Petroleum Geosciences and Engineering

About the program

The Norwegian continental shelf holds petroleum resources of enormous value. How may we best find and recover these resources from a financial and environmental perspective? Petroleum geosciences deals with these issues. For almost 40 years, Norway has been a pioneer within the development of new technology for the exploration and recovery of petroleum resources offshore.

What are petroleum geosciences?

Petroleum geosciences include the exploration and recovery of oil and gas. Hydrocarbons are formed through geological processes in the underground. In the exploration phase, geophysical methods are used, mainly seismology. In order to prove deposits, wells must be drilled. When a commercial reservoir has been proven, the reservoir and production engineers take over and plan and carry out the recovery of oil and gas. Petroleum geosciences are therefore composed of general natural science, engineering sciences and computer technology. CO2 emissions from the petroleum industry and from society in general pose a major threat to the environment. Underground CO2 deposits are an important contribution to reduce emissions, perhaps in combination with injections into the oil reservoirs to improve the recovery factor. The development of new knowledge and technology in this field is also an important element within petroleum geosciences.

Why choose petroleum geosciences and engineering?

The petroleum environment in Norway is recognized as one of the best in the world (also see study environment ). The petroleum industry is currently experiencing rapid progress, and continually meets large and interesting challenges. The wells are deeper and with more and longer horizontal \\\side wells than ever before. Reservoir engineers continually improve tools to be able to predict the production of an oil field. Often, when a field is ”empty”, more than 40-50% of the oil is still in the ground. For this reason it is important to develop methods that can increase the recovery factor. On the Norwegian continental shelf, oil production is moving into ever deeper waters. The deeper the water, the higher requirements for the technical solutions that brings the oil up from the deep. Petroleum production at water depths exceeding 1000 metres poses great challenges regarding underwater and platform solutions.

The period with large platforms is coming to an end, and the development of future fields will mainly take place through underwater solutions as seen on the fields Ormen Lange and Snøhvit. These solutions involve moving the production management into advanced control rooms on shore, where experts from various disciplines cooperate. You could help solve these challenges on completion of your education. Petroleum geosciences and engineering is as such a programme for those who wish to take part in society's value creation by finding and developing the existing petroleum resources both on the Norwegian shelf and internationally.

Specializing

The MSc programme in Petroleum Geosciences and Engineering has a duration of five years. The first two years will provide a theoretical grounding in natural science, geosciences and information technology. After two years you choose your specialization: (1) Petroleum geosciences, or (2) Petroleum engineering.

This programme has Norwegian proficiency requirements.

Read more about the programme in Norwegian