Bachelor of Petroleum Engineering

An exciting, challenging and rewarding career

• About Petroleum Engineering
• Why Study Petroleum Engineering
• Program Structure & Course Information
• Calendar
• Graduate Attributes
• Enrolment Information
• Program Information Sheets

Petroleum engineers supervise and improve drilling and petroleum-producing operations. They study and understand geologic and engineering principles to predict maximum oil and gas recovery as well as ultimate production and production rates.

Petroleum engineers are employed in very diverse range of occupations including well-log analyst, drilling engineer, production engineer or reservoir engineer. A well-log analyst evaluates a well's potential and a drilling engineer is responsible for finding oil and gas, designing and drilling the well as cheaply as possible. The job of a production engineer is to analyse and optimise the performance of individual wells, to determine how to bring the fluid to the surface and to develop a system of surface equipment that separates the oil, gas, and water.

Reservoir engineers determine the fluid and pressure distributions throughout the reservoir, the natural energy sources available, and the methods to recover the maximum amount of oil or gas from the reservoir.

The Bachelor of Petroleum Engineering is a four year program of study with a strong foundation in mathematics, physics and geology established during the first year. In later years the emphasis is divided between the technical aspects of petroleum engineering - drilling, reservoir characterisation, rock properties and geoscience, and management skills in project management, economics, risk evaluation and decision-making. It is this second focus which makes the degree unique and provides our graduates with a clear advantage in today's highly competitive, uncertain and dynamic world.