Petroleum Engineering: Principles, Calculations, and Workflows

A Practical Framework for Petroleum Engineering Work

Petroleum Engineering: Principles, Calculations, and Workflows brings together the fundamentals and applied methods that reservoir, production, and earth science professionals use to solve oil-and-gas problems. Published as Geophysical Monograph 237 by the American Geophysical Union and Wiley, this first edition draws on Moshood Sanni’s work in research, training, application development, and consultancy. The result is a structured reference that treats petroleum engineering as an integrated discipline: principles inform calculations, calculations support diagnosis, and diagnosis feeds into repeatable workflows.

Start with the Petroleum System

The book begins by grounding engineering practice in geology. Early chapters explain how petroleum forms and accumulates, covering source rocks, generation, primary and secondary migration, reservoir rock, seals, and traps. These concepts are not presented as background material alone; they frame why reservoir behavior, fluid properties, and field development decisions matter. The opening also maps the roles of reservoir and production engineers through the exploration, appraisal, drilling, production, and field engineering stages.

Calculations with a Purpose

Rather than offering disconnected formulas, the text emphasizes step-by-step workflows that combine methods for diagnosis, validation, and parameter calculation. This approach is especially relevant to petroleum engineering problems that can be ill-posed and non-unique, where a single calculation may not tell the full story. The author’s stated objective is to help readers reduce uncertainty by integrating prevailing industry methods into coherent workflows.

Topics Covered Across the Volume

• Petroleum system components: source rock, migration, reservoir rock, seal, and trap
• Reservoir rock properties and the fundamentals of storage and flow
• Roles of reservoir and production engineers over the field life cycle
• Advanced problem-solving through integrated calculations and workflows
• Secondary and tertiary recovery methods

Who Will Use This Book

The preface identifies a broad audience: students who want to see petroleum engineering principles applied to real problems; graduate trainees and experienced engineers seeking fundamental and advanced understanding; consultants working to reduce uncertainty; professionals who need a day-to-day reference; and software developers who require insight into the mathematical and graphical methods behind petroleum engineering applications.

A Reference for Training and Practice

Because the material evolved from industry training and consultancy, it balances theoretical grounding with practical application. Readers can move from the geological context of a petroleum system to the engineering decisions that shape recovery and production. For anyone who needs to connect petroleum engineering concepts with reproducible workflows, this monograph offers a rigorous and applied path through the subject.