Chemical and Petroleum Engineering BEng (Hons) or MEng – 2020 entry

Why choose this course

Combining exceptional facilities with research-led teaching, our BEng and MEng Chemical and Petroleum Engineering courses will prepare you for a fulfilling career in the oil and gas or petrochemical industries.

Surrey is also one of the few universities in the world offering you the chance to experience the complete chemical engineering process. Our new £1.7m chemical engineering facility and process plant allows you to use the kind of state-of-the-art equipment you’ll find in industry.

We are ranked 4th for overall satisfaction in the ‘Chemical, Process and Energy Engineering’ category of the National Student Survey 2018.

What you will study

Our BEng and MEng Chemical and Petroleum Engineering courses combine core chemical engineering principles with specialist modules, design projects, equipment design and research projects relating to energy and petrochemicals.

Taught by prize-winning academics and experienced former industrialists, you’ll gain practical experience working on a small chemicals plant in our newly-refurbished laboratory facilities. This will help prepare you for a wide range of fulfilling careers in the global energy sector.

You can apply to study for either a BEng or MEng (Master of Engineering). The MEng builds on the BEng course with a masters year, and is a direct route to a masters qualification. You may have the option to switch to a BEng or MEng during your studies.

Professional Training placements

A Professional Training placement provides you with the opportunity to develop your professional, academic and personal potential, equipping you to be adaptable, resilient, globally minded, confident, entrepreneurial and digitally savvy in the workplace. These qualities are widely recognised by employers and many of our students are offered employment on graduation by their placement provider.

The Professional Training placement year gives our students an insight into their subject and career potential, and early access to professional experience. It can be invaluable in developing work-based skills and helping them secure a graduate career.

Find out more about Professional Training placements and discover how these have transformed our students’ lives and career choices.

Chemical and Petroleum Engineering placements

Our academic work is enhanced by strong industrial links in all areas, both in the UK and overseas. These links have enabled us to arrange Professional Training placements in which we have built up considerable experience and expertise.

Placements provide you with invaluable first-hand experience of how industry operates and allow you to apply your theoretical knowledge to real-life technical problems.

Many of our students choose to take a Professional Training placement, which provides an excellent opportunity to gain practical experience, giving you a head start in your future career. Companies that have participated in our scheme include:

• Crondall Energy
• Det Norsk Veritas
• EDF Energy
• ExxonMobil
• Fluor Corporation
• GlaxoSmithKline
• Grace.

Applying for placements

Professional Training placements are usually applied for and secured via our online placement opportunities platform called Surrey Pathfinder, within which students can select and apply for placement vacancies. Placement providers use their own recruitment and selection procedures and the majority of students will secure their placement in this way. However, support is also provided to students wishing to source their own placement, subject to university requirements being met.

Students are generally not placed by the University, however they are given thorough support and guidance alongside access to the vacancy portal representing thousands of placement opportunities each year. Please be aware there may be travel costs incurred when attending interviews and assessment centres at the placement provider’s premises.

Professional recognition

BEng (Hons) - Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE)
Accredited by the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) on behalf of the Engineering Council for the purposes of fully meeting the academic requirement for registration as an Incorporated Engineer and partially meeting the academic requirement for registration as a Chartered Engineer.

MEng - Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE)
Accredited by the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) for the purpose of fully meeting the educational requirement for Chartered Chemical Engineer.

Accreditations

Careers and graduate prospects

We offer careers information, advice and guidance to all students whilst studying with us, which is extended to our alumni for three years after leaving the University.

Chemical engineers work across a range of sectors in the UK and internationally, and are increasingly sought by speciality chemical industries that manufacture high value-added products.

On average, chemical engineers earn more than any other engineering discipline and graduates are consistently paid more than chemists and other scientists. The high salaries paid reflect the level of responsibility and importance which chemical engineering graduates quickly attain.

At Surrey, our excellent graduate employment record demonstrates the strength of our courses and Professional Training placements in preparing you for the world of work.

Our Personal and Professional Skills programme is undoubtedly another factor in the exceptional employment record of our graduates.

Demand for graduates in the oil and gas sectors and petrochemicals is expected to remain strong. New developments in the sector include:

• Marginal reservoirs, especially gas
• Adaption of refineries to use more of the barrel as petrochemical feedstock
• Decommissioning of exhausted offshore facilities
• LNG projects
• New feedstocks for petrochemical plants.

We’ve worked closely with industrial organisations to design these courses around their needs, to ensure that there will be excellent opportunities available to you upon graduation.

Recent graduates have entered employment in roles such as:

• Associate Process Engineer, Fluor Corporation
• Chemical Engineer, Saudi Aramco
• Utilities Shift Supervisor, Qatar Petroleum.

Study and work abroad

We give our students the opportunity to acquire international experience during their degrees by taking advantage of our exchange agreements with overseas universities or by completing a Professional Training placement abroad. In addition to the hugely enjoyable and satisfying experience, time spent abroad adds a distinctive element to your CV. View our study and work abroad exchange information to find out more and see where you can go.

Please note: the status of the Erasmus+ scheme is dependent on the outcome of the Brexit negotiations.

The international exchange programme offers undergraduate students the opportunity to study abroad at a partner university for either one semester or a full academic year as part of their course. For BEng and MEng Chemical and Petroleum Engineering students, this is possible in your second year at one of our partner institutions:

• North Carolina State University, US
• Texas Tech University, US
• University of Cincinnati, US
• Swinburne University of Technology, Australia
• University of Queensland, Australia
• University of Sydney, Australia
• Seoul National University, South Korea
• University of Malaya, Malaysia
• Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
• Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

The exchange programme enables you to study and live in another country without paying extra tuition fees. In doing so, you’ll widen your perspective, meet other students from around the world and experience student life in some of the most prestigious universities in the world.

Studying abroad also enables you to become more independent, teaching you how to adapt and adjust to the culture and climate of another country.

Students have worked at Grace in Germany, Oiltech Engineering in Sri Lanka, Avery Dennison in the Netherlands and Bidco Africa in Kenya. If you work in another part of Europe you may be eligible for an Erasmus+ grant. This is an excellent opportunity to not only gain valuable work experience but also improve or learn another language.

Facilities

We’re one of the very few chemical engineering departments in the world that can give you the chance to learn on a complete chemical process, and not just pilot scale individual operations such as distillation.

In your third year, you’ll be able to carry out a realistic exercise in operating the process and take responsibility for factors such as safety, profitability and environmental impact.

Other laboratory experiments include a centrifugal pump test, a heat exchanger and the multiple stirred-tank chemical reactor experiment. You also receive 24-­hour access to our computer rooms.

Personal and professional skills

We recognise that in order for chemical engineers to perform to the highest level, they need a wide range of skills in addition to technical proficiency. We also recognise that experience is the main driving force in development of these skills.

Chemical engineers often work in teams to solve problems, they adopt leadership roles and are required to be effective communicators. Our Personal and Professional Skills programme is designed to give you a head start in developing your skills in these areas.

Employers will see the personal development skills which our courses provide as giving you ‘something extra’, in addition to your technical competence.

Prizes

In addition to general University scholarships and bursaries, our extensive contacts in industry have resulted in prizes being awarded to undergraduates by Atkins, Halliburton KBR, Air Products, UOