31 Best Books on Petroleum Engineering

“Elements of Petroleum Subsurface Engineering” Book Review: This book has been designed for engineering students pursuing chemical engineering or aeronautical engineering. Diploma students, AIME/ IICHE students can also use this book. M.Tech students under petroleum refining also can use this book. Teachers teaching this course can also use this book as reference. This book basically explains the fundamentals of chemicals and methods to refine fossil fuels. This book starts with explaining the properties of petroleum and other chemicals. It later explains radioactivity along with proper numericals. It also explains about the quality products of petroleum at the subsurface while refining. It also explains storage and maintenance methods. At the end, it attaches various other references for further usage.

“Elements of Petroleum Processing” Book Review: This book has been designed for engineering students pursuing chemical engineering or aeronautical engineering. Diploma students and M.Tech students under petroleum refining also can use this book. Teachers teaching this course can also use this book as reference. This book starts by explaining crude oil and main principles while refining it. It later deals with thermal and catalytic cracking and gas recovery. It explains the complex structure and composition of crude oil in diagrammatic form. It also gives examples of calculation techniques taken from real industrial situations. It also explains other complex thermodynamic principles. It attaches various examples, MCQs and numericals for students to test their understanding. Internet references are attached at the end for further study.

“Elements of Petroleum Geology” Book Review: This book has been designed for engineering students pursuing chemical engineering or aeronautical engineering. Diploma students and M.Tech students under petroleum refining also can use this book. Teachers teaching this course can also use this book as reference. This book explains the physical and chemical properties of petroleum. It also gives notes on reviewing methods of petroleum exploration and production. Methods like drilling, geophysical exploration techniques, wireline logging are explained. More importance is given to subsurface geological mapping. Hydrodynamics of connate fluids, reservoir rocks and trapping mechanisms are discussed later. It also explains formation of tar sands and oil shales. It ends with explaining prospect risk analysis, reserve estimation and other economic topics.

“Finite Element Modeling in Petroleum Road Tankers Using MATLAB(R)” Book Review: This book has been designed for engineering students pursuing chemical engineering or aeronautical engineering. Diploma students and M.Tech students under petroleum refining also can use this book. It starts with explaining the finite element method in the presentation of in-plane displacements. In this book, MATLAB plotting capability and computational tools were used. The tools were used to generate geometrical mesh models. This book explains how the various MATLAB models are suitable for finite element analysis. Elliptical and circular section tankers were explained later briefly. Codes used in the modeling of the tankers are presented in this book. MATLAB codes are also explained in this book. It consists of various other exercises to get familiar with 3-D geometry modeling.

“Geology of Petroleum” Book Review: This book has been designed for engineering students pursuing chemical engineering or aeronautical engineering. Diploma students and M.Tech students under petroleum refining also can use this book. Teachers teaching this course can also use this book as reference. This book explains the physical and chemical properties of petroleum. This book contains 17 chapters. It starts with explaining the occurrence of petroleum along with its basic introduction. Reservoir rock and pore space are also explained later. More emphasis is given on reservoir traps-general and structural, stratigraphic and fluid, combination and salt domes. Migration and accumulation of petroleum, subsurface geology and the petroleum province explained at the end. This book includes various case studies from the recent past. It attaches glossary and references too. It is written in an easy to understand language and also includes the latest information and guidelines. The book covers topics like the occurrence of petroleum, the reservoir rock, reservoir fluids, reservoir traps as well as reservoir conditions. It also contains subsurface geology, the petroleum province and its prospects.

“Petroleum Engineering: Principles and Practice” Book Review: This book has been designed for engineering students pursuing chemical engineering or aeronautical engineering. Diploma students and M.Tech students under petroleum refining also can use this book. This book gives a brief overview of petroleum engineering, mainly as practised in the offshore environments of Europe.The book is divided into 5 main sections. It starts with explaining reservoirs and oil drilling which includes various subsections discussing many other methods. Properties of reservoir fluids and rocks are explained next. Methods like drilling, geophysical exploration techniques, wireline logging are explained at the end of the book.

“Khanna’s Objective Questions in Petroleum Engineering” Book Review: This book has been designed for engineering students pursuing chemical engineering or aeronautical engineering. Diploma students and M.Tech students under petroleum refining also can use this book. Teachers can also use this book for questioning students. Students preparing for GATE in chemistry can use this book. It contains numerous important questions with answers which have been methodically prepared. Questions based on several chapters such as petroleum exploration and oil and gas well drilling technology are included at the beginning. Reservoir engineering based questions are explained at the end. It later gives questions on petroleum production operation and offshore drilling and production practices. Unconventional hydrocarbon based questions are also included. All the questions in this book are solved. Each chapter of this book is provided with detailed solutions for the questions provided. The questions provided in the book have various levels of difficulty.

