Univ of Southern California
University of Southern California
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Petroleum Engineering – Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science

Courses of Instruction

Petroleum Engineering (PTE)
The terms indicated are expected but are not guaranteed. For the courses offered during any given term, consult the Schedule of Classes.

PTE 202x Energy and Society (4, Irregular) Study of the impact of the development, production, and global distribution of energy on societal, political, and economic behavior. Not available for major credit to engineering majors. Prerequisite: pass Math Skill Level.

PTE 390 Special Problems (1-4) Supervised, individual studies. No more than one registration permitted. Enrollment by petition only.

PTE 411x Introduction to Transport Processes in Porous Media (3, Fa) Properties of porous rocks; capillary effect, single phase and multiphase flow through porous media; diffusion and dispersion, miscible displacement, heat transfer. Lecture, 3 hours. Not available for credit to Petroleum Engineering majors. Prerequisite: MATH 245, CHEM 105aL or CHEM 115aL, PHYS 151L, CE 309.

PTE 412x Petroleum Reservoir Engineering (3, Fa) Properties of reservoir fluids, volumetric and material balances for gas and oil reservoirs; reservoir modeling concepts. Lecture, 3 hours. Not available for credit to Petroleum Engineering majors.

PTE 461 Formation Evaluation (3, Fa) Concepts of petroleum geology, interpretation of downhole surveys and measurements including well logs, MWD, mud logs and samples. Corequisite: PTE 463L.

PTE 462 Economic, Risk and Formation Productivity Analysis (4, Sp) Principle of economic evaluation, risk analysis, reserves estimation, decline curves, energy prices, and well transients for flow prediction. Prerequisite: PTE 461.

PTE 463L Introduction to Transport Processes in Porous Media (3, Fa) Properties of porous rocks; capillarity effect, single-phase and multiphase flow through porous media; diffusion and dispersion, miscible displacement, heat transfer. Lecture, 3 hours; laboratory, 3 hours. Prerequisite: MATH 245, CHEM 105aL or CHEM 115aL, PHYS 151L.

PTE 464L Petroleum Reservoir Engineering (3, Sp) Properties of reservoir fluids, volumetric and material balances for gas and oil reservoirs; reservoir modeling concepts. Lecture, 3 hours; laboratory, 3 hours. Prerequisite: PTE 463L.

PTE 465L Drilling Technology and Subsurface Methods (3, Fa) Theory and practice in drilling technology; mechanical properties of reservoir rocks; well completion; acidizing and fracturing, oil production technology. Lecture, 3 hours; laboratory, 3 hours. Prerequisite: PTE 464L.

PTE 466 Petroleum Geology (3, Sm) Introductory topics of physical and historical geology will be focused on the components that relate to the formation of oil and gas accumulations.

PTE 490x Directed Research (2-8, max 8) Individual research and readings. Not available for graduate credit.

PTE 499 Special Topics (2-4, max 8) Course content to be selected each semester from recent developments in petroleum engineering and related fields.

PTE 502 Advanced Reservoir Characterization (3, Irregular) Sources of data for reservoir characterization; cross-disciplinary integration; geologic models; sequence stratigraphic, lithologic, well test and geophysical models; 4-D seismic; compartmentalized and fractured reservoirs; error and risk analysis. Graduate standing in PTE. Prerequisite: PTE 411x, PTE 461; corequisite: PTE 506.

PTE 507 Engineering and Economic Evaluation of Subsurface Reservoirs (3, Fa) Studies, data and methods for estimating size of underground fluid deposits for predicting physical and economic behavior of designed flow schemes, and for quantifying uncertainty. Prerequisite: PTE 464L.

PTE 508 Numerical Simulation of Subsurface Flow and Transport Processes (3, Sp) Formulation and solution of the equations describing the underground flow of fluids through porous media. Includes mass (contaminant) transport in single and multiphase flow. Recommended preparation: PTE 507.

PTE 511 Advanced Phase Behavior of Petroleum Reservoir Fluids (3, Irregular) From classical thermodynamics to engineering application; equations of state based calculations; PVT experiments; reservoir fluid characterization; PT-flash calculations and stability analysis; compositional grading; transport properties. Open only to graduate students. Recommended preparation: CHE 330, MATH 226.

PTE 512 Gas Injection Processes – Analytical Solutions and Analysis (3, Fa) Gas injection and enhanced oil/gas recovery; conservation equations; flow and phase behavior; displacement efficiency; dispersion; method of characteristics; development of multicontact miscibility in multicomponent systems. Open only to graduate students. Recommended preparation: CHE 330, MATH 226 and MATH 245 (or similar).

