Saudi Aramco: The Future of Oil and Gas - GineersNow Petroleum Saudi Aramco, The Future of Oil & Gas Industry | Page 11

The Role of Petroleum Engineers
in the Oil and Gas Industry
This field of engineering has lots of responsibilities.
The world around us relies heavily on energy. Being a key component of manufacturing and
production, energy needs to be secured for affordable supply to consumers, while reducing
environmental impacts. This is what petroleum engineering is all about.
In a narrower sense, petroleum engineering is concerned with the design and development of
methods for extracting oil and gas from deposits below the Earth’s surface. This field deals with the
activities related to the production of hydrocarbons, which can either be crude oil or natural gas. It
is this study that evaluates petroleum resources.
Petroleum engineers usually design equipment to extract oil and gas in the most profitable way,
develop means to force out oil by injecting water, chemicals, gases, or steam into an oil reserve,
and evaluate the production of wells through testing and surveys. It is also the duties of petroleum
engineers to use computer-controlled drilling or fracturing, and make sure that oil field equipment
are installed, operated, maintained properly. The field overlaps with many of the engineering fields
such as mechanical, chemical and civil engineering.
The profession can be divided into several groups. Petroleum
geologists find hydrocarbons by analyzing subsurface structures
with geological and geophysical methods, while reservoir
engineers are in-charge of optimizing the production of oil and
gas via proper well placement, production levels and enhanced
oil recovery techniques. On the other hand, production engineers
take over wells after drilling is completed, who typically monitor
wells’ oil and gas production; and drilling engineers determine the
best way to drill oil or gas wells.
In 2014, there are about 35,100 jobs for petroleum engineers.
About 45% of those went to the oil and gas extraction industry,
while 16% were in the support activities for mining. Only 9% of
those jobs were in the management sector of companies and
enterprise, with another 9% for petroleum and coal products
manufacturing, and only 4% in engineering services.