The bulk of the world’s hydrocarbons come from producing assets – so-called 'mature fields'. In turn, these supply the bulk of the world’s energy. Managing these assets is therefore a central aspect of global energy supply, and will become more so as the world’s giant fields become progressively more mature. Most industry jobs in exploration and production will be in this arena, requiring a talented workforce to fill them for decades to come. Heriot-Watt's Institute of Petroleum Engineering (IPE) has therefore created a new Master's programme to address this need. The topical content is necessarily broader than the existing IPE programmes, embracing not only geoscience, reservoir and well engineering but also surface engineering and the linkage between them in the form of Integrated Asset Management (IAM). The subject also demands a grasp of incremental petroleum economics and risk analysis, and a methodology for handling decision-making in assets in which production and data gathering are continuous. This methodology provides the link between the programme components and sits at the core of the group exercise, with Edinburgh’s own Forth Bridge as a visual metaphor for the process.

Career
Industry links

The Institute also has an industry-based Strategic Advisory Board who monitors activities in the wider context of the needs of the industry and offer guidance on the course ensuring content is up to date and relevant to current industry needs. Seminar sessions are also conducted by staff from a variety of petroleum engineering companies.

Career opportunities

The courses provide specialist education tailored to the requirements of the upstream petroleum industry, which is undergoing significant changes and faces major challenges when operating mature field managements in the North Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Middle East, Malaysia, East Asia and South America. Petroleum, however, remains the dominant source of energy for our society, with current world production of oil and gas at record rates and increasing volumes coming from existing and mature fields rather than new discoveries.

It is widely recognised that a steady influx of well-trained and industry-aware people with fresh ideas is vital for longer term success and stability of an organisation. The relevance of the education offered by this new MSc course in Integrated Mature Field Management, combined with careful selection of candidates and Heriot-Watt University’s long-standing global success in providing graduate training for the petroleum industry, will ensure that operating companies and oilfield service companies will continue to target Heriot-Watt for recruitment of graduates in the future, especially candidates who will be able to make sound technical contributions to the management and operation of mature fields.

Students will also achieve PGDip and PGCert awards in this course.