One of the fundamental aspects of petroleum exploitation and production is that of petroleum engineering, ie the assessment and recovery of oil from the various types of oil 'reservoirs'.
The importance of effective petroleum engineering has increased dramatically due to a number or of varying reasons. Firstly, recoverable oil reserves should be capable of extended life by application of efficient reservoir depletion methods. Secondly, the average recovery factor does not appear to have increased over the last three decades. Thirdly, the behaviour of reservoirs is still unpredictable in...