NEW TO PETROLEUM ENGINEERING?

Take advantage of our Summer Sessions!!
Summer is a great time to catch up on your Petroleum Engineering prerequisites, especially if you are transferring from another school or just graduating high school! This summer UAF Petroleum Engineering will be offering the following classes:

• PETE 103 Survey of the Energy Industries (June 4th-8th  6-9pm)


• PETE 104 Fundamentals of Petroleum (June 11th-15th   6-9pm)


• PETE 205 Fundamentals of Drilling Practices (June 18th-22nd   6-9pm)


• PETE 206 Introduction to Petroleum Production (June 25th-29th   6-9pm)

Need more info? Please contact Stephanie Knaebel at 907-474-7734 or snknaebel@alaska.edu.

UPDATE: We are excited to announce that students will be able to video conference in to ALL the Petroleum Engineering Summer Sessions from Anchorage! If you can't come to Fairbanks this summer but are interested in taking advantage of our summer classes, please contact Stephanie Knaebel at 907-474-7734 or snknaebel@alaska.edu for more information.

Welcome

Alaska is the home of Prudhoe Bay, the largest oil field in North America.  As the only petroleum engineering undergraduate and graduate program in Alaska, a special emphasis is placed on Arctic oil and gas development. In petroleum engineering, application of the basic sciences of chemistry, geology and physics are combined with engineering sciences to promote the development and production of conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon resources. The Petroleum Engineering program at UAF is a modern and challenging degree and offers a unique look at the problems confronting the petroleum industry.  Alaska's oil production currently accounts for about 20% of U.S. total production.  Alaska also contains over 25% of the entire U.S. proven reserves of oil as well as massive reserves of natural gas, coal and natural gas hydrates.  The petroleum engineering curriculum at UAF prepares graduates to apply modern technology to development of these resources while emphasizing, whenever possible, the special problems encountered in Alaska. We offer one of the most modern and challenging degree programs anywhere, and are located in the heart of the nation's Energy Frontier.

The primary areas of petroleum engineering are drilling engineering, well completion, production engineering, reservoir evaluation and reservoir engineering. Undergraduate students take basic courses in all of these disciplines.  Graduate work allows the student to focus on one particular area and develop additional expertise.  Research in petroleum engineering at UAF includes basic and  reservoir characterization, simulation and rock and fluid properties and EOR of Alaskan oil fields; Enhanced oil recovery methods in conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon reservoirs, such as thermal recovery, miscible flooding, and improved water flooding;  gas hydrate simulation and production; gas-to-liquids (GTL) conversion and transportation; coalbed methane, drilling and production; and shale resource characterization, simulation and production.  Extensive analytical equipment is based in the  Petroleum Development Laboratory.

Upcoming Events

• Dec 2nd AADE Seminar - Duckering 535 3:00pm -4:00pm, "Geosteering in the Nuiqsut and Kuparuk Formations: Oooguruk Project, North Slope, AK" presented by Geologist Colin O'Farrell with Pioneer Natural Resources


• Dec 2nd Geology and Geophysics Seminar - Reichardt 201 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm
  Entitled "Unlocking Umiat’s Frozen Hydrocarbons—A Case Study of the Connection Between Geoscience and Petroleum Engineering." This seminar will be given by Petroleum Engineering Department Chair Dr. Catherine Hanks.
  


• Dec 9th SPE Seminar—Duckering 531 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm

Petroleum Engineering Degrees

The deadlines for graduate admission application to be considered for departmental review are February 15th for fall semester and September 15th for spring semester.

At UAF, Bachelor of Science, Master of Science degrees in Petroleum Engineering and Interdisciplinary Ph.D. degrees are available.

A summary of the four year Bachelor of Science degree program is now available as a PDF.

Unique Opportunities

Petroleum engineering students have many advantages at UAF:

• Medium class sizes, with a student to teacher ratio of 20-1


• Computer lab equipped with oil industry standard software


• Field trip to Kenai oil field with American Association of Drilling Engineers (AADE)


• Field trip to Prudhoe Bay with Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE)


• AADE and SPE national poster and paper competitions http://www.alaska.edu/uaf/cem/pete/news/index.xml


• Petroleum engineering graduates earn some of the highest starting salaries in the field of engineering


• Research opportunities for undergraduates


• Campus visit from major energy companies to recruit for internships and full-time employment http://www.uaf.edu/career/

Spring 2012 Courses in Anchorage

PETE 205 Fundamentals of Drilling Practices (1 credit)
Instructor: Mr. Robert Coolidge
Meeting Time and Location: Thursdays 5:30-6:30pm starting January 19th at the BP Exploration Tower, 900 East Benson Blvd.
Fundamental principles of drilling, drilling practices, drilling fluids and drilling problems dependent on mud control.

