Ahwaz Faculty of Petroleum was established in 1982 to educate engineers in different fields required by the oil and gas industries. In this faculty, well equipped laboratories have been established to provide an environment conducive to research. Currently, Ahwaz Faculty of Petroleum admits undergraduate and graduate students in various fields as follows:

Fields of study Levels Chemical Engineering BS, PHD Chemical Engineering – Gas Processing and Transmission MS Petroleum Engineering PHD Petroleum Engineering – Reservoir BS, MS Petroleum Engineering - Drilling BS, MS Petroleum Engineering - Production BS, MS Instrumentation & Automation in Oil Industries MS Electrical Engineering - Control BS Mechanical Engineering BS, MS

Department of Petroleum Engineering

Petroleum engineering is the practical application of the basic and physical sciences of mathematics, geology, physics, and chemistry and all of the engineering sciences to the discovery, development, production, and transportation of petroleum. Petroleum is the most widely used form of mobile energy and a major raw material from which a wide variety of products are manufactured.

The petroleum department supervises the following degree programs and certificates:

·                     Bachelor of Science in Petroleum Engineering

·                     Master of Science in Petroleum Engineering

·                     Doctor of Philosophy in Petroleum Engineering

Bachelor of Science in Petroleum Engineering

The curriculum is organized into three core areas that denote the teaching concentration of the faculty.

Drilling Engineering

The job of the drilling engineer is to design and implement a procedure to drill the well as economically as possible. Drilling a well can often cost several million dollars and the drilling engineer has the responsibility for making certain that costs are minimized while getting all the necessary information to evaluate the reservoir, protecting the health and safety of workers and any nearby residents, and protecting the environment

Production Engineering

Once the well is completed, the production engineer takes over. His job is to analyze, interpret, and optimize the performance of individual wells. The production engineer is responsible for determining how to bring hydrocarbons to the surface. The production engineer will determine the most efficient means to develop the field considering the viscosity of the crude oil, the gas-to-oil ratio, the depth and type of formation, and the project economics. The production engineer is also responsible for the developing a system of surface equipment that will separate the oil, gas, and water.

Reservoir Engineering

Reservoir engineers determine the fluid and pressure distributions throughout the reservoir, the natural energy sources available, and the methods most useful in recovering the maximum amount of oil or gas from the reservoir. The reservoir engineer may develop complex computer-based mathematical programs to model the fluid flow and formation pressures. Reservoir engineers are responsible for estimating the amount of oil or gas that can be recovered from a reservoir.

The department is located in a geographical area that produces 80 percent of the nation’s petroleum resources. This proximity provides the student with unique opportunities for directly interfacing with industry as well as for first-hand observations of oil field operations.

Master of Science in Petroleum Engineering

Graduate studies in petroleum engineering prepare the engineer to assume responsibility in technical and managerial areas within the oil and gas industry. Historically, the graduate can expect to be challenged quickly and in areas of strong potential for personal and professional growth. The Petroleum Engineering Department prepares the advanced student with the technical skills required to meet those challenges. All graduate students should take thesis after passing the educational courses. In addition to the written thesis, the candidate’s thesis committee will administer a final oral exam/defense of the completed thesis.

The curriculum is organized into three core areas that denote the teaching and research concentration of the faculty.

Drilling Engineering

Production Engineering

ReservoirEngineering

Doctor of Philosophy in Petroleum Engineering

The objectives of the PhD program are to provide students opportunities to reach a critical understanding of the basic scientific and engineering principles underlying their fields of interest and to cultivate their ability to apply these principles creatively through advanced methods of analysis, research, and synthesis. Applicants for the doctoral degree must have a degree in engineering disciplines. The PhD students are required to complete a minimum of 18 credit educational courses. Students majoring in this department for a doctoral degree must successfully pass the qualifying examinations. These qualifying examinations consist of two parts. The first part (comprehensive exam) is based on the undergraduate curriculum and concerns the following three areas of petroleum engineering: production, drilling, reservoir engineering. Students must pass this first part by the end of the third semester. The second part of the qualifying examination is an oral defense of the dissertation proposal.

Department of Gas Engineering

The department of gas engineering was established in 2001 as a subsidiary of Ahwaz Faculty of Petroleum. The mission of this department is to assist the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) by providing a high-quality educated undergraduate and graduate students expert in natural gas related professions.  It offers an undergraduate Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree in Chemical Engineering, a Master of Science (MSc) degree in Gas Processing and Transmission and a PhD degree in Chemical Engineering. The MSc and PhD degrees offered  in this department contain advanced theoretical courses in transport phenomena, advanced thermodynamics, natural gas processing and transmission, reactor design and separation processes. All the students have to do research on a topic as their thesis under the supervision of one or more faculty members in the department. Their research topics are usually chosen from current natural gas industry problems or their future demands.

In this department, both fundamental and applied researches are done over a broad range of subjects related to natural gas industries. The main research areas are:

1-      Natural Gas Process Design and Technology

2-      Heat Transfer Phenomena in Gas Industries

3-      Gas Hydrates

4-      Natural Gas Conversion

5-      Gas Separation via Membrane Module

6-      Gas Separation via Adsorption Process

7-      Transport Phenomena and Computational Fluid Dynamics

The research environment in the department is extremely pleasant and many activities are done as team work. The research activities of the department are currently carried out in three well equipped laboratories of Research Center of Ahwaz Faculty of Petroleum.

