geostatistics for the characterization of hydrocarbon reservoirs, statistical methods and their accuracies are presented.

This course is oriented toward designing and finding solutions to open-ended problems. This task integrates several areas of petroleum engineering and involves design, research and analysis skills.

Team-oriented design projects involving the application of geologic and engineering methods to the planning of drilling hydrocarbon wells. This is a capstone design course.

Correlation of Physical Properties of Rocks in Terms of Parameters Obtained from Drilling, Log Interpretation, Reservoir Engineering. Fundamental concepts of petrophsics, Flow through Porous Media, Mechanical, Electrical and Thermal Properties, and Methods of Petorphysical Measurements.

This course is intended to explore advanced concepts in reservoir engineering. It will start with a brief review of the fundamentals of reservoir engineering.

Design of drilling operation, bit selection and evaluation, mathematical modeling of bit wear and penetration rate, drilling hydraulics, determination of formation pore pressure and fracture pressure, rock mechanics, selection of drill string and casing, directional drilling, special design consideration in horizontal wells, and introduction to underbalanced drilling operation.

Shell Momentum Balance, Equations of Change for Isothermal Systems and their Applications, Macroscopic Balance and it Applications, Macroscopic Balance and its Applications, Shell Energy Balance, Multivariate and Unsteady Conduction, Analysis of Heat-Transfer Problems, Macroscopic Balance for Non-Isothermal Systems, Diffusion and Shell Mass Balance, Unsteady Diffusion, Mass Transfer Coefficients, Dispersion in Flow Through Porous Media, Equations of Change for Multi-Component Systems, Macroscopic Balance for Multi-Component Systems.

Solving Petroleum Engineering models with an emphasis on advanced solution methods including Green's function, series solution, Bessel function method of characteristics and separation of variable. Petroleum Engineering application of scalar, vector and tensor variables and matrices.

Properties and mathematical description of enhanced oil recovery processes. Fractional flow theory as applied to both miscible and immiscible enhanced oil recovery methods. Dimensionless Phase Behavior, Displacement Efficiency, Volumetric Efficiency.

Theory and applications of enhanced oil recovery processes: Chemical Flooding; Polymer Flooding, Surfactant Flooding, Micellar-Polymer Flooding (MP), Foam Flooding, Alkaline Flooding, Miscible Flooding,

Diagnosis of Formation Damage, Rate Decline Analysis, Types of Formation Damage, Water Injection Problems, Stimulation Methods, Decision and Planning of Stimulation Operations, Sand Control, Gravel Packing.

Fluid Flow Principles, Fluid Models, Measurement of Fluid Flow Properties Drilling Muds, Mud Circulation System, The Drill-String, Motor, Turbine and Bit, The Annulus, Swab and Surge Pressures, Cutting Transport, Optimization of the Hydraulics Program.

Steps involved in the development and application of numerical reservoir simulator models to primary and secondary recovery processes in reservoir engineering. Model formulation, General Material Balances, Single Phase flow, Overall Program Structure, Finite difference Approximations, finite Element Approximations, Boundary and Initial Conditions, Well Model, Anisotropy, Error, Grid Selection, Stability Analysis, Non-linear Problems, Multiphase Flow Models, IMPES Solution, Simultaneous Solution, Stability of Multiphase Flow FDEs, Reservoir Framework, Relative Permeability, Transmissibility in Multiphase Flow Effective Relative Permeability, Capillary-gravity Equilibrium, Model Initialization, Reservoir Characterization.

Traditional ways to describe flow through porous media. Introduction to Network Models, Effective Medium Theory, Monte-Carlo Simulations, Recent advances in using Percolation Theory.

Planning Directional Well Trajectory, Calculating the Trajectory of a Well, Planning the Kickoff and Trajectory Change, Directional Drilling Measurements, Deflection Tools, Principles of BHA, Deviation Control.

Data Requirements for Completion or Workover Planning, Selection of the Best Completion, Formation Damage: Identification, Prevention, and Treatment Methods, Selection of well completion and Workover Fluids, Perforation: Selection and Design, Well System Behavior: Principles and Testing, Well Inflow System Applications, Well Outflow System: Tubing Performance, Well Inflow at outflow Performance, Tubing and Packer Systems: Types, Selection considerations, Movement and Forces in Tubing Packer Systems, Wireline Completions, Squeeze Cementing, Well Stimulation, Sand Control, workover Planning and Evaluation.

