Petroleum Engineering

Overview

DTU is following the COVID-19 situation and its impact closely, please consult the webpage to get the latest updates.

Global energy consumption is growing rapidly as the world is developing. Growth of the world economy and global struggle with poverty will require more affordable and clean energy, as stated in the first and the seventh UN Sustainable Development Goals. Underground energy resources will in the coming decades be a significant part of the energy supply.

Meanwhile, oil and gas resources will be less accessible in future, and far more advanced technology will be required to extract them.

The future hydrocarbon production will deal with unconventional resources like shales, gas hydrates and tar sands; it will take place in deep waters (> 2 km); or it will occur in “difficult” regions such as the Arctic region.

Environmental aspects of petroleum engineering will also become more important in the future. In order to decrease carbon footprint, underground carbon dioxide storage may be applied, based on the technologies similar to the petroleum reservoir development.

Focus areas

The Petroleum Engineering at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) allows you to specialize in one of the two following focus areas:

• Reservoir Engineering (oil production and engineering)

• Reservoir Geophysics (oil production and geology)

Career opportunities

Petroleum Engineering graduates typically gain employment in petroleum companies in Denmark and abroad. But the MSc programme also opens up the possibility of employment in other industries, including environment and ecology (groundwater contamination), chemical engineering (oil processing and phase equilibria), and mechanical and civil engineering (rock properties). Graduates have found jobs with, among others:

• Maersk Oil (presently, Total Denmark AS)
• Mærsk Drilling
•  DONG (presently, INEOS)
• Statoil (Norway) (presently, Equinor)
• Haldor Topsøe
•  Schlumberger
•  Shell
•  BP
•  Hess
•  Welltec
•  Calsep

Accreditation

To obtain the MSc degree in Petroleum Engineering, the students have to fulfil the following requirements:

• Have passed General Competence Courses adding up to at least 30 points
• Have passed Technological Specialization Courses adding up to at least 40 points
• Have performed a Master Thesis of at least 30 points within the field of the general program
• Have passed Elective Courses to bring the total number of points of the entire study to 120

General Competence Courses Mandatory:

02671Scientific Computing in Geoscience5point11418Rock Physics and Rock Mechanics5point12411Petroleum Engineering5point12441Reservoir Geology and Petrophysics5point28415Oil and gas production5point28515Enhanced Oil Recovery5point

The course listed below counts as a General Competence Course for students accepted at DTU prior to September 2008:

12444Geophysical exploration5point

Technological Specialization Courses

01246Partial Differential Equations - Applied Mathematics10point01257Advanced Modelling - Applied Mathematics5point02409Multivariate Statistics5point02411Statistical Design and Analysis of Experiments5point02417Time Series Analysis5point02616Large-scale Modelling5point02673Computational Geoscience5point02685Scientific Computing for differential equations10point10346Continuum Physics5point11415Advanced Rock Mechanics5point12320Hydrology10point12326Field course in Applied Geophysics5point12330Contaminated Sites10point12420Engineering Geology10point12444Geophysical exploration5point28315Soft Nanotechnology in Colloid and Surface Chemistry5point28316Laboratory Course in Colloid and Surface Chemistry5point28361Chemical Engineering Model Analysis7.5point28423Phase Equilibria for Separation Processes5point28434Membrane Technology5point28530Transport Processes10point28864Introduction to Matlab programming1point28885Technology and Economy in Oil and Gas Production5point28908Rheology of complex fluids7.5point41114Computational free surface hydrodynamics5point41319Computational Fluid Dynamics10point41323Advanced Fluid Mechanics10point

Elective Courses All advanced level courses at DTU are relevant to the program. The courses have to be approved by the program coordinator.

Master Thesis The thesis work comprises the individual research participation by students in the program. Research projects carry a minimum load of 30 points, but may extend to 50 points. Work corresponding to 30 points must be placed within one 5-month period as full-time work.

The research project will usually be carried out either at the Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering or the Department of Environmental Engineering, but projects may be carried out at other departments at DTU working within the petroleum engineering field. A written agreement must be made with a Faculty member about the subject and terms for the research project well before the commencement of the project. The project must be approved by the coordinator of the MSc program in Petroleum Engineering.