Topic 1: Environmental Solutions for Petroleum and Geosystems Engineers. Sources and impacts of petroleum wastes, waste management plans, treatment and disposal methods, cleanup of contaminated sites, major environmental regulations.
Topic 2: Numerical Methods in Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering. Numerical methods, with emphasis on matrix computations and numerical solution of partial differential equations. Computer solution of representative problems from petroleum and geostystems engineering.
Topic 3: Geothermal and Sustainable Energy Resources. Explore energy resources including geothermal, solar thermal, and biomass. Examine the foundations of these energy resources and the engineering approaches to recovering them. Build on basic knowledge in thermodynamics, flow through porous media, and chemistry. Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering 379 (Topic: Geotherml/Sustainble Energy Res) and 379 (Topic 3) may not both be counted. Additional prerequisite: Upper-division standing and consent of instructor.
Topic 4: Carbon Capture and Storage. Explore carbon dioxide emission into the atmosphere; carbon dioxide capture from industrial sources; and the utilization, underground storage, and monitoring of carbon dioxide. Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering 379 (Topic: Carbon Capture & Storage) and 379 (Topic 4) may not both be counted. Additional prerequisite: Upper-division standing and consent of instructor.
Topic 5: Energy and the Environment. Examine current and potential energy sources and how these might impact the earth's environment. Explore the consequences of energy production in terms of the environmental impact. Discuss carbon, water, and land footprints. Additional prerequisite: Upper-division standing.
Topic 7: Small Scale Fluid Flow. Examine the physics of fluid flow at the microscale in the context of pore-scale transport in subsurface systems and microfluidic models of subsurface systems. Review geological sediment deposition and how that motivates the appropriate microscopic length-scales. Explore equations of mass and momentum conservation for incompressible fluids. Develop simplifications towards the small-scale slow-flow limit to describe transport through pores and cover techniques in microfluidics and micromodels development. Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering 379 (Topic: Small Scale Fluid Flow) and 379 (Topic 7) may not both be counted. Additional prerequisite: Upper-division standing.
Topic 8: Oil, Gas, and Mineral Law. Explore basic oil and gas law concepts, the forms generally used in oil and gas transactions and the type of regulation commonly applied to the oil and gas industry with a focus on Texas oil and gas law and regulation. Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering 379 (Topic: Oil, Gas, and Mineral Law) and 379 (Topic 8) may not both be counted. Additional prerequisite: Upper-division standing.
Topic 9: Subsurface Machine Learning. Explore fundamental probability and statistics; inference and prediction; and model training, testing, tuning, and validation. Examine workflows for integrating many features; workflows for anomaly detection, spatiotemporal prediction, and uncertainty integration. Communicate results within a project team to impact subsurface decision making. Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering 379 (Topic: Subsurface Machine Learning) and 379 (Topic 9) may not both be counted. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Additional prerequisite: Mathematics 408D or 408M with a grade of at least C-.
Topic 10: Artificial Lift. Life of a well, well testing, gas and plunger lift, progressive cavity pumps, electric submersible pumps, and beam lift. Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering 379 (Topic: Artificial Lift) and 379 (Topic 10) may not both be counted. May be used to fulfill the technical elective requirement for the Bachelor of Science in Petroleum Engineering degree. Additional prerequisite: Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering 430 and 362 with a grade of at least C-. Restrictions: Restricted to geosystems engineering and hydrogeology and petroleum engineering majors.
Topic 11: Facilities Management. Petroleum fluid characteristics, process control, separators, metering, produced water, tanks, gas processing, gas compression, and liquid pumps. Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering 379 (Topic: Oil and Gas Production Facilities Design) and 379 (Topic 11) may not both be counted. May be used to fulfill the technical elective requirement for the Bachelor of Science in Petroleum Engineering degree. Additional prerequisite: Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering 362 with a grade of at least C-. Restrictions: Restricted to geosystems engineering and hydrogeology or petroleum engineering majors.
Topic 12: Blowout Prevention and Control. Background in hydrostatics, hydrodynamics, hydraulics, geomechanics, mechanical systems, and procedures as they apply to well control. Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering 379 (Topic: Blowout Prevention and Control) and 379 (Topic 12) may not both be counted. Additional prerequisite: Upper-division standing and Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering 430 with at least a C-.
Topic 13: Fundamentals of Enhanced Oil Recovery Techniques. Overview of the fundamental displacement concepts of chemical, miscible, and thermal enhanced oil recovery methods. Also includes the concept of phase behavior in each process. Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering 379 (Topic: Fundamentals of Enhanced Oil Recovery Techniques) and 379 (Topic 13) may not both be counted. Additional prerequisite: Upper-division standing and Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering 323L (or 323) with a grade of at least C-.
Topic 14: High Performance Computational Engineering. An introduction to the UNIX environment in a scientific computing context, including instruction in several import UNIX applications to improve user productivity. Examine the differences between various parallelization styles of computing and develop a basic working understanding of how to utilize the application programming interfaces (APIs) in scientific applications. Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering 379 (Topic: High Performance Comp Eng) and 379 (Topic 14) may not both be counted. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Additional prerequisite: Upper-division standing; Mathematics 408D or 408M and Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering 310 with a grade of at least C-.
