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What does a Petroleum engineer do?

What makes the difference between a petroleum engineer and petrochemical engineer?

  • As Chemical Engineer Graduate knows basic of Petrochemicals not of Petroleum (exploration)

  • Answer:

    Most engineering undergrads can become a petroleum engineer in upstream exploration and production.  I got my undergrad in mechanical engineering, and I work with people that did their undergrads in chemical, civil, and electrical engineering as well.  Most skills a petroleum engineer needs are squired on the job through years of experience. A petrochemical engineer would work in downstream operations dealing with petroleum refining and all the derivative products they make from crude oil.  I don't know much about this side of things because I've only ever been interested in upstream exploration and production.

Branden Pronk at Quora Visit the source

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A petroleum engineer typically deals with the process of producing oil and gas from the reservoir, thus needing knowledge of reservoir and oil/gas wells. A petrochemical engineer deals with the production of petroleum based chemicals which is carried out in a refinery. This require knowledge of chemical/process engineering like separation, unit operations etc.

Tarun Madan

Petroleum Engineering: Upstream Major areas are - Drilling  - Reservoir - Production - Formation Evaluation/ Well Logging - Exploration of Oil and Gas In short, every techniques from exploring oil and gas to producing it and sending it to Refineries. Petrochemical Engineering: Downstream Processing the received oil and gas to get end products mainly the petrochemicals. The principal end-use products are • Synthetic Elastomers • Plastics and Resins • Synthetic Fibres and Films • Detergents, Solvents, Paint, Varnishes and Plasticizers • Agricultural Chemicals such as Fertilizers, Pesticides and Herbicides • Automotive Chemicals Including Antifreeze Agents • Pharmaceuticals • Specialty chemicals like cosmetics, perfumery etc. for production of     Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API), Coating, etc. • New generation petrochemicals like emulsifier, floating agents. The diagram below schematically depicts the petrochemical plant processing

Balendra Singh

Addition to the above answers by Branden & Tarun, A Petroleum Engineer is one who works to produce oil and gas. This involves, Exploration of Oil and Gas , Drilling, Productions. Usually Petroleum engineer deals in UPSTREAM industry. Petrochemicals engineer deals with Olefins, Aromatics,Polyolefins and their derivatives. It begins producing olefins from the products from Refinery, usually these products involve Naphtha, Gas Oil , refinery off gases. Todays most petrochemicals are produced beginning with Ethylene plant (Steam cracking). Petroleum engineer- Refinery engineer- Petrochemicals engineer. (Refinery engineer deals with the fuels production like Gasoline, Kero, Aviation fuel (ATF), Industrial fuels etc.

Marimuthu Ananthavelu

Petrochemical engineer deals with downstream (refining) and Petroleum engineer deals with upstream (Exploration and Production). There is something called ‘midstream’, they do deal with transportation of crude.

Nikhil Barshettiwar

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