Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
Masters of Engineering in Energy Engineering
Curriculum for a Specialization in
Natural Gas & Petroleum Engineering (NG&PE)
Introduction
The Masters in Engineering (ME) degree, will be granted by the Technion, and
administered academically as a specialization within the framework of the InterDepartmental Committee for Energy studies. Under the Technion's existing rules, the
study program will comprise of 40 academic credits, of which 5 credits will be
devoted to a final project. In the Technion, an academic credit is typically awarded
based on contact hours as follows: for 14 hours of lectures, or for 28 hours of
tutorials, or for 42 hours of laboratory/practical classes. Academic credits may also be
awarded for extensive homework assignments or for project work.
The program, as outlined here, is designed for graduates with a B.Sc. in Engineering
(such as Mechanical, Aeronautical, Chemical, Civil, Material and the like). Other
candidates will be expected to take prerequisites before being admitted to the regular
NG&PE program.
The program as envisioned here will admit up to 25 students a year (at least during the
first stage), on a full time basis, for 15 months (including the final project). This
program is a minimal program and contains few electives. As the program develops,
as it attracts more students and as the number of local faculty increases, it would be
expected to add courses based on student demand and requirements of regulatory and
industrial bodies.
The study program proposed herein will be named the Natural Gas & Petroleum
Engineering (NG&PE) specialization in the Technion's Master of Engineering in
Energy Engineering program and will consist of basic courses in addition to courses
from three options:
1. Drilling Engineering
2. Production, Transportation and Storage Engineering; and
3. Reservoir Management
The courses which are recommended for each of these options are listed below.
Deviation from the recommended lists will be allowed, after being approved by the
academic director of the program.
The majority of the courses are mandatory and serve as the currently required core of
the program. There are 4 elective courses, and the students may have some choice in
making up the 35 course-work academic credits.
List of Courses
Course
Course Title
Credits
No.
Session 1
516101
516102
518103
518105
518109
518107
518110
518108
518111
518112
518113
518115
518117
518114
518106
518104
518119
518116
518118
518120
Introduction to Geology
Introduction to Applied Geophysics
Session 2
NG &P Geology
Chemical Thermodynamics & Kinetics
Session 3
Drilling Operations I
Two-Phase Flow
Session 4
Deep Water Drilling & Well Control
Development and Operation of Offshore Gas Fields
Session 5
Flow in Porous Media
Gas Production Engineering
Session 6
Subsurface & Subsea Production
Reservoir Engineering I
Law & Economics of NG&P
Session 7
Conditioning & Processing of NG
Production, Storage, Transmission and Safety
Session 8
Materials & Standards in Natural Gas and Petroleum
Engineering
Seismic interpretation
Project
Project in Natural Gas and Petroleum Engineering
Electives
Advanced Gas Reservoir Engineering
Environmental Control in natural Gas and Petroleum
Engineering
2.0
2.0
2.0
2.5
2.5
2.0
2.0
2.5
2.0
2.0
2.0
2.0
2.0
2.0
2.5
2.0
2.5
5.0
2.0
2.0
Syllabus
516101 Introduction to Geology
Environmental and engineering geology, basics of petroleum geology, geologic time,
plate tectonics, structural types and stratigraphy, rock types characteristics and
identification, age determination, paleontology, advanced analysis and simulation.
516102 Introduction to Applied Geophysics
Principles of geophysical usage, measurements and analysis (sampling, resolution,
non-uniqueness). Pragmatic understanding of the usage of potential (e.g. gravity,
magnetic) and imaging (seismic, EM) methods, and well-logging, with focus on
NG&P and infrastructure industry.
518103 NG &P Geology
Basin analysis, prospect generation using, a model system, source rocks, oil
generation and maturation, migration of fluids, structure, and seal. Additionally
seismic, logging, log correlation, risk assessment.
