Reservoir Evaluation and Management (Taught)

MSc Reservoir Evaluation and Management equips you with the knowledge and skills to work internationally in the oil and gas industry to the standard required. It will appeal to science and engineering graduates or those of you from a different numerate academic background who are interested in gaining an appreciation of the variety of disciplines associated with reservoir engineering and geoscience.

You’ll understand fundamental concepts, principles, and theories of the main reservoir engineering and geoscience disciplines which are:

• Reservoir engineering

• Reservoir sedimentology

• Formation evaluation

• Reservoir simulation

• Well testing

• Modelling and management

• Geomechanics and geophysics

You’ll use leading computer software tools for the design and analysis of reservoir engineering and geoscience, integrate theory into practice, and understand the ethics and standards involved in professional engineering practice, using your knowledge to problem solve in a variety of contexts.

As a graduate, you will be able to join an oil company asset team as a productive member and be able to apply your learning to real oilfield problems.

Customise your learning

You’ll take eight mandatory courses encompassing a unique combination of reservoir geoscience and reservoir engineering. You’ll learn about the full range of issues from geological concepts to simulation models and use them in decision-making in reservoir appraisal and development. The content of the mandatory courses covers the general workflow for generating a model of the subsurface that can predict the flow of oil from the reservoir into the wells and to the surface. You will study general geological concepts and understand what is relevant for modelling a hydrocarbon reservoir. You’ll construct a model of the reservoir, based on available measurements and data from the field, and use the model to assess volumes of hydrocarbons in place and to predict the future production of hydrocarbons from the field.

In semester three, you’ll strengthen your collaborative and communication skills through the field evaluation project, where you will work in groups and produce a full field evaluation and development plan, using data from a real oilfield. The field evaluation project will involve a field trip to observe the realistic geology that is present in the project.

You can customise your learning in semester three to match your specific interests or desired career pathway by choosing the topic of reservoir geoscience and engineering in which you’ll complete your detailed individual project. Projects are offered by the Institute of GeoEnergy Engineering and by industry, and normally include a wide choice of experimental research, computer modelling, and real-world problems.

Following the taught courses, there is a nine-day field trip to the Southern Pyrenean Basin and Ebro Basin in Spain. The trip enables the examination of rocks deposited in a wide range of environments, including fluvial, shallow marine, deltaic, and deep marine. You will work in a team and will consider the rocks observed in terms of their reservoir behaviour, and discuss issues related to drilling, well testing, petrophysics, and geophysics. You’ll then build a numerical model of one of the outcrops studied and will simulate fluid flow through the model using industry-standard software to gain a better understanding of the modelling issues and potential reservoir behaviour.