Curtin Master of Petroleum Engineering enhances knowledge for professional practice

The Department of Petroleum Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Science at Curtin University, Sarawak Malaysia (Curtin Sarawak) is committed to providing the oil and gas industry with high-quality graduates, while helping students fulfil their individual needs depending on their background and academic ability.

The Curtin Master of Petroleum Engineering programme it offers complements a full range of undergraduate and postgraduate engineering programmes offered by the Faculty, which has over 2,000 students studying across the range of major engineering programmes including Applied Geology and Computing.

The Master of Petroleum Engineering programme is a Masters conversion course that is aimed primarily at engineers who do not have any formal qualifications in petroleum engineering, but have honours degrees in other relevant engineering disciplines. It is also available to graduates from other disciplines who have relevant work experience in areas related to petroleum engineering.

The programme provides students with a multidisciplinary education and hands-on training in petroleum engineering. The full-time, 18-month programme is taught over three semesters, with four 25-credit units taught per semester. Students must complete the three semesters or 300 credits in total to receive the Master of Petroleum Engineering award.

The first semester offers units such as applied geology and geophysics; phase behaviour and flow assurance; formation evaluation; and fundamentals of reservoir engineering while semester two covers drilling engineering fundamentals; production technology; advanced reservoir engineering; and well stimulation remedial and intervention operations.

Hydrocarbon economics and project management; advanced numerical reservoir simulation; field development planning; and advanced drilling practices are covered in the final semester.  

One of the main features of the programme is that it is the same as the successful programme offered at Curtin University’s main campus in Perth, Western Australia. This means that the full experience and learning resources such as e-learning resources, as well as access to i-lectures in Perth, are available to students at Curtin Sarawak.

In addition, the academic staff at Curtin Sarawak work closely with their counterparts in Perth to ensure that the quality of provision reaches the same high standards. In fact, there is very close collaboration between both campuses, not only with regard to teaching, but also in research. 

Curtin Sarawak’s location within the hub of the oil and gas industry in Sarawak and its strong links with industry players such as PETRONAS, Shell, Nippon Oil, Murphy Oil, Schlumberger and Technip which operate extensively in East Malaysia, offer distinct advantages to petroleum engineering students.

In addition, students are able to complete fully Australian Curtin degrees at Curtin Sarawak around a third of the cost of completing exactly the same degree in Australia due to a lower cost of living in Malaysia. There is no difference in the quality of the degree, its value in the market place or in its appearance as the degree certificates are awarded by the parent campus.

Curtin University was recently awarded five stars overall in the latest QS Stars university ratings for 2015 based on its performance across eight assessed categories. Five stars were awarded for teaching, employability, internationalisation, facilities, innovation, specialist criteria and inclusiveness, and three stars were awarded for research.

Curtin Sarawak sees the Curtin University QS 5-Star rating as a positive indicator of its own quality in teaching and learning, research and student experience, as well as in the quality and employability of its graduates.

New learning spaces aimed at increasing student engagement, fostering collaboration between staff and students, and providing flexible, technology-rich environments are being established at its campus. Equipped with the latest technological advances in teaching and learning, including distributed learning technology, they will greatly support active student learning at the campus.

The construction of a new four-storey Faculty of Engineering and Science building, which is scheduled for completion in March 2016, will see the addition of more innovative lecture halls, classrooms, and discussion rooms.

The RM20 million building signals not just a new phase of infrastructural development bringing further enrichment of campus life and learning experience for a student population now exceeding 3,600, but also a new direction for Curtin Sarawak’s strategic growth in the coming years.

Curtin Sarawak’s Master of Petroleum Engineering programme is offered in March. For more information, contact +60 85 443 879 or email zhungyi@curtin.edu.my.

For more information on Curtin Sarawak, visit its website at www.curtin.edu.my, its Facebook page at facebook.com/CurtinUniversitySarawakMalaysia, Twitter profile at twitter.com/curtinsarawak, YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/user/CurtinUniSarawak, or Instagram at instagram.com/curtinsarawak.