518104 Materials, & Standards in Gas and Petroleum Industry
Theory & practice of high and low pressure materials of oil country tubular goods
(OCTG), low carbon steel pros and con, stainless steel limitation and capabilities,
seamless, quenched and tempered alloys, and specialty designed alloys for drilling,
storage and transformation, corrosion in NG & P chain, effect of corrosion and leak
on the environment, API, ANSI, ASME, ISO standards and applications.
518105 Chemical Thermodynamics and Kinetics
Thermodynamics; Single component phase diagram, binary systems, multicomponent phase diagrams, advanced chemical equilibrium in gases and solutions,
deviations from ideality, surface tension, wetting & capillarity.
Kinetics: Complex reactions chain reactions, pressure & temperature effect, energetic
surfaces, homogeneous & heterogeneous catalysis, advanced surface chemistry.
518106 Production, Storage, Transmission and Safety
Theory and practice in designing tests completions, sea floor completions, tubular
goods, Most Efficient Rate - MER, choke design, horizontal applications, productions
systems, specialty systems, gas and oil measurement, production accounting, control
systems, safety systems, types of production systems and applications, optimization,
operations, a single and a multi-phase flow in piping, design and codes, construction,
corrosion, maintenance, regulations.
518107 Two Phase Flow
Liquid-gas two phase flow, flow regimes, flow regime maps for gas and oil, pressure
drop. Basic equations; Modeling, numerical solutions, wettability and capillary
Capillary pressure, relative permeabilities, trapped phase saturation, underground
hydrocarbon reservoirs, Darcy’s law in porous media flow. Fluid saturations,
compressibility and interfacial phenomena (surface energy, surface tension, energy of
adhesion and cohesion, refractive index and electrical conductivity). Fundamental
properties of multiple fluid correlation to rock properties. Diffusivity equation, steady
state, Pseudo-steady state and transient flow, radial flow and well models.
518108 Development and Operation of Offshore Gas Fields
The course addresses the technical aspects, work processes, and major technical
decisions involved in development and operation of offshore gas fields. It reviews the
life cycle of an offshore gas field from prospect identification and gaining exploration
access and exclusive production license, through the discovery, appraisal, establishing
commerciality, conceptual planning and design, engineering and project development,
commissioning and production startup, production plateau period, production decline
and tail production, production shutdown, abandonment of the field and
decommissioning of the facilities.
518109 Drilling Operations I
Introduction to drilling techniques and engineering: Rig design, string design, bits,
hydraulics, fluid systems, casing design, pressure identification, horizontal drilling,
basic well control, environmental precautions, budgeting, physics of flow in porous
media, equipment, relevant processes and procedures, environmental aspect of drilling
and completion operations.
518110 Deep Water Drilling & Well control
Deep water platforms, floating drilling vessels, types of motion, station keeping,
wellheads and BOP’s, drilling risers, motion compensation, special problems in
floating drilling, shallow water flows, dual gradient, drilling deep water, drilling
fluids, drilling hydraulics, high pressure risers, pore pressure and fracture pressure
prediction, deep water casing design and running procedures, deep water cementing,
deep water well control.
518111 Flow (of Gas and Liquid) in Porous Media
Material balance concepts: (derivations, working equations, example problems),
constant compressibility oil case, dry gas case. Steady-state flow concepts: (pressure
distributions for linear and radial systems), Liquid systems (pressure case), Gas
systems (pseudopressure and pressure-squared cases), development of the radial flow
skin factor. Pseudosteady-state flow concepts: Derivation, example applications,
analysis of boundary-dominated flow data. Development of the diffusivity equation:
Liquid systems (pseudopressure, and pseudotime cases), Gas systems
(pseudopressure, and pseudotime cases).
518112 Gas Production Engineering
Gas reservoirs, properties of natural gases, gas-wellbore performance, gas-wellhead
choke performance, deliverability of gas wells, liquid separation process of natural
gases, compression and cooling of natural gases, dehydration processes of natural
gases, gas-metering techniques, transportation of natural gases, special problems in
natural gas production operations, economics analysis of production.
