Imperial College of Science and Technology

Department of Earth Science and Engineering
Imperial College London
South Kensingtron Campus
London SW7 2AZ
United Kingdom

Phone: +44(0)2075947338
Facsimile: +44(0)2075947444

Department email: c.baugh@imperial.ac.uk
Department website: http://www.ese.ic.ac.uk

Dean: Professor Martin Blunt
Chair: Professor Alain Gringarten

Petroleum Engineering Degree Information

Program Description Link: http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/earthscienceandengineering/courses/postgraduatecourses/mscpetroleumengineering

Curriculum Description

MSc Petroleum Engineering is a one-year, full-time programme, designed to train professionals in the work-flow concepts now prevailing in the oil and gas industries, and to produce engineers that are fully prepared to work effectively in multi-disciplinary teams. The course begins in early October, and leads to award of a Master of Science (MSc) degree and to the Diploma of Imperial College (DIC).

The course is run by the Centre for Petroleum Studies, and is integrated with the MSc Petroleum Geoscience and MSc Petroleum Geophysics course. These courses share common disciplines and training in allied subjects. The interdependency of the disciplines is emphasised throughout the course, including a major integrated team project involving the interpretation, synthesis and presentation of engineering, geological and geophysical data.

There are three principal elements to the course:

Formal lectures, problem classes, laboratory and computer exercises. These take place on a full-time, structured basis from October to March in the normal academic terms. During the taught course, our students are taken on field trips including Scarborough and BP Sunbury. Formal examinations are conducted in the first two weeks of the Summer term with non- assessed tests at Christmas to monitor students’ progress.

Group project work. This is a group exercise carried out by groups of about five to six students and involving an integrated study of the evaluation and development of part of a licence block (usually in the UKCS). The objective is to interrelate the separate subjects taught in formal lectures. Data for the project are analysed with prevailing commercial software as part of Modules II to IV and integrated into a development proposal as part of Module V. This is assessed initially by a presentation to the examiners at the end of the Spring term. After review and discussion, selected groups make further presentations to an invited audience from industry.

Individual research projects. After formal examinations and the presentation of group work in May, candidates will work on individual research type projects. These are submitted at the beginning of September and are examined both as a report and by an oral presentation in mid-September. Projects may be selected by the candidate, planned in cooperation with industrial sponsors or allocated by the Department.

Assessment of the candidates is based on two separate considerations:

Examinations. All candidates take at the beginning of the Summer term five 3-hour examinations on the subjects covered during the course. These account for 76% of the examination marks. The group project report (20% of the examination marks) is assessed with allocations of marks for the oral presentations and effort given to the group by the student. Laboratory reports account for the remaining 4% of the examination marks.

Individual research projects. Individual research projects are assessed by a report, a poster and a presentation of 20 minutes (plus 10 minutes for questions) to the examiners and representatives from the oil industry.

Program Admission Requirements

The MSc course in Petroleum Engineering operates as an intensive 12-month “conversion” course, equiping engineering and science graduates from other disciplines with the academic and technical specialities required to practice as a petroleum engineer in the modern petroleum and allied service industries, and which are also desirable prior to embarking on more focused PhD research programmes. The course is designed for those with industrial experience as well as for new graduates seeking careers in the petroleum industry.

We accept first class students with degrees in science or engineering from a UK university or from an overseas academic institution.  Professionals with other qualifications, but with a minimum of three years relevant industrial experience, are also encouraged to apply.

All students for whom English is not a native language will need to demonstrate good command of spoken and written English. The College will normally accept students with a TOEFL score of at least 600, or an IELTS score of at least 6.5. Full details of the English language requirements can be found here.

Note that College strictly enforces its English language requirements. Prospective students who do not yet hold an appropriate English qualification are therefore encouraged to take these tests early in the year of their application, allowing adequate time for remedial tuition and repeat testing if required.

The course is supported with grants and scholarships by the petroleum industry (from the UK and elsewhere) which cover subsistence, College fees and field work expenses. These are normally awarded to home and EC students, and provide funding for about 30% of the total number of the candidates on the course. Scholarship interviews are held in the late Spring.

Applications are accepted from mid November to 31st March when the applications process will close.  Successful applicants will be notified at the end of March.

Faculty Information

Curriculum Analysis