Topic 15: E4: The Earth, Natural Resources, and Sustainability. Application of logic, common sense, the fundamental laws of mass and energy conservation, as well as more advanced thermodynamics to evaluate overall efficencies of major human energy supply schemes such as fossil, nuclear, solar, wind, and biomass to define and quantify the irreversible linear processes and sustainable/unsustainable cycles. Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering 379 (Topic: E4: Earth, Environment, Energy) and 379 (Topic 15) may not both be counted. Additional prerequisite: Upper-division standing; and credit with a grade of at least C- in each of the following: Chemistry 302, Mathematics 408C or 308K, Physics 303K, Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering 310, and 326.
Topic 16: Hydraulic Fracture Design and Evaluation. Overview of Formation evaluation; elasticity; in situ stress calculation and measurement; fracture initiation; basic equations of fracture mechanics; 2-and-3-dimensional fracture models; fluid rheology; proppant settling; pipe friction/surface pressure calculations; treatment pressure analysis; fracture diagnostics; fracturing from horizontal and deviated wells; and treatment design and completions. Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering 379 (Topic: Hydraulic Fracture Design and Evaluation) and 379 (Topic 16) may not both be counted. Additional prerequisite: Upper-division standing and Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering 334 (or 432) with a grade of at least C.
Topic 17: Applied Subsurface Geology. Principles and techniques for subsurface geologic interpretation, including subsurface mapping; construction of cross-sections; core description and analysis; stratigraphic interpretation of well logs; and stratigraphic and facies interpretation of seismic data. Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering 379 (Topic: Applied Subsurface Geology) and 379 (Topic 17) may not both be counted. Additional prerequisite: Geology 416M or 316P with a grade of at least C-.
Topic 18: Wellbore Mechanics and Managed Pressure Drilling. Operational topics will draw from drilling fluids engineering; drilling system engineering; rig and wellbore hydraulics; ROP parameters and drilling optimizations; wellbore stability; fracture and pore pressure gradients; mud weight windows; in-situ and near-wellbore stress states; lost circulation; pressure control; pipe sticking; and other situations common to drilling operations. Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering 379 (Topic: Wellbore Mechanics and Managed Pressure Drilling) and 379 (Topic 18) may not both be counted. Additional prerequisite: Upper-division standing and Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering 430.
Topic 19: Advanced Well Construction. Focus on advanced topics in drilling fluids, cementing, hydraulics, managed pressure and dual gradient drilling, advanced well control and casing design, complex well design (DW, HPHT, Arctic), and well completions. Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering 379 (Topic: Advanced Well Construction) and 379 (Topic 19) may not both be counted. Additional prerequisite: Upper-division standing and Chemistry 302, Mathematics 408D, Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering 326, 430, Physics 303K, 103M.
Topic 20: Drilling Engineering and Operations Management. A broad overview of the key elements of today's drilling engineering discipline, including an understanding of rigs and rig equipment, familiarity with drilling fluids, cementing, directional drilling techniques etc., up to understanding of casing design, well control and the application of new & emerging drilling and completion technologies. Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering 379 (Topic: Drilling Engineering and Operations Management) and 379 (Topic: 20) may not both be counted. Additional prerequisite: Mathematics 408D, Physics 303K, 103N, and Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering 326 with a grade of at least C-. Restrictions: Restricted to non-petroleum engineering majors.
Topic 21: Wellbore to Reservoir Geomechanics. Applications from offshore to unconventionals. Applications of fluid flow/geomechanics concepts at wellbore, near-wellbore and reservoir scales; vertical, inclined, and horizontal wells; drilling, completion, production and reservoir applications; sandstones, shales, carbonates Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering 379 (Topic: Wellbore Reservoir Geomech) and 379 (Topic 21) may not both be counted. Additional prerequisite: PGE 323K, PGE 430 and PGE 362 with a grade of at least C-; registration or grade of at least C- in PGE 334.
Topic 22: Global Carbon Monitoring Systems. Review technologies that help us monitor the pulse of the planet. Learn about systems that directly measure carbon dioxide and methane emissions from both natural sources like wetlands and permafrost and human-made sources like agriculture and fossil fuels. Study how modern technologies - drones, satellites, aerial systems - are revolutionizing the way we measure carbon emission from energy production and use. Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering 379 (Topic: Global Carbon Monitoring Sys) and 379 (Topic 22) may not both be counted. Additional prerequisite: Upper-division standing and consent of instructor.
Topic 23: Subsurface Energy Storage. Explore hydrogen, compressed air, and carbon storage in geological formations. Review ongoing projects and their relations to net-zero greenhouse emission targets. Discuss flow, transport, and geochemical interactions of different gases with site minerals. Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering 379 (Topic: Subsurface Energy Storage) and 379 (Topic 23) may not both be counted. Additional prerequisite: Upper-division standing and consent of instructor.
