What is Reservoir Engineering ?

Reservoir Engineering is a part of petroleum science that provides the technical basis
for the recovery of petroleum fluids from subsurface sedimentary-rock reservoirs to the surface.
It aims to evaluate of any discovered hydrocarbon reservoir, and to find the optimal way for the
development (production) of this reservoir.
This science bring together knowledge in various disciplines like:
- Geology.
- Fluid flow in porous media.
- Thermodynamics.
- Mathematics (numerical modeling and computer programming).

Hence, the main job of a reservoir engineer is to:
- estimate the capacity of production of a reservoir.
- assess the technical means to be set up for an optimal recovery rate of hydrocarbons.
Indeed, reservoir engineering is at the meeting point of explortion and production techniques.
In order to achieve this goals, a reservoir engineer has to describe a reservoir from geologic data,
and data about the reservoir rock and the fluids (oil, gas, water) kept in it.
These tasks have to be done with the collaboration of the geologists and the geophysicsits.
After that, and with the contribution of petroleum engineers and economists, he defines several
scenarios of production according to the number of wells to be drilled (production and injection
wells), then chooses the optimal scenario. He will also suggest solutions to enhance recovery
rate.

In addition, a reservoir engineer assesses the risks associated with the recovery of hydrocarbons,
and monitors the behaviour the reservoir during production.