Petroleum Engineering and Industry History Comprehensive Review

Vocabulary-style flashcards covering petroleum industry history, technical concepts in reservoir and production engineering, HSE standards, and data science applications.

Walter Teagle

Known as "The Boss", he was a man who dominated Standards Oil of New Jersey.

P E R F

Petroleum Environmental Research Forum.

Schlumberger

International oilfield service company that contributed its North American onshore hydraulic fracturing business to a US company for an equity interest.

Permian

Geologic time period that went from $250$ to $290$ million years ago.

Shahab D. Mohaghegh

Pioneer in the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning in the exploration and production industry.

Business Analysis

The process by which businesses use statistical methods and technologies for analyzing historical data to gain new insight and improve strategic decision-making.

The SPE gala sustainability programm

The name of the S P E’s flagship sustainability initiative.

COPAS

Council of Petroleum Accounting and Shipping.

Compact Carbon Capture Technology (3C)

Technology development company specializing in carbon capture solution acquired by Baker Hughes on November 3rd 2020.

Keskesi East-1

The name of the exploration well of the recent fourth consecutive discovery in Block-58 in Suriname.

Perdido

The offshore project in the Gulf of Mexico where the deepest spar was installed.

The Way Ahead

A journal for young professionals first published in 2005.

IOGP

International Association of Oil and Gas Producers.

CCS

Carbon capture and storage.

Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi (ENI)

Oil and gas company founded by Enrico Mattei.

SPE Cares

SPE community outreach program that promotes community service worldwide while bringing together students and professionals.

Data-driven company

A type of company where the data is part of its culture, measurement of results is prioritized, and employees seek new ways to exploit available information.

Bullet guns

The name of the first commercial perforating devices.

Gieger meter

Instrument used to measure the radiation dose; also known as a radiation survey meter.

In-situ combustion

The oldest thermal recovery method.

FEED

Front-End Engineering & Design.

Petrowiki

Launched in 2013 with the full contents of the Petroleum Engineering Handbook in a wiki format for members to update.

Calouste Gulbenkian

Known as "Mister Five Percent" for his partial ownership of the Turkish Petroleum Company.

Jafurah tight-gas field

Saudi's largest unconventional gas prospect holding an estimated $200 \, Tcf$ of technically recoverable resources.

Abdul-Jalel Al Khalifa

The first SPE president from the Middle East.

HSENow

The name of the SPE, HSE & Sustainability webzine.

ASTM

American Society for Testing and Materials.

Net Production

Term referring to the company’s share of the production after royalties and partner shares are removed.

Solution Gas Oil Ratio (R)

Fourth parameter of bubble point pressure along with temperature and oil/gas specific gravities.

Dielectric strength

Physical property of a material referring to the maximum voltage required to produce a dielectric breakdown, expressed as volts per unit thickness.

Nil ductility temperature

Parameter defined as the on-heating temperature where ductility is reduced to zero.

CVD

Constant Volume Development in the context of P V T analysis.

Abnormal pressure

Subsurface condition where pore pressure exceeds or is less than expected normal formation pressure.

Cricondentherm

In a pressure-temperature diagram, the maximum temperature above which liquid cannot be formed regardless of pressure.

Cricondebar

In a phase diagram, the maximum pressure above which gas cannot be formed regardless of temperature increase.

Lorenz Approach

Quantifies the reservoir’s capacity against the fractional flow capacity as obtained from petrophysical studies.

FTIR

Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy.

Triple point

Equilibrium point between the sublimation line, the melting point line, and the vapour pressure line for a pure liquid.

Recovery factor

Factor that converts hydrocarbon in place to reserves or recoverable hydrocarbon.

Compressional wave

Fastest wave type (also known as P, primary, or pressure) representing the acoustic first arrival that travels through solids, liquids, and gases.

Mosquito Bill

A tubular placed at the bottom of the subsurface sucker rod pump to drive formation fluid with little or no gas into the pump.

Excavation effect

The part of the effect of gas on neutron porosity measurement not explained by differences in hydrogen index.

Chronostratigraphic Horizon

A stratigraphic surface or interface that is synchronous (everywhere the same age).

Brinell hardness

Measure of the hardness of a material measured by pushing a small ball into the surface and measuring the force used.

Permafrost

Structure of frozen soil in cold areas that can extend to depths in excess of $1000 \, meters$.

Bias weld

Welding technique used on diagonal cut strips of steel for joining coiled tubing, superior to the butt welding process.

Naive Bayes

A simple learning algorithm in Machine Learning utilizing Bayes rule and assuming attribute independence.

Hipot-test

Insulation leakage test performed for high voltage electrical cables.

Small Data

Minor data extracted from people that is accessible to both technical and business users.

TENORM

Technology Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material.

Gneiss

A coarse metamorphic rock with parallel alignment of granular and alternate bands of minerals.

Monte Carlo Method

Process of running a model numerous times with random selection from input distributions for each variable.

Creep

The slow movement of a solid due to an applied stress, often sensitive to time and rate of stress application.

Spatial Continuity

Phenomenon where small values of an attribute are in geological proximity to other small values and high values are near high values.

Tie Line

The line connecting a liquid phase and a vapor phase in equilibrium at constant temperature and pressure.

Dolomitization

Diagenetic process that converts carbonates (limestone) to dolostones through calcium carbonate dissolution.

Bingham plastic

Rheological model used to describe fluids with linear shear-stress behavior after an initial shear-stress boundary.

Z-factor

The ratio of the volume actually occupied by a gas to the volume it would occupy if it behaved ideally; also known as gas compressibility factor.

Hysteresis

Phenomenon defining changes in saturation with dependence on relative permeability and capillary pressure between drainage and imbibition.

Capillary fringe

Zone just above the water table (zero gauge pressure) that remains almost saturated.

Centralizer

Device used in the casing string to keep casing from contacting the wellbore.

Intelligent Well Completion

Completion where technology helps optimize production without well intervention and allows remote data analysis.

Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC)

Test determining the amount of clay-like materials in water-based drilling fluid; also called MBT.

Geronimo Line

The safety slide or line from the derrickman’s platform to the ground used in an emergency.

Deep Learning

Subfield of machine learning algorithms inspired by brain function, designed to imitate human decision making.

Histogram

Column chart based on classes or bins of equal width where height indicates frequency.

Internet of Things

Concept referring to a digital interconnection of everyday objects with the internet.

Fundamental Attribution Error

Cognitive bias describing the tendency to assume behaviors result from personality rather than system conditions.

Local Rationality

Idea that during events leading to accidents, people act in a way that makes sense to them at the time.

HIPPS

High Integrity Pressure Protection System.

P-110

Casing grade where 110 indicates a minimum yield strength of $110000 \, psi$.

LMRP

Lower marine riser package.

SWL

Safe Working Load, representing the maximum load that can be applied to a lifting tool safely.

Near miss

Potential hazard that did not result in an accident but had the potential to result in undesirable consequences.

Akaike Information Criteria (AIC)

Method in machine learning used to evaluate a logistic regression model.

Discretization

Process of converting a continuous distribution to a discrete distribution by subdividing the x-range.