Instructor

Engr. Muhammad Yasir

BS Petroleum and Gas Engineering

Fundamentals of
Petroleum Engineering

Lecture 1 & 2
Introduction
Contents
• What is Petroleum Engineering?
• What Does Petroleum Mean?
• Generation of Petroleum
•Chemical Composition of Petroleum
• Fractional Distillation
•The First Oil Wells
• Oil & Gas Reserves/Production/Consumption/Exports &
Imports by Countries
What is Petroleum Engineering?
• An engineering discipline concerned with the activities
related to the production of hydrocarbons, which can be
either crude oil or natural gas.
• Considered as upstream sector of the oil and gas
industry, which are the activities of finding and
producing oil and gas.
Upstream, Midstream and Downstream
What is Petroleum Engineer?
• A petroleum engineer is involved in nearly all stages of oil
and gas field evaluation, development and production.
The goal of a petroleum engineer is to maximize
hydrocarbon recovery at a minimum cost while
maintaining a strong emphasis on reducing all associated
environmental problems.
• Petroleum engineers are divided into several groups:
• Petroleum geologists find hydrocarbons by analyzing
subsurface structures with geological and geophysical methods.
 What is Petroleum Engineer?
• Reservoir engineers work to optimize production of oil and
gas via proper well placement, production levels, and
enhanced oil recovery techniques.
• Drilling engineers manage the technical aspects of drilling
exploratory, production and injection wells. It also include
mud engineer who manage the quality of drilling fluid.
• Production engineers, including subsurface engineers,
manage the interface between the reservoir and the well,
including perforations, sand control, downhole flow control,
and downhole monitoring equipment; evaluate artificial lift
methods; and also select surface equipment 2that
separates the produced fluids (oil, gas, and water).
Where Does Petroleum Engineers Work?
• Employer:
• Government
• Oil Company.
• Service Company.
• Supporting Company.
• Academic
• Others
• Location:
• Office
• On land Oil Rig
• Offshore Oil Rig
• Offshore Production Platform
What Does Petroleum Mean?
• Petroleum literally means ‘rock oil’. The word
comes from the Greek word ‘Petra’ (meaning
‘rock’) and the Latin word ‘oleum’ (meaning
‘oil’).
• The word petrol is a shortened version of
‘petroleum’.
• Petroleum products are all the substances made
from petroleum.
 Crude Oil
• The oil we find underground is called crude oil.
• Crude oil is made of a mixture of different chemicals
called hydrocarbons. These were produced when tiny
plants and animals decayed under layers of sand and
mud.
• Crude oil doesn't always look the same – it depends
where it comes from.
• Sometimes it is almost colorless, or it can be thick and
black. But crude oil usually looks like thin, brown treacle.
• When it comes out of a well (especially an undersea
well), the crude oil is often mixed with gases, water and
sand.
 What Made Oil?
• Tiny animals and plants that live in the sea
are called plankton.
• The plankton that lived in hundreds of
millions years ago, made our crude oil.
• When they died, they sank to the bottom
and slowly got buried by sand and mud.
• Over millions of years, the dead animals and
plants got buried deeper and deeper.
• The heat and pressure gradually turned the
mud into rock and the dead animals and
plants into oil and gas.
Hydrocarbon
• Crude oil is a mixture of hydrocarbons.
• They are often chain of carbon atoms
with hydrogens attached.
• The longer chains have higher boiling
points, so they can be separated by
distillation.
• The simplest groups are the alkanes
and alkenes. They all end with 'ane'
and 'ene' respectively. meth = 1 carbon, eth =
• The first bit of their name depends on 2, prop = 3, but = 4, pent
the number of carbon atoms. = 5, hex = 6.
Generation of Petroleum
• Petroleum generation takes place in source rocks, which may
be defined as organic rich, fine-grained sediments deposited
under low energy, reducing conditions.
• Most commonly, petroleum source rocks containing a
minimum of 0.3% to 0.5% by weight of organic matter.
• Preservation of the organic matter is the key to the
development of potential source rocks.
• The environment of source rock deposition is therefore
characterized by a relatively deep, unagitated (low energy)
body of water with an oxygen starved bottom but abundant
life at the surface.
Generation of Petroleum
• The non-hydrocarbon organic matter (kerogen) is the major source of
oil and gas deposits.
• The generation of hydrocarbons from the source material depends
primarily on the temperature to which the organic material is
subjected. Hydrocarbon generation appears to be negligible at
temperatures less than 150oF (65oC) in the subsurface and reaches a
maximum within the range of 225o to 350oF (107o and 176oC), the
“hydrocarbon window”. Increasing temperatures convert the heavy
hydrocarbons into lighter ones and ultimately to gas. However, at
temperatures above 500oF (260oC), the organic material is carbonized
and destroyed as a source material. Consequently, if source beds
become too deeply buried no hydrocarbons will be produced.
(Wikipedia)
Chemical Composition of Petroleum
• Substances present in petroleum fall into four major
groups:
• Paraffins
• Naphthene
• Aromatics
• Non-hydrocarbon
• The relative proportions of these compounds determine
the physical properties (density, viscosity, pour point, etc)
of petroleum.
Fractional Distillation
• Fractional distillation splits the crude oil into simpler
mixtures called fractions. The different fractions are taken out
of the still at different levels.
• This happens in a distillation tower (which we shorten to
still).
• The crude oil is heated in a furnace to about 370°C and is
pumped into the bottom of a distillation tower. Most of the
hydrocarbons are gaseous, though the very thick ones are still
a liquid even at this temperature.
Fractional Distillation
• The tower is like a giant heat exchanger
- it removes heat from the gases as
they rise up it. The temperature falls to
20°C by the time the vapours reach the
top.
• The vapours condense as they rise up
the tower. The heavier ones (with
higher boiling points) condense first.
The thinner, runny ones get further up
the tower before they condense. And
the gases pass out of the top.
Where do Product come out of a Still?
• A distillation tower splits crude oil into
separate fractions.
• Each fraction is a mix of hydrocarbons.
Each fraction has its own range of
boiling points and comes off at a
different level in the tower.
• In reality, a single tower could not
cover the full range of temperatures
needed to split up the heavier
fractions.
The table shows the names and uses of the fractions that come
from the distillation process. It also shows the ranges of
hydrocarbons in each fraction.
Fraction Carbons BP °C Uses
· Fuel in refinery
Gases 1 to 4 < 40 · Bottled and sold as LPG
· Blended into petrols
Napthas 5 to 10 25 – 175 · Feedstock for making chemicals

