Petroleum Engineering Handbook: Overview

Petroleum engineers should be familiar with the Petroleum Engineering Handbook (PEH). See the Amazon link, lower left under "Useful Links" for further information. Many engineers have been slow to embrace the PEH for several understandable reasons:

First: seven volumes?! Clunky.
Second: each chapter is written by a different author so the quality is uneven. It lacks the unity of its single-volume predecessor by Bradley (see my Amazon review linked in the upper-right corner of this blog).

Regardless of one's opinion of the PEH, every PE should purchase and become familiar with it. Bradley is simply too dated, and there is some pretty good stuff in the PEH. After you get used to it, it's really not that bad. However, I do have suggestions to make it more manageable:

1) Tab each chapter in each volume, clearly labeled (see picture below).
2) Tape a chapter TOC (with page numbers) to both the cover and spine for quick reference.
3) Use pencil to mark passages. Forgo pens or highlighters. As you learn more and gain more experience a lot of the original marks will be obvious and make it hard to discern what's important. You really need to be able to erase and remark as you go.

I try to include relevant quotes from the PEH in the Guidebook. This process is ongoing.

Note the PEH is very long and detailed, so a good percentage of it is simply beyond the scope of the PE exam and most engineering work. Reading it cover-to-cover is not a wise investment of precious time for the typical engineer. So be selective when reading it. Make no mistake, it's a deep dive.

On this blog I'll include an ongoing outline of what I think are "relevant" PEH chapters (starting this week). These posts will be an excellent review for people taking the PE Exam. Everything I include I think is worth knowing and being prepared for.