“Introduction to Petroleum Engineering” Book Review: This book discusses oil and gas production in the global energy context. It covers all the key concepts needed to understand oil and gas production from exploration through abandonment. In addition, the book describes fundamental terms and concepts from geology, geophysics, petrophysics, drilling, production and reservoir engineering. It further includes numerous solved practical problems after every chapter.

“Petroleum and Petrochemical Engineering” Book Review: This book describes production of fuels, natural gases and petrochemicals. It includes fundamental terms and concepts of geological, mechanical, civil and chemical engineering. The book covers an in-depth explanation of different processes involved in petroleum and petrochemical engineering such as drilling, processing and technical analysis of petrochemicals. The important topics of the book include petroleum plants and reservoirs, catalysis and synthesis of petrochemicals, reaction engineering, etc.

“Imperial College Lectures In Petroleum Engineering, The – Volume 1: An Introduction To Petroleum Geoscience” Book Review: This book is well written in a lucid language where the fundamentals are also covered. It discusses earth sciences and their role in controlling the global occurrence and distribution of hydrocarbon resources. It describes the principles, practices and the basic terminologies associated with the upstream sector of the oil industry. The book explains investigation about the nature and chemical composition of petroleum and of surface and subsurface maps, including their construction as well as the uses in upstream operations. Practical analysis on the concepts, maps and the construction of petroleum events are also described in this book.

“HPCL Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited Operations Technician Chemical Engineering” Book Review: This book describes classification and analogy of chemical engineering. It also includes topics like blood relations, direction sense test, diagram representation of data, number ranking and time sequence test.

“Petroleum Production Systems” Book Review: This book presents a comprehensive description of fundamentals for modern petroleum production engineering practice. It provides a structured approach of classical production engineering. Extensive feedback and recent innovations are also included in this book. In addition, the book describes detailed coverage of modern best practices and their rationales. Illustrative examples and problems are also considered in this book.

“Fundamentals of Petroleum and Petrochemical Engineering” Book Review: This book includes fundamentals of petroleum and petrochemical engineering. It is written in a lucid and easy to understand language. The book also presents illustrative examples for better understanding.

“Standard Handbook of Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering” Book Review: This book includes the aspects of petroleum and natural gas engineering. It is filled with different illustrations and acts as a valuable reference. The book presents new and updated portions of drilling and production. It also covers calculations, tables and equations for petroleum engineers. The book presents recent and updated sections of unconventional resources and reservoirs.

“Encyclopaedia of Petroleum Science and Engineering” Book Review: The book presents all the essential information of petroleum science and engineering required. geologists, geophysicists, geochemists along with students pertaining to the subject can find this book to be of interest. The 16 volumes of this subject provide an in-depth knowledge of various concepts of petroleum engineering such as geographical locations, geological structures, depositional environments and periods for hydrocarbon accumulations. The book in discussion forms the volume 1 of this series dealing with the introduction of several geophysical concepts and the key terms to be of use in further topics.

“Elements of Petroleum Refinery Engineering” Book Review: The book can be referred by undergraduate students of B.E/B.tech in (chemical, petroleum, petrochemical, aeronautical) engineering. It can also be reffered by postgraduate students of M.tech who are studying petroleum refining and AMIE, AMIICHE students. Not only students but the faculty members or teaching staff of engineering colleges such as IITs, NITs may read the book. Petroleum engineers who are in practice and consultants use this book. Private sector or PSU’s refiners, state and central government departments and various NGOs also utilise this book as per their requirement. This book is also referred to the students of foreign universities of developing nations who are enrolled in different (UG, PG, diploma) programmes in engineering and who have their examination in petroleum refining engineering. The book covers origin, composition, classification, pretreatment and transportation of petroleum crude oil. In addition, it describes processing of crude oil, thermal and catalytic reforming, polymerization and isomerisation process, etc. Further the book includes requisites of good quality petroleum products and handling of petroleum products. Teachers teaching this course can also use this book as reference. This book basically explains the fundamentals of chemicals and methods to refine fossil fuels. This book consists of 9 chapters. It starts with explaining the composition and classification of petroleum crude oil. Later it explains oil refineries, thermal and catalytic cracking. Polymerisation and isomerisation processes are explained next. Purification of petroleum and other properties are explained at the end. This book contains several images and case studies from the recent past.

“Distillation and Hydrocarbon Processing Practices” Book Review: This book can be referred by the people who are involved in the design and operations of hydrocarbon processing plants. It includes refineries, petrochemical plants, gas processing plants. The book contains an advanced level of distillation processes and simulation of processes are provided as examples. It also contains basic principles and numerous practical examples and design principles. The book has various case studies which help in understanding inner working of the complex facilities.

“Level of Btex in Petroleum Refinery Industry” Book Review: This book is for M.Sc students. It contains information regarding determination of the level of BTEX ( benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylenes) inside and outside of the petroleum refining industry. BTEX is liberated in the atmosphere because of the running of petrochemical refineries. It is a harmful and toxic chemical and anything which comes in contact with its vapours gets contaminated. It is more harmful for human beings as compared to other things. Benzene is also known as human carcinogen. Very long exposure to BTEX causes harmful effects on the kidney, liver, and blood systems. The book contains various studies done on BTEX samples that are collected from various refineries and analysed through gas chromatographic technique.

