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Petroleum Engineer
Extracts oil and gas from underground reservoirs — designs drilling and production systems.
Did you know?
In 2017, Russia's Sakhalin-1 project drilled an oil well 15 km long, reaching far sideways through rock to get at oil under the seabed.
How subjects help
- Chemistry: Understand how oil and gas behave under heat and pressure deep underground.
- Physics: Work out the pressure needed to pump oil up from rock far below the surface.
- Mathematics: Estimate how much oil a reservoir holds and how fast it can be safely drawn out.
- Geology: Read rock layers to find where oil and gas are trapped and decide where to drill.
A famous name
Anthony Francis Lucas: Engineer who led the drilling of Texas's Spindletop oil gusher in 1901, starting the oil age.
Try it yourself: Clean up a mini oil spill
- Put the stone in the bowl of water as your coastline, then pour in the cooking oil. This is your spill.
- Method 1: skim oil off the top with the teaspoon. How much can you get?
- Method 2: dab cotton wool or kitchen paper on the oil to soak it up.
- Method 3: add one drop of washing-up liquid and watch the oil. Which method removed the most, and which one only hid it? (Put the oily water and cotton in the bin, not down the sink.)
Environmental and ocean engineers plan spill responses with booms, skimmers, absorbent pads and dispersants, weighing how well each works against its cost and harm to wildlife.
Adapted from TeachEngineering (University of Colorado Boulder): Small-Scale Modeling of Oil Spill Cleanup Methods.
Also try: Lift a load with a ruler lever.
Known for it in
USA, Saudi Arabia, Norway, UAE, Canada