Program overview
Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering, simply put, is the study of how to safely and efficiently extract oil and gas from underground and deliver them where needed. At the graduate level, you'll dive deep into reservoir engineering (how to find oil and calculate reserves), drilling engineering (how to drill wells), production engineering (how to bring oil to the surface), and oil & gas storage and transportation (how to move and store it). Core courses include fluid flow in porous media, reservoir physics, drilling fluid technology, and more. Lab sessions involve simulated wellbores and core analysis equipment. This major suits students who are interested in geology, physics, and chemistry, and don't mind occasional field trips or platform visits. Chinese universities have unique strengths in this field—for example, China University of Petroleum (East China/Beijing) and Southwest Petroleum University have close ties with the three major domestic oil companies (CNPC, Sinopec, CNOOC). Their labs even feature real drilling simulation systems, giving you early exposure to industrial settings.