PTE 514 Drilling Engineering (2, 2 years, Fa) Rock mechanics; rotary drilling processes; bit selection; optimizing bit weight and rotational speed; well hydraulics and control; casing design and cementing; directional and offshore drilling.

PTE 517 Testing of Wells and Aquifers (3, Sp) Principles of well testing; down hole device; Aquifer tests; slug tests; DST; pressure transient modeling in homogeneous and heterogeneous systems; parameter estimation; computer aided techniques. Prerequisite: PTE 464L.

PTE 531 Enhanced Oil Recovery (3, 2 years, Sm) Survey of current enhanced oil recovery processes, including water-flooding, miscible displacement, and thermal oil recovery. Prerequisite: PTE 464L; recommended preparation: PTE 507.

PTE 542 Carbonate Rocks (2, Irregular) Classification; porosity development; source rocks; wettability; capillary pressure curves; compressibility; surface areas; relative permeabilities; various petrophysical properties; formation evaluation; overpressures; thin section analysis.

PTE 545 Corrosion Control in Petroleum Production (2, Irregular) Types of corrosion encountered in petroleum production; methods for practical control including use of inhibitors, coatings, and cathodic protection. Prerequisite: CHEM 430a.

PTE 555 Well Completion, Stimulation, and Damage Control (3, Sp) This course reviews current practices related to well completion methods, wellbore stimulation, and damage control. Formation damage prevention and stimulation methods are emphasized. Prerequisite: graduate standing.

PTE 572 Geostatistics (3, Irregular) Use of geostatistical methods for exploration and development of mineral and petroleum resources, application of semivariogram, kriging, cokriging, nonlinear and parametric estimation and conditional stimulation. Graduate standing. Recommended preparation: knowledge of statistics.

PTE 578 Advanced Production Engineering (2, 2 years, Sp) Principles of oil well and gas well production; design of artificial lift systems and surface operations; field problems of enhanced oil recovery operations.

PTE 581 Environmental Technology in the Petroleum Industry (3, Irregular) This course examines engineering and scientific principles necessary for understanding, assessing, and remediating environmental problems in the petroleum industry including drilling, production, transportation and refining operations. Graduate standing.

PTE 582 Fluid Flow and Transport Processes in Porous Media (3, 2 years, Fa) Principles of single and multiphase flow through porous media; mechanisms of immiscible and miscible displacement; momentum, heat and mass transport in porous media.

PTE 586 Intelligent and Collaborative Oilfield Systems Characterization and Management (3, Fa) Review of soft computing methods such as neural networks, fuzzy logic, problematic reasoning in reservoir characterization, dynamic reservoir modeling, oilfield data integration and analysis of uncertainty in prediction. Limited to students with graduate standing. Recommended preparation: prerequisites for non-majors.

PTE 587 Smart Completions, Oilfield Sensors and Sensor Technology (3, Sp) Intelligent Wellbore completion, technology of subsurface and surface sensors, deployment and data acquisition, telemonitoring and feedback, reliability of sensors, data transmission, systems networks. Recommended preparation: prerequisites for non-majors.

PTE 588 Smart Oilfield Data Mining (3, Fa) Methods for oilfield data mining, data preparation mining images, prediction and knowledge discovery, subset selection, pattern recognition. Limited to students with graduate standing. Recommended preparation: prerequisites for non-majors.

PTE 589 Advanced Oilfield Operations with Remote Immersive Visualization and Control (3, Sp) Immersive subsurface and surface environments, web based monitoring and feedback, visualizing risk, unattended operation. Limited to students with graduate standing. Recommended preparation: prerequisites for non-majors.

PTE 590 Directed Research (1-12) Research leading to the master’s degree. Maximum units which may be applied to the degree to be determined by the department. Graded CR/NC.

PTE 594abz Master’s Thesis (2-2-0) For the master’s degree. Credit on acceptance of thesis. Graded IP/CR/NC.

PTE 599 Special Topics (2-4, max 9) Course content will be selected each semester to reflect current trends and developments in the field of petroleum engineering.

PTE 611 Stochastic Modeling and Simulation (3) (Enroll in CE 611)

PTE 690 Directed Research (1-4) Laboratory study of specific problems for candidates for the degree engineer in petroleum engineering. Graded CR/NC.

PTE 790 Research (1-12) Research leading to the doctorate. Maximum units which may be applied to the degree to be determined by the department. Graded CR/NC.

PTE 794abcdz Doctoral Dissertation (2-2-2-2-0) Credit on acceptance of dissertation. Graded IP/CR/NC.