Reservoir engineering is a branch of
petroleum engineeringPetroleum engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the subsurface activities related to the production of hydrocarbons, which can be either crude oil or natural gas. These activities are deemed to fall within the upstream sector of the oil and gas industry, which are the activities...
, that applies scientific principles to the drainage problems arising 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
reservesOil reserves are the estimated quantities of crude oil that are claimed to be recoverable under existing economic and operating conditions.The total estimated amount of oil in an oil reservoir, including both producible and non-producible oil, is called oil in place...
estimates for use in financial reporting to the
SECThe U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is an independent agency of the United States government which holds primary responsibility for enforcing the federal securities laws and regulating the securities industry, the nation's stock and options exchanges, and other electronic securities markets...
and other regulatory bodies.
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Reservoir engineering is a branch of
petroleum engineeringPetroleum engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the subsurface activities related to the production of hydrocarbons, which can be either crude oil or natural gas. These activities are deemed to fall within the upstream sector of the oil and gas industry, which are the activities...
, that applies scientific principles to the drainage problems arising 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
reservesOil reserves are the estimated quantities of crude oil that are claimed to be recoverable under existing economic and operating conditions.The total estimated amount of oil in an oil reservoir, including both producible and non-producible oil, is called oil in place...
estimates for use in financial reporting to the
SECThe U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is an independent agency of the United States government which holds primary responsibility for enforcing the federal securities laws and regulating the securities industry, the nation's stock and options exchanges, and other electronic securities markets...
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.
Types
Reservoir engineers often specialize in two areas:
- Surveillance (or production) engineering, i.e. monitoring of existing fields and optimization of production and injection rates. Surveillance engineers typically use analytical and empirical
The word empirical denotes information gained by means of observation, experience, or experiment. A central concept in science and the scientific method is that all evidence must be empirical, or empirically based, that is, dependent on evidence or consequences that are observable by the senses...
techniques to perform their work, including decline curve analysis, material balance modeling, and inflow/outflow analysis.
- Simulation 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 through porous media.-Uses:...
studies to determine optimal development plans for oil and gas reservoirs.
See also
- Enhanced oil recovery
Enhanced Oil Recovery is a generic term for techniques for increasing the amount of crude oil that can be extracted from an oil field...
- Fluid dynamics
In physics, fluid dynamics is a sub-discipline of fluid mechanics that deals with fluid flow—the natural science of fluids in motion. It has several subdisciplines itself, including aerodynamics and hydrodynamics...
- Petroleum
Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid found in rock formations in the Earth consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights, plus other organic compounds.The term "petroleum" was first used in the treatise De Natura Fossilium, published in...
- Petroleum engineering
Petroleum engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the subsurface activities related to the production of hydrocarbons, which can be either crude oil or natural gas. These activities are deemed to fall within the upstream sector of the oil and gas industry, which are the activities...
- Petroleum geology
Petroleum geology refers to the specific set of geological disciplines that are applied to the search for hydrocarbons .-Sedimentary basin analysis:...
- Reservoir evaluation
Reservoir evaluation is the evaluation of reservoir properties from log, core and pressure transient data. Including the interpretation of openhole well logs and pressure drawdown and buildup tests. It is a branch of reservoir engineering which is a subset of petroleum engineering....
- Seismic to Simulation
Seismic to Simulation is the process and associated techniques used to develop highly accurate static and dynamic 3D models of hydrocarbon reservoirs for use in predicting future production, placing additional wells, and evaluating alternative reservoir management scenarios...