“Failure to Learn: The BP Texas City Refinery Disaster” Book Review: This book contains details on the causes of the explosion that happened at the texas oil refinery on 23 march ,2005. In that explosion 15 workmen of that place were dead and 170 were injured. This book also analyses common mistakes between this and the Longford gas explosion of victoria that happened in 1998. It features some most important questions regarding the accident. Some of the prominent questions are- why so many people were injured?What was the actual cause or causes?Has any lessons been learned or not?.

“Petroleum Refining in Nontechnical Language” Book Review: This book is written in order to provide an insight on most important refining topics. It uses suitable and easily understandable correlations, graphs, formulas and illustrations. It throws light on some crucial information regarding the nature of crude oil and raw material. A detailed explanation is also provided which tells the difference in the prices of crude oil and its products. An extra chapter on lubricants and latest technologies used in refineries is also added. Language used in the book is purely non technical which makes it easier to understand the refining industry. It can be used as a reference book or for self study.

“Handbook of Petroleum Refining Processes, Fourth Edition (Mechanical Engineering)” Book Review: This is a distinctive book which focuses on the petroleum refining commercially usable technologies.It also covers production of eco friendly fuels and petroleum derivatives. It provides the complete range of refining technologies used worldwide which have changed due to the source of fuels and updated environmental regulations.major refining companies such as UOP, Shell, ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company (EMRE), Chevron Lummus Global etc have also contributed to this book. More stress is given on producing more shale gas and shale oil which is now used as new feed. The production of crude is also going downwards and also regions are urging to become energy independent. As a result of this lower cost alternative fuels such as coal, shale oil and heavy crude are in high demand. All the factors related to petroleum products and their refining is covered in this book. Also increment in conversion of residue, hydrocracking conversion process and hydrotreating techniques are also discussed.

“Petroleum Refinery Process Economics” Book Review: In this book the author throws light on the profit and properties of refinery processes and products. The book also covers utilisation of this information in performing various process economics. It also provides information about the operational and capital cost used in the assessment of single and complete refinery processes. It covers the yield correlations of licenced refinery processes and also the requirements and capital cost of a typical unit. It provides basic knowledge of economic evaluation. The book also has easy and descriptive process flow diagrams for each process yield correlation.

“Petroleum Refining: Technology and Economics” Book Review: The book in discussion elucidates concepts related to petroleum refining. It is recommended to students and engineers of the field alike. The book covers fuel refineries from both process and financial standpoints. The book lists all the major refining processes and correlates to the vital topics. Refinery feedstock, product distribution, and processing requirements resulting from federal and state legislation are covered in the book. Concepts of feedstock preparation, operating costs, catalysts, yields, finished product properties, and economics are also described. Readers can find the concepts complemented by problems at the end of each chapter.

“Catalytic Hydroprocessing of Petroleum and Distillates: 58 (Chemical Industries)” Book Review: This book is described for graduate and undergraduate students of petroleum and chemical engineering. This book contains distillate hydrotreating, stressing the importance of selective catalysts in aromatics reduction. This book introduces new aromatics saturation processes for the production of very low-aromatic distillates. This book gives details on various facts of residue upgrading. It contains application of petroleum refining catalysts, kinetic and reactor models. It includes process technologies mainly in catalytic cracking, catalytic reforming, middle distillate hydrotreating.

“Handbook of Petroleum Product Analysis (Chemical Analysis: A Series of Monographs on Analytical Chemistry and Its Applications)” Book Review: This book is described for experienced practitioners in the field of radio networks. Resource allocation is an important issue in wireless communication networks. This book focuses on effective resource allocation solutions in several important cognitive radio-based networks. It includes opportunistic spectrum access networks, cooperative sensing networks. It also contains cellular networks, high-speed vehicle networks, and smart grids. This book introduces several innovative resource allocation schemes for different cognitive radio-based networks.

“Handbook of Petroleum Processing” Book Review: This book is described for graduate and undergraduate students of petroleum engineering. It is also described for professionals just entering the industry who seek an accessible resource on petroleum processing. It discusses the key components and processes that make up the petroleum refining industry. This book begins with the basics of crude oils and their nature. It contains refining planning, off-sites, utilities and crude oil assays. It contains examples on optimizing a refinery configuration using linear programming.

“Oilfield Processing of Petroleum: Volume 1: Natural Gas: 001” Book Review: The book has process descriptions, design methods, operating procedures and troubleshooting. It explains characterization of natural gas and its products phase behavior of natural gas. The text includes Water-hydrocarbon phase behavior, Field processing of natural gas and Prevention of hydrate formation Gas sweetening Gas dehydration using glycol.