Petroleum Engineering

As part of their Petroleum Geology out-of-classroom assessment, 15 students from the Petroleum Engineering programme organised a two-day geological fieldwork to the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia, as accompanied by their lecturers from the School of Engineering, Ms. Ailie Serasa, Dr. Amin Shahbazi and Dr. Bathaee recently.

The expedition started with an observation of the metamorphic rock at Ukay Perdana, followed by a study on cave architecture at the Charas Cave, analysis of basaltic pillow lava at the Black Stone Beach, an observation of river architecture at the Bakau Tinggi Recreation Park, and the analysis of petroleum system with geological structure at the Taman Tasik Puteri Bukit Besi and Rantau Abang – what a contenting 2-days journey they had!

While Petroleum Geology classes typically take place within the Geology Lab on-campus, the students appreciated the trip that provided hands-on experience studying the concepts of rock cycles, structural geology and depositional environment through observation, collection of samples and then drawing analysis reports – these are key subject areas in line with the geological concept of petroleum systems, and the trip turned out to be an enjoyable learning experience for them. In addition, the group, that comprised students from Morocco, Zimbabwe, Libya, Yemen, Philippines, Nigeria and Malaysia, were awestruck by the picturesque display of natural caves, beaches, river banks and forests that they discovered at the trip.

The 2-days expedition ended on a positive note, as students gathered immense experience and valuable practical skills throughout the trip. Kudos to the School of Engineering for organising this amazing adventure! 

Drilling is a crucial phase within the oil and gas extraction and production process – our students are exposed to the real-life experience visiting a drilling facility at the oil rig, as part of their out-of-classroom experience under the Petroleum Engineering programme.

Recently, 15 students under the guidance of their lecturers, Dr. Amin Shahbazi, Ms. Ailie Serasa and Dr. Mahmood Bathaee from the School of Engineering, conducted an industrial visit to Velesto-INSTEP Drilling Academy (VIDA) in Batu Rakit, Terengganu. The academy was established as part of a collaboration between Velestro Drilling Academy Sdn Bhd and Petronas Technical Training Sdn Bhd, to provide comprehensive training for professionals within the oil and gas industry.

Throughout the visit, a Drilling Instructor, Mr. Muhamad Saufi was assigned to coach the group for the day. Students experienced being on an actual oil rig and seeing an actual drilling unit, as they visited the Naga 100 land rig at the site. While the site was being operated, students had the opportunity to witness an operational drilling that took place, demonstrated by the rig supervisor.

The second part of the visit was conducted in the drilling simulator room, in which the students had a hands-on experience operating the console-based simulator, through the physical consoles, touchscreen devices and desktop computer that were provided. It was a realistic and immersive training experience, while students enjoyed the interactivity of the system as they gained practical knowledge on drilling engineering, operations and activities on-site.

In overall, the students enjoyed the interactive experience conducted by the School of Engineering and the Academy. As drilling engineers are amongst the career choices for graduates of Petroleum Engineering degrees, it is always beneficial for students to expose themselves to potential careers that they may embark into, before they graduate in a few years’ time.

Kuala Lumpur, 11 October 2018: Petroleum Experts (PETEX), one of the world’s leading petroleum engineering software company based in United Kingdom (UK), donated software licenses worth approximately RM8.7 million to Asia Pacific University (APU) recently.

The suite of Integrated Production Modelling (IPM) software - “Prosper”, “GAP”, “GAP TRANSIENT”, “MBAL” and “REVEAL” cover the entire spectrum of petroleum engineering concepts and application. Through the software, students are exposed to seamless learning experiences within the knowledge areas of production forecasts, reservoir optimization and other useful applications that assist them to develop critical analysis of field and reservoir management.

APU is one of the first universities in Malaysia to adopt the PETEX software suite within its academic syllabus.

Year 3 and Year 4 students of APU’s B.Eng (Hons) in Petroleum Engineering programme will be using the software in their “Production Engineering”, “Gas Engineering”, “Reservoir Engineering” modules that are offered through the programme.

The industry-grade software suite is also set to assist Final Year aspiring Petroleum Engineers in completing their Field Development Project, where students apply the use of the software suite in case studies, to simulate real-life problems and develop relevant solutions based on real-time data.

A report published by the World Economic Forum in 2017 addressed the needs for digital transformation within the oil and gas industry, where digital technologies uncover huge potentials by providing better understanding on a reservoir’s resource and production capabilities to increase efficiency; therefore, this sponsorship provided by PETEX also supports a key objective of APU to develop industry-ready skills amongst its Petroleum Engineering students, preparing them to become technologically-sound petroleum engineers as they graduate.

Kuala Lumpur, 11 October 2018: Asia Pacific University (APU) is one of very few universities in Malaysia to receive a total of 26 academic licenses of the tNavigator® software worth USD4 million (RM16 million) from Rock Flow Dynamics Inc., USA recently.

APU’s B.Eng (Hons) in Petroleum Engineering students will be exposed to the tNavigator® package, which includes the Geology Designer, Model Designer, PVT Designer, VFP Designer, Network Designer, Simulation Engines, Simulation Results GUI and History-Matching modules.

The tNavigator® is the first and only product on the market which dynamically combines a fully interactive 3D graphical user interface and a record breaking parallel supercomputing engine. Through the software, students can make use of interactive modern visualization methods to assist them to effectively learn the flow of oil and gas, understand the composition of hydrocarbon fluids and design effective geological methods for drilling and oil extraction.

Year 3 and Year 4 students of APU’s B.Eng (Hons) in Petroleum Engineering programme will be using the software in their “Reservoir Simulation” and “Enhanced Oil Recovery” modules that are offered through the programme.

The industry-grade software suite is also set to assist Final Year aspiring Petroleum Engineers in completing their Field Development Project, where students apply the use of the software to calculate properties of fluids, build surface network models and construct static and dynamic reservoir models to develop real-life reservoir management solutions.

A report published by the World Economic Forum in 2017 addressed the needs for digital transformation within the oil and gas industry, where digital technologies uncover huge potentials by providing better understanding on a reservoir’s resource and production capabilities to increase efficiency; therefore, this sponsorship provided by Rock Flow Dynamics Inc. also supports a key objective of APU to develop industry-ready skills amongst its Petroleum Engineering students, preparing them to become technologically-sound petroleum engineers as they graduate.

About Rock Flow Dynamics Inc, (RFD)

Rock Flow Dynamics (RFD) develops software for the petroleum industry. It offers a wide range of advanced innovative tools for reservoir engineering implemented in tNavigator – the dynamic reservoir simulator developed by the company. RFD is expanding quickly to keep up with a fast growing Oil & Gas service industry. New technologies developed by the research and product development teams of Rock Flow Dynamics are integrated into the company’s flagship product – tNavigator®. The software employs Qt graphical libraries, which makes the system true multiplatform. By taking advantage of the latest computing technologies like NUMA, Hyperthreading, MPI/SMP hybrids, the performance of tNavigator by far exceeds the performance of any industry standard dynamic simulation tools. Only by using tNavigator can users be sure to unlock the full potential of modern computing hardware.