Page 9 - Standard Handbook Petroleum Natural Gas Engineering VOLUME2

Preface

This petroleum and natural gas engineering two-volume handbook
is written in the spirit of the classic handbooks of other engineering
disciplines. The two volumes reflect the importance of the industry
its engineers serve (i.e., Standard and Poor’s shows that the fuels sector
is the largest single entity in the gross domestic product) and the
profession’s status as a mature engineering discipline.
The project to write these volumes began with an attempt to
revise the old Practical Petroleum Engineer’s Handbook that Gulf
Publishing had published since the 1940’s. Once the project was
initiated, it became clear that any revision of the old handbook
would be inadequate. Thus, the decision was made to write an
entirely new handbook and to write this handbook in the classic
style of the handbooks of the other major engineering disciplines.
This meant giving the handbook initial chapters on mathematics
and computer applications, the sciences, general engineering, and
auxiliary equipment. These initial chapters set the tone of the
handbook by using engineering language and notation common
to all engineering disciplines. This common language and notation
is used throughout the handbook (language and notation in nearly
all cases is consistent with Society of Petroleum Engineers publication
practices). The authors, of which there are 2’7, have tried (and we
hope succeeded) in avoiding the jargon that had crept into petroleum
engineering literature over the past few decades. Our objective was
to create a handbook for the petroleum engineering discipline that
could be read and understood by any up-to-date engineer.
The specific petroleum engineering discipline chapters cover
drilling and well completions, reservoir engineering, production, and
economics and valuation. These chapters contain information, data,
and example calculations related to practical situations that petroleum
engineers often encounter. Also, these chapters reflect the growing
role of natural gas in industrial operations by integrating natural
gas topics and related subjects throughout both volumes.
This has been a very long and often frustrating project. Through-
out the entire project the authors have been steadfastly cooperative
and supportive of their editor. In the preparation of the handbook
the authors have used published information from both the American