The Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering option 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.
Our participation in the Petroleum GeoSystems initiative within the College of Earth and Mineral Science is another mark of our determination and desire to provide the oil industry with much needed broader skills and expertise. Some of the current research topics our EME faculty are engaged in include: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.
In adddition to the EME Core Courses, the PNGE option requires a minimum of 12 credits from the following list:
- PNG 501(3) Flow in Porous Media
- PNG 502(3) Unsteady Flow in Porous Media
- PNG 512(3) Numerical Reservoir Simulation
- PNG 518(3) Design of Miscible Recovery Projects
- PNG 520(3) Phase Relations in Reservoir Engineering
- PNG 526(3) Well Stimulation
- PNG 530(3) Natural Gas Engineering
- PNG 555(3) Unconventional Resources Analysis
- PNG 566(3) Reservoir Characterization
- PNG 577(3) Production and Completions Engineering
- PNG 597s (†) Special Topics
(†) Any PNG 597s (Special Topics class) may be used here. However, no PNG 596 (Individual Studies) credits may be used within this 12-credit option course count