Department of Instrumentation and Automation

The Department of Instrumentation and Automation (DIA) was founded in 2001 and is part of the Petroleum University of Technology (PUT). The aim of DIA is to assist the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) through the pursuit of education, and research at the utmost international levels of distinction. It offers an undergraduate Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree in control engineering and a Master of Science (MSc) degree in Instrumentation and Automation Engineering (IAE). The lectures are in English and the students must attend intensive English language courses prior to commencing their educational and research programs in the institute.

Teaching in the undergraduate BSc level is mainly lecture-based, with the students also performing coursework and laboratory exercises, and attending industrial summer training. The department’s laboratories focus on electrical measurements, digital electronics and control systems.

The IAE MSc students are required to research, design, construct, test and maintain instruments utilized in the Iranian oil industry.  The field also deals with the development of novel computer-based control algorithms, process fault diagnosis and process optimization. The graduates frequently work as part of a team and are needed to know several aspects of the petroleum and chemical industrial environments.    The associated curriculum is multidisciplinary and includes educational capabilities in oil production and chemical processing. These offered programs will enable the students for immediate employment upon graduation

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Mechanical Engineering is universally considered as the cornerstone of almost all fields of engineering science. Our academic program can be divided basically into undergraduate and graduate/post-graduate education. We have always tried to keep a well-defined and logical balance between our endeavors towards both undergraduate and graduate programs. In undergraduate level, the program focuses on educating and training qualified engineers to commence their profession in industrial sector and service/commercial sector with high management and leadership skills.  The undergraduate degree program prepares students for professional practice in an era of rapidly advancing technology. It combines a strong base in the engineering sciences (mechanics, materials, fluid and thermal sciences, systems, and control) with project-based laboratory and design experiences.

The graduate program leads to M.S. degrees in basic disciplines of mechanical engineering and various multi-disciplinary fields. We have tried to maintain a dynamic and adaptive policy in our graduate program in order to keep up with domestic industry’s research and development needs and rapid global/international technological progress.

Our faculty members and research staffs are developing cutting edge projects that include, onshore and offshore engineering, drilling engineering, energy engineering, simulation and modeling, from both thermo-fluid and solid mechanics aspects.

Laboratories and Facilities

A number of well-equipped laboratories in petroleum engineering and related subjects are established in this faculty. These laboratories are well-designed for the students to do experiments and research on the petroleum engineering fields. The most important ones are as follows:

Fluid properties and rock reservoir laboratory

In this laboratory students learn how to determine physical and thermodynamic properties of petroleum fluids and reservoir rocks.  Knowing these properties is essential in reservoir modeling and management.

Drilling and drilling mud Laboratory

In this laboratory students become familiar with the different types of drilling muds and their properties. The students also learn about the additives that are usually present in the drilling muds. The important apparatuses of this laboratory are:

Marsh Funnel/ Mud balance/ Sand content Kit/ mixer wall mount filter press/ Bench mount filter press/  Recording calcimeter Kit/ Spin dryer for cuttings/ Viscometer filtration control agents/ Chemical Thinners/  Salt contamination Filtration (measurement of mud cake and mud filtration).

Drilling Operation simulator

Drilling Simulator is a state-of-the-art advanced simulation unit which meets and exceeds the training requirements of students and drilling operators. The product can simulate real-time drilling, tripping in and out, vertical as well as directional drilling, well control and automated pipe handling systems.   It allows trainees to be exposed to a broad range of scenarios from routine operations to well control challenges and emergencies with catastrophic potential.

This unit is real size equipment which simulates all of the activities of the drilling deck. What is remarkable in this laboratory is that the simulation equipment and the instruments are unique in the region which can attract plenty of researches and trainees to conduct researches or training courses.

Research center                    

The research center was established in 1991 in the Ahwaz Faculty of Petroleum. The role of this research center is to provide a conductive environment to research on the subjects required by oil and gas industries. Post-graduate students do their research for their thesis in this center. They usually design and make their test rigs with the help of workshops in the faculty. This research center is well equipped with the state of the art apparatuses which make it unique in the region. A complete PVT cell with its accessories is available that enables the researchers to measure precisely all the properties of reservoir fluids for pressures up to 100 MPa. In core analysis lab, which is one of the assets of the research center, all the experiments on the reservoir cores are possible. A separate laboratory in this research center is equipped with the apparatuses suitable for research on different topics related to natural gas industry.

Dr. Salarieh Library

The Library (Dr. Salariyeh library) started its activities with the establishment of the Abadan Institute of Technology in 1937. In 1983, it was moved to the current building in the Ahwaz Faculty of Petroleum. Dr. Salariyeh library is the largest library in the whole university. The collection includes the invaluable titles of different databases, books, journals and thesis in languages of English, Persian and some other languages.  It contains more than 13000 titles of English books, 4000 titles of Persian books, 3000 titles of thesis, 7000 titles of e-books and 630 titles of journals. All scientific sources are delivered to the students, members of the faculty and other researchers. There is also one reading room for students equipped with the Internet and study desks.