Option in Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering
The graduate program in Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering was established in 1931. When Penn State granted its first Ph.D. in petroleum engineering in 1942, only two such other degrees had been granted in the United States. For a number of years, Penn State led the nation in the development of the petroleum engineering graduate education.
The graduating students from the PME-PNGE option are highly sought by the petroleum industry and academia. Graduates of Penn State's petroleum and natural gas engineering have risen to top executive positions of oil companies in all branches of this field. Employers include major oil and gas production companies, large and small independents and service companies. The reputation of the program in the international arena is very positive as evidenced by a large number of students sent by their governments on national fellowship programs to study towards advanced degrees in petroleum and natural gas engineering at Penn State. Over the course of years, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering program has enjoyed students from more than 60 countries worldwide.
The petroleum and natural gas engineering specialty area is concerned with the extraction of the two largest sources of energy for industrialized societies: oil and natural gas. As such, petroleum and natural gas engineers work in interdisciplinary teams with other professionals-geologists, geophysicists, environmental/regulatory specialists, safety engineers-and the combined expertise is applied to increasing oil and gas recovery. The participation of the program in the Petroleum GeoSystems initiative within the College is another mark of our determination and desire to provide the oil industry with much needed broader skills and expertise. The Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering option of PME at Penn State has research programs in underground gas storage, unconventional gas reservoirs, fluid flow dynamics in porous media, gas transmission lines, porous media characterization, numerical simulation of hydrocarbon reservoirs, stripper wells and virtual intelligence applications.
Admission Requirements
Scores from the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) are required for admission, though this may be waived at the discretion of the academic programs. The best-qualified applicants will be accepted up to the number of spaces available for new students. Students will be accepted by the academic programs and at the discretion of a graduate program, a student may be granted provisional admission. Requirements listed here are in addition to general Graduate School requirements stated in the GENERAL INFORMATION section of the Graduate Bulletin.
Admission to the academic programs in the Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering is competitive. Entering students must hold a bachelor's degree in a science or engineering discipline. Students with 3.00 or better (out of 4.0) junior/senior cumulative grade-point average and appropriate course backgrounds will be considered for admission. Exceptions to the minimum 3.00 grade-point average may be made for students with special backgrounds, abilities and interests. Entering graduate students in Energy and Mineral Engineering for whom English is not the first language are required to have the following score on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) examination: a score of 550 on the paper test, a score of 213 on the computer based test, or a total score of 80 on the Internet test. Letters of recommendation and a statement of purpose written by the applicant are also required.
To apply on-line see the Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering's Graduate Program Admission Requirements.
M.S. Degree Requirements
The required minimum number of course credits for the Petroleum and Mineral Engineering M.S. degree is 30, including 6 credits of research. In addition to the 10 PME credits of core competency courses, all students who choose the industrial health and safety, mining and mineral process engineering, and petroleum and natural gas engineering research options are required to take a minimum of 14 course credits from the list of corresponding specialty option courses. At least 12 of the required course credits for the graduate program must be at the 500 level.
The candidate must also write a thesis on independent research and defend that thesis.
Ph.D. Degree Requirements
30 additional credits of course work beyond the M.S. are needed for graduation. This makes the required minimum number of course credits for the PME Ph.D. degree 42, including 12 credits of research beyond the MS. At least 12 of the required course credits for the graduate program must be at the 500 level.
An oral comprehensive exam is administered for the candidate following completion of coursework. The candidate must write a thesis on independent research and present and defend the thesis in a final oral examination.