Glossary
Petroleum Engineer Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential petroleum engineer terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key petroleum engineer vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in petroleum engineer training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- ABET
- Engineering program accreditor.
- CAD
- Computer-aided design.
- Casing
- Pipe lining a well.
- CCS
- Carbon capture and storage.
- Completion
- Preparing a well to produce.
- Decline curve
- Production over time.
- FE exam
- Fundamentals of Engineering exam.
- Hydraulic fracturing
- Fracking.
- PE license
- Professional Engineer license.
- Permeability
- Ease of flow.
- Porosity
- Pore space.
- Reserves
- Recoverable resources.
- Reservoir
- Rock holding oil or gas.
- Specification
- Detailed requirements.
- Wellbore
- Drilled hole.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Petroleum Engineer practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Petroleum Engineer training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.