Kerosene 10 to 16 150 – 260 · Aviation fuel

Light gas oils 14 to 50 235 – 360 · Diesel fuel production
Heavy gas oils 20 to 70 330 – 380 · Feedstock for catalytic cracker
· Grease for lubrication
Lubricants > 60 340 – 575 · Fuel additives
· Feedstock for catalytic cracker
Fuel oil > 70 > 490 · Fuel oil (power stations and ships)
Bitumen > 80 >580 · Road and roof surfaces
The First Oil Well
• The modern oil industry dates back about 150 years.
• The world’s first oil well was drilled in Titusville,
Pennsylvania in 1859. It struck oil at 21 meters below
ground and produced 3,000 liters of oil a day.
• Known as the Drake Well, after "Colonel" Edwin Drake, the
man responsible for the well, it began an international
search for petroleum, and in many ways eventually
changed the way we live.
 How Long Will The World’s Oil Last?
• Oil took millions of years to form and the oil supplies in the
ground won't last for ever.
• The oil fields already discovered hold over 1 million million
barrels of oil (1,000,000,000,000).
• Although we are using oil quite quickly, the reserves go up
every year. This is because more oil is discovered, and new
ways are found of extracting oil that couldn't be got out
before.
• Even so, our oil won't last for ever. At the moment, the
world uses about 26,000,000,000 Twenty-Six Billion barrels
every year. At this rate, there should be enough oil for at
least another 40 years.
How Long Will The World’s Oil Last?
• It is likely that more oil will be discovered in that time.
• Oil companies are always searching for new oil fields and
there are still lots more deep-sea areas to explore
World Oil Reserves by Region
World Oil Reserves by Countries
Oil reserves - Wikipedia
World Oil Production by Countries
List of countries by oil production - Wikipedia
World Oil Consumers by Countries
List of countries by oil consumption - Wikipedia
World Oil Exporters by Countries
List of countries by oil exports - Wikipedia
World Oil Importers by Countries
List of countries by oil imports - Wikipedia
World Natural Gas Reserves by Countries
List of countries by natural gas proven reserves - Wikipedia
World Natural Gas Producers by Countries
List of countries by natural gas production - Wikipedia
World Natural Gas Exporters by Countries
List of countries by natural gas exports - Wikipedia
World Natural Gas Importers by Countries
List of countries by natural gas imports - Wikipedia