The petroleum & natural gas engineering field in the department conducts researches on the development and production of conventional and unconventional oil & gas resources. The research areas include drilling technology, well control, reservoir evaluation & characterization, deep-sea drilling, and production technology for conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon resources. Geostatistics and optimization are key tools for data integration and reservior characteristics. Important projects are “Development of Reservoir Characterization and Monitoring Systems for an Optimal Production from Unconventional Reservoirs” mainly for oil sands; “Development of Hydraulic Fracturing Evaluation Technology” for shale gas; “Development of Modeling Technologies of Well Control” for water-based and oil-based muds with directional and horizontal well trajectories.