Course description
MSc Petroleum Technology
Petroleum technology is key to the functioning of the modern world, providing both energy and materials for industry. Teesside is a major European centre for the chemical and petroleum processing sector.
More information
Stage 1
Introduction and Professional Studies
This module is designed to introduce you to the issues related to studying beyond undergraduate level. It applies to students on taught postgraduate courses and those who are embarking on a programme of research. The module encompasses issues such as enrolment, health and safety, using Blackboard, report writing and referencing, ethics, plagiarism, time management and numerical techniques. You will also examine discipline specific areas pertinent to your pathway, which will offer you a particular grounding, skills base or understanding required at the early stage of your study. You will be introduced to personal development planning, by keeping a formal log book..
Petroleum and Hydrocarbon Operations
This module provides you with a detailed understanding of refinery unit operations including supporting processes as may be encountered on typical plant. You will develop an understanding of the relationship between the different operations and sub-processes and integral downstream activities.
Petroleum Chemistry
This module provides you with an understanding of the refinery process and the products that are derived from it. It also examines crude oil and its cracking to smaller fractions. It describes using catalysis for producing chemicals and petroleum products, and tracers for oil field diagnostics. The module also describes oil field corrosion and methods of corrosion monitoring and inhibition.
Stage 2
Mass and Energy Balances
This module introduces you to calculations on a wide range of chemical and refinery processes. In the process industries it is important to be able to predict the flows of matter and energy at any point in the plant. By equating inflow and generation with outflow and accumulation, you can develop a remarkably powerful tool for the analysis of processes.
Modelling and Control of Processes
This module will cover the mathematical descriptions of refinery processes including the formulation of equations and their solutions.
Process Simulation and Economics
This module builds on the Mass and Energy Balances module by introducing computer-aided techniques through HYSIS - a process simulator package. The topic is extended to include time-dependant processes including some basic control theory. Some ideas on process costing and economics are also included. Topics include steady-state modelling, using HYSIS, process dynamics and control, capital and manufacturing cost estimation and process economics.
Stage 3
Research Project
This is the culmination of the programme of studies. You will undertake a challenging problem related substantially to your discipline. The project is linked where possible to an industrial or external partner organisation, which may even host your work and substantially direct the activity. Where this is not possible, a real or simulated real problem may be chosen as subject for the work. It is, however, expected that even where the problem is simulated or hypothetical, it will be treated as if real. The project outcomes project should be at a publishable standard.
Course structure
You'll cover a wide range of subjects including the analysis of petroleum products, the refinery process, corrosion and petroleum chemistry. Mass and energy balances are also covered, with application to the refinery process. Computer-based simulation and modelling of processes and economics are applied to real problems and explored in detail.
Careers
Graduates can expect to be employed in areas within the chemical and petroleum processing sector.
Industrial experience
On this Master's degree you'll complete an industrially-related project. This, along with the involvement of industrialists, practitioners and academics in the delivery of this course, ensures that it is relevant to the demands of the process manufacturing industries.
Intermediate awards
Our master's degrees can lead to the award of a postgraduate certificate at Stage 1 (60 credits - 3 modules), a postgraduate diploma at Stage 2 (120 credits - 6 modules) or, on completion of a research project, the MSc.
Block release study
The course is available on a block release basis: you'll study for one week between 9.00am and 6.00pm with follow-up days in the next four weeks and accompanying assignment work.