Types of Reservoir Fluids, Composition and physical Properties, Phase Behavior, Equations of State, Lash & differential Calculation, Gas Reserve Estimate, Gas, Flow in Porous Media, Gas Well Testing, Hydrate, Types, Formation, Prediction and Preventions, Gas Flow in Pipes, Estimation of Bottom Hole Pressure, Unloading Gas Wells, Gas Composition, Analyzing Performance of Gas Wells, Underground Storage of Natural Gas.

Well Test Analysis, Naturally Fractured Reservoirs, Use of transient Tests to Determine Fractured Systems, Transient Rate Analysis & Constant Pressure Production, Computer - Aided Interpretation.

Research methods, type of modeling, design, theoretical, computational and interpretive issues in applied research studies. Research components and sequence. Typical research (and data analysis) designs, rationale for use, computational and/or computing procedures, interpretation and validation of results and reporting. Attending technical industrial seminar is part of the course. Students will write and present their research proposal at the end of the semester.

This course in designed to help Petroleum Engineers involved in evaluation, reservoir management and production planning to understand behavior, recovery mechanisms, and well productivity of gas condensate reservoir.

Review of Principles of Economics, Cash Flow analysis, Oil and Gas Reserve Estimates, Decline Curve Analysis, profitability Criteria for Investment in Petroleum Industry, Project Analysis, in Terms of the Interrelation of Technical And Economic Factors, Investment Analysis in The Presence of Uncertainty and Project Planning, Reservoir Unitizantion.

Origin of Fracture, Classification of Fractures, Petrophysical Properties of fractured Reservoirs, Well Testing in fractured Reservoirs, Well Testing in Fractured Reservoirs, Well Test Equations, Detection and Identification of Fractured Reservoirs, Reservoir, Processes. Modeling Fractured Reservoirs.

The course is designed to provide students with a firm foundation in Geostatistics. The participants will be familiar with traditional and novel geostatistical tools for mapping petrographic properties. The first part of the course will focus on Data Analysis, Development and Modeling of emphasize on various techniques for modeling geological media such as Kriging, Sequential Indicator Simulation, and Simulated Annealing.

Phase behavior of petroleum reservoir fluids plays an important role in most oil recovery calculations. Thus defining each type of reservoir fluids and understanding their behavior is a vital step towards description and modeling of reservoir performance and future recovery processes. The use of laboratory data and empirical corelations to obtain PVT will be discussed. Characterization of the reservoir fluids as well as predicting their physical properties with EOS's will be performed. Exercise of tuning and danger of tuning of the EOS's parameters are covered. Methods of lumping and splitting of the reservoir fluids for EOS simulation will be presented.

Theoretical treatment of two-phase flow. Introduction to two-phase flow phenomenon. Recent modeling approaches and a review of the early models. Flow pattern transition prediction and flow pattern modeling for vertical, horizontal and inclined pipes. Unified models.

Advanced study of the total system associated with production and transportation of oil and gas. NODAL TM system analysis. Steady state multiphase flow through pipes and restrictions. Comprehensive mechanistic models for multiphase flow in wellbores and pipelines. Two phase flow design.

Log Evaluation In Shaly Sandstones, Log Evaluation In Carbonate Reservoirs.

This course provides a thorough overview of the artificial lift methods. Theory, application, and design of the most important artificial lift methods, including gas lift, beam pumping, and electrical submersible pumping.

This course provides students with the thermal recovery concepts. It teaches students the Heavy oil recovery by thermal techniques. The course delivers advanced and detailed information on the subject.

This course is designed to provide a fundamental background of drilling fluids design and functions. The student will be familiar with the different kinds of drilling fluids used in drilling operations. The proper selection of drilling fluid will be explained. The advantaged and disadvantages each drilling fluid type will be discussed. The student will be exposed to drilling fluid hysical and chemical properties and how they affect the drilled rock.

An upper division of graduate technical elective treating topics in Engineering mostly not covered in other courses, chosen at the discretion of the Graduate Program Committee.

Project course for non-thesis students.