This book is an introduction to oil and gas designed to be both accessible to absolute beginners who know nothing about the subject, and at the same time interesting to people who work in one area (such as drilling or seismic exploration) and would like to know about other areas (such as production offshore, or how oil and gas were formed, or what can go wrong).It begins by discussing oil and gas in the broader context of human society, and goes on to examine what they consist of, how and where they were formed, how we find them, how we drill for them and how we measure them. It describes production onshore and offshore, and examines in detail some instructive mishaps, including some that are well known, such as Deepwater Horizon and Piper Alpha, and other lesser known incidents. It looks at recent developments, such as shale oil, and concludes with some speculation about the future. It includes many references for readers who would like to read further. Mathematical content is minimal.

This book is an introduction to oil and gas designed to be both accessible to absolute beginners who know nothing about the subject, and at the same time interesting to people who work in one area (such as drilling or seismic exploration) and would like to know about other areas (such as production offshore, or how oil and gas were formed, or what can go wrong).It begins by discussing oil and gas in the broader context of human society, and goes on to examine what they consist of, how and where they were formed, how we find them, how we drill for them and how we measure them. It describes production onshore and offshore, and examines in detail some instructive mishaps, including some that are well known, such as Deepwater Horizon and Piper Alpha, and other lesser known incidents. It looks at recent developments, such as shale oil, and concludes with some speculation about the future. It includes many references for readers who would like to read further. Mathematical content is minimal.

There is an increasing need to construct engineering structures in the Arctic seas. The requirement is principally generated by the oil and gas industry, because of the substantial reserves that are known to exist offshore in the Beaufort Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Barents Sea, the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Sakhalin, the Canadian Arctic, and almost certainly elsewhere. Structures have to withstand the severe environmental forces generated by sea ice, a subject that is developing rapidly but is still far from completely understood. Underwater pipelines have to be safe against ice gouging and strudel scour, but also have to be constructed safely and economically. The social and human environment has to be understood and respected.This important book intentionally takes a broad view, and vividly accounts for the many and often subtle interactions between the different factors. It is illustrated by case studies of actual projects.

Dimensional analysis is a magical way of finding useful results with almost no effort. It makes it possible to bring together the results of experiments and computations in a concise but exact form, so that they can be used efficiently and economically to make predictions. It takes advantage of the fact that phenomena go their way independently of the units we measure them with, because the units have nothing to do with the underlying physics. This simple idea turns out to be unexpectedly powerful.Students often fail to gain from dimensional analysis, because bad teaching has led them to suppose it cannot be used to derive new results, and can only confirm results that have been secured by some other route. That notion is false. This book demonstrates what can be done with dimensional analysis through a series of examples, starting with Pythagoras' theorem and the simple pendulum, and going on to a number of practical examples, many from the author's experience in ocean engineering. In parallel, the book explains the underlying theory, starting with Vaschy's elegant treatment, whilst avoiding unnecessary complexity. It also explores the use and misuse of models, which can be useful but can also be seriously misleading.

Dimensional analysis is a magical way of finding useful results with almost no effort. It makes it possible to bring together the results of experiments and computations in a concise but exact form, so that they can be used efficiently and economically to make predictions. It takes advantage of the fact that phenomena go their way independently of the units we measure them with, because the units have nothing to do with the underlying physics. This simple idea turns out to be unexpectedly powerful.Students often fail to gain from dimensional analysis, because bad teaching has led them to suppose it cannot be used to derive new results, and can only confirm results that have been secured by some other route. That notion is false. This book demonstrates what can be done with dimensional analysis through a series of examples, starting with Pythagoras' theorem and the simple pendulum, and going on to a number of practical examples, many from the author's experience in ocean engineering. In parallel, the book explains the underlying theory, starting with Vaschy's elegant treatment, whilst avoiding unnecessary complexity. It also explores the use and misuse of models, which can be useful but can also be seriously misleading.