The department has about 60 faculty members and staff. Current enrolment is about 30 PhD students, 110 master students, and 350 undergraduate students.
The main areas of expertise are
- Drilling Engineering
- Natural Gas Engineering
- Investment and Decision Analysis
- Petroleum Geosciences Engineering
- Production Engineering
- Reservoir Engineering
The department offers students a great academic learning environment with various research activities and facilities, geological field trips, excursions, detailed laboratory investigations, e.g., analysis of the Ekofisk field chalk, and close contact and cooperation with the oil industry and its operations.
Research activities at the Department of Petroleum Engineering were enhanced through the establishment of Rogaland Research (today: International Research Institute of Stavanger, IRIS) on campus. It has been expanded to include a full-scale offshore drilling rig and wells for testing and improvement of drilling equipment.
In 2002, the Centre for Oil Recovery, Corec, was established and is a cooperation between the University of Stavanger, IRIS, ConocoPhillips, and the other Ekofisk license companies: Total, ENI, Petoro, and StatoilHydro.
The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate is located on campus and many oil companies have their Norwegian headquarters in the Stavanger area.
