How do petroleum engineers help the world

This can be found in most places on the planet. A good way to think about it is to consider the traditional geothermal fields as the conventional oil and gas fields, where we are producing from reservoir-type rock, and the novel geothermal as the unconventional fields, where we are producing from source-type rock. A lot of petroleum engineering capabilities, of which one clear example is drilling, are needed to produce the new geothermal energy.

Hydrogen is being considered as an alternative fluid in some forms for transportation to reduce greenhouse-gases GHG production and improve energy storage. In two forms of hydrogen, grey and blue hydrogen, natural gas is the feedstock used. Therefore, additional production of natural gas would be needed in this regard. Use of data analytics, machine learning, etc. Petroleum engineers have been developing technology in this area for more than 30 years to enhance our abilities to manage oil and gas reservoirs.

Recent developments in this area led to very helpful results that benefited field operations SPE as well as performance analyses SPE SPE showed how a machine-learning algorithm successfully matched the calculated permeability, skin, and productivity indices for deepwater wells equipped with permanent downhole gauges.

Whereas an engineer would have spent an average of 2 hours analyzing data from a test, the machine-learning algorithm was able to complete the task in less than 4 seconds. More developments in this area will continue to increase the need for petroleum engineering applications and optimize and economize our operations. Climate change is a very important problem, and we need big efforts to address it.

The heightened environmental, social, and governance ESG compliance makes it even more of a priority. But this is a global problem, and the transition is huge, costly, and as mentioned earlier, our civilization will remain reliant on fossil fuels for decades.

Access to fossil fuels is critical to our way of life and to raising the living standards around the world. So, since it must be done, it is a noble and important thing to do the job of extracting it as safely, economically, and environmentally responsibly as possible.

Three efforts are needed in this regard:. To educate our members about climate change, the SPE Gaia Sustainability Program provides the oil and gas industry and representatives of its stakeholders with new solutions to sustainability challenges. Gaia supports existing efforts and introduces radical new ideas and is planning SPE-hosted events around the world that are dedicated to sustainability themes, including global warming.

This movement enables individual members of SPE to participate actively in addressing the planet's sustainable development challenges and supports the industry to ensure it continues to play a positive role in society while addressing the externalities of the lifestyle hydrocarbons have enabled. An example is the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative report, in which the chief executive officers of the twelve largest oil and gas international and national oil companies describe their efforts to reduce methane emissions, reduce carbon dioxide CO 2 emissions, and accelerate carbon capture use and storage.

But this still is not the universal message we would get from everyone and every organization in the industry; we have some work to complete in this area.

Probably the most exciting and useful aspect of mitigating climate change for petroleum engineers is the actual work we can do in this area such as the geothermal examples cited above.

In addition, it is widely accepted that storage of CO 2 in subterranean depleted hydrocarbon formations offers one of the practical, technology-ready applications, and it may be the only method to have measurable effects toward reducing CO 2 in the atmosphere.

The CO 2 volumes injected are in the same order of magnitude that the Paris Climate agreement said is needed to store CO 2 over the next 20 years. As reservoir engineers know, injecting CO 2 in depleted reservoirs is practical and manageable as we continue to withdraw fluids from the formation and replace them with CO 2 , but injecting in formations already filled with fluids is not practical.

The construction of a reliable well casing is critical in preventing contamination from others, such as salt water, or other unwanted fluids that would compromise quality, or complicate the processing of the products. The production casing is usually inserted and cemented into the well. Its inside is isolated from the surrounding using a barrier of cement and steel. This combination prevents contamination from groundwater aquifers while providing stability to the drill hole.

Poor construction practices such as inadequate or bad quality cement can lead to collapsing or leaking casing. Similarly, production casing problems may occur due to aging or degraded cement and other materials. The best approach to retain the fluids in their place is to ensure high-quality constructions as well as regular monitoring of the integrity and address any challenges that may affect the integrity of the well.

One of the main and effective approaches is to deploy a real-time structural health monitoring technology such as the distributed acoustic sensing using fiber-optic sensors. These may occur during the oilfield operations, and each oil and gas company must work towards eliminating them.

The petroleum engineers should aim at preventing them rather than responding when there are spillages. An effective strategy is to perform regular maintenance and monitoring of the blowout Preventers, which are the primary safety devices. The blowout control device consists of an independent cut-off mechanism that helps to prevent spills and consequently avoid damage to the environment, or risks to lives.

The companies should continuously assess their technologies, equipment, procedures, and operations. They should have in place, proper training, inspection s, and maintenance practices as well as effective plans to control or shut down operations when a problem occurs. Consequently, companies require monitoring, inspection, and detection technologies to keep track of what is happening and address any impending issue or defects within the shortest time possible before they become big problems.

Engineers should look at ways to prevent or reduce methane gas from leaking into the atmosphere. Compared to carbon dioxide, Methane has a greater effect on climate degradation. Emissions from oil and gas industry have been declining over the years, despite an increase in production, processing facilities, and pipelines. However, there is still more that can be done. One way of improving on this and eliminate methane emissions further is to have efficient production, processing, and transportation infrastructure.

In particular, the companies can use modern inspection and monitoring technologies such as drones and robots to provide real-time or regular inspection reports. This enables early detection and ability to rectify issues, hence prevent emissions from occurring.

Flaring is a process at the oil and gas fields where unrecoverable natural gas is burnt and resulting carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. Burning the natural gas prevents releasing methane, which is more harmful to the atmosphere that the resulting carbon dioxide. Although done in a controlled process, flaring contributes to environmental degradation, noise, and other negative effects.

Other than carbon dioxide, impurities in the natural gas may cause other emissions such as nitrogen and sulfur oxides which lead to acid rains. It is therefore important for the oil companies to reduce or eliminate the process completely. In most cases, some companies cite lack of processing and transporting infrastructure for the gas. But we need to make sure the next generation of petroleum engineer is ready to do it as cleanly as possible.

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