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Petroleum Engineers: A World of Choices
Petroleum engineers can choose from many disciplines, such as well engineering, reservoir engineering, and production engineering.
Well engineers figure out where and how to drill for oil and gas. They act like investigators by trying to figure out the right approach for drilling exploration holes and installing wells into each reservoir where oil and natural gas are found.
Reservoir engineers use the latest computer software to determine reservoir capacity (how much oil or gas it might hold) and productivity (how much it produces).
Petroleum engineers play a key role in designing systems that move the petroleum from the wells (the production process) through refining, where it gets cleaned up and converted into energy we can use.
Shell reservoir engineer Jessica points out that “Petroleum engineering provides a variety of satisfying career options, ranging from research to technical and even managerial. There are so many options for a career as a petroleum engineer that I cannot even begin to list them all!”