518113 Subsurface and Subsea Production
Subsurface: Inflow and outflow performance, system analysis in subsurface
production operations, well completion operations and procedures, ISO and API
standards, tubing selection, design, and installation, perforating methods & designs
with explosive powders and gas expansion methods, formation damage, flow
restrictions, fracturing process, producing bottom hole pressure (BHP), gas lift, an
electrical submersible pump (ESP) hydraulic pumping, progressing cavity pumping
(PCP) systems, plunger lift.
Subsea Production: Offshore production, design and building blocks of subsea
engineering, different types of subsea completions, flow assurance, subsea production
systems and equipment, production control systems, drilling control systems, costs of
subsea equipment, operations, maintenance and integrity of subsea systems,
decommissioning subsea equipment, advanced and new subsea technologies, detailed
examples of subsea developments around the world.
518114 Conditioning and Processing of Natural Gas
Gas processing systems, physical properties of hydrocarbons, qualitative phase
behavior, vapor-liquid equilibrium, water-hydrocarbon phase behavior, basic
thermodynamic concepts, thermodynamics of LNG processes, separation equipment,
gas treatment, CO2 and H2S removal , fractionation and adsorption, general system
energy changes and rate processes, process control fundamentals, fluid hydraulics,
separation equipment, heat transfer, pumps, compressors, refrigeration,
fractionation/distillation, dehydration of natural gas, LNG liquefaction technologies.
518115 Reservoir Engineering I
Theory, phase behavior, reservoir types, permeability and relative permeability,
porosity, reservoir drive mechanisms, reserves determination, deterministic
(volumetric & material balance) and probabilistic techniques, production forecast
using decline analysis empirical methods, non-conventional gas reservoirs, flow in
porous media, well test design, planning and analysis, reservoir damage, fluid coning
and water influx, secondary and tertiary recovery, schemes. Water flooding: Planning,
predicting oil recovery and performance, monitoring horizontal well applications.
518116 Project in Gas and Petroleum Industry
The project could either be a team or an individual effort designed to integrate the
topics studied in the courses. One option would be to identify a theoretical, or actual,
offshore prospect and describe the exploration and exploitation of the prospect,
followed by a plan for the production based on establishing facilities to produce,
transport and market the hydrocarbons. Another option would be to work and report
on a real-world project provided by an NG energy company. The total project output
would include an approximately 50 page document which would include references to
the geology, engineering, economics and production processes involved.
518117 Law and Economics of Natural Gas and Petroleum
Law: History and evolution of oil and gas law, case studies, Israeli Petroleum Law,
regulatory agencies, production sharing agreements, joint operating agreements,
unitization agreements, basics of contract law and marketing.
Economy: Cash flow components and economic indicators, upstream petroleum
economics, midstream and downstream petroleum economics, managing and
mitigating uncertainty and risk, sensitivities, simulations and decision analysis,
valuing petroleum assets, portfolios and companies
518118 Advanced Gas Reservoir Engineering
Classical material balance, inflow performance, gas condensates, gas well test,
analysis, horizontal wells, temperature modeling, PVT modeling, vertical lift, complex
material balance, well completions, reservoir monitoring RFT, MDT, super wells
518119 Seismic Interpretation
A fundamental theoretical and practical study of seismic interpretation, with
stratigraphic and structural emphases. Startigraphic: Marine sedimentological
systems, sedimentary sequences, unconformities and their significance in time and
space, buried channels and their evolution in time. Structural: Faulting systems and
identification, faults reactivation. From grabens to basins - 2D and 3D interpretation,
structures an geological periods. Special topics: BSR and gas hydrates, the
sedimentary structure of continental margins, transform basins. Practical training in
interpretation of paper sections and maps preparations.
518120 Environmental Control in Natural Gas and Petroleum Engineering
Impact of drilling and production operations, environmental transport of petroleum
wastes, planning for environmental protection, waste treatment methods, waste
disposal methods, remediation of contaminated sites, environmental regulations,
sensitive habitats.