PETE 206 Introduction to Petroleum Production (1 credit)
Instructor: Mr. Robert Coolidge
Meeting Time and Location: Thursdays 6:45-7:45pm starting January 19th at the BP Exploration Tower, 900 East Benson Blvd.
Overview of production practices, surface production equipment, special production problems and workover and petroleum transportation.

PETE 426 Drilling Engineering (3 credits)
Instructor: Dr. Ahmed Ahmed Kamel
Meeting Time and Location: Monday, Wednesday, & Friday 11:45am-12:45pm
Principles of drilling, drilling fluids and rheology, drilling problems, drilling hydraulics, well control techniques and casing seat selection. Prerequisites: ES F331; ES F341.

PETE 663 Applied Reservoir Simulation (3 Credits)
Instructor:  Dr. Samson Ning
Meeting Time and Location: Wednesday 5:30-8:30pm
Mathematical description of the reservoir, organization of reservoir simulation study, history matching and prediction for several published case studies of reservoir simulations. Special fees apply. Prerequisites: Reservoir Engineering course - e.g. PETE F476 or PETE F610 or permission of instructor.

PETE 665 Advanced Phase Behavior (3 Credits)
Instructor: Abhijit Dandekar
Meeting Time and Location: Tuesday 6-9pm
The development and application of phase equilibrium simulators to predict fluid properties for reservoir fluids. Special fees apply. Prerequisites: PETE F301 or permission of instructor.

PETE 666 Drilling Optimization (3 Credits)
Instructor: Dr. Ahmed Ahmed Kamel
Meeting Time and Location: Thursday 6-9pm
Principles of drilling optimization: drilling cost analysis and control; rheological properties of drilling fluid for optimum hole cleaning; planning an optimum mud program for vertical, directional and horizontal wellbores; optimizing bit hydraulics. Use of software packages in optimized hydraulics. Special fees apply. Prerequisites: Graduate standing in engineering discipline or permission of instructor.

• Courses will be offered subject to sufficient enrollment (minimum 5 students in each course)


• Register on-line at http://uaonline.alaska.edu or register in person on the first day of class. (Some course registration numbers may be pending at this time.)


• For additional information, please contact Stephanie Knaebel, 907.474.7734 or Dr. Catherine Hanks, , 907-474-2668

Fall 2011 Courses in Anchorage

PETE 407 (CRN 77485): Petroleum Production Engineering (3 credits)
Instructors: Dr. Santanu Khataniar, Dr. Abhijit Dandekar
Meeting Time and Location: Thursdays 6-9pm, Location TBD
First Day of Class: Thursday, September 1, 2011

For information and course content please contact: skhataniar@alaska.edu.

PETE 661 (CRN 77487): Applied Well Testing (3 credits)
Instructor: Dr. Samson Ning
Meeting Time and Location: Tuesday, Thursday 11:30am - 1:00pm, Location TBD
First Day of Class: Wednesday, September 7, 2011
For information and course content please contact Samson.Ning@bp.com.

• Courses will be offered subject to sufficient enrollment (minimum 5 students in each course)


• Register on-line at http://uaonline.alaska.edu or register in person on the first day of class. (Some course registration numbers may be pending at this time.)


• For additional information, please contact Stephanie Knaebel, 907.474.7734 or Dr. Catherine Hanks, , 907-474-2668

News and Events

• Two CEM Petroleum Engineering students took first and second place at the American Association of Drilling Engineers (AADE) National Student Poster competition. Undergraduate Student Kasper Kowalewski and Graduate Student Ekene Chukwu took first and second place respectively in the competition. Full story...


• CEM Petroleum Engineering students win Society of Petroleum Engineering (SPE) student paper awards at the SPE Western Regional Meeting. Students Rusheet Shah and Sathish Kulathu won first and second place  respectively in the MS division and Daniel Clark won second place in  the BS division of the student paper contests. Full Story...


• UAF Student Kasper Kowaleski was the third place poster competition award winner at the recent 2008 American Association of Drilling  Engineers (AADE) Premier Fluids Conference in Houston, Texas. Full Story...


• The University of Alaska Fairbanks had reached a deal with the China University of Petroleum, Beijing to enable Chinese students to finish the final two years of their degrees at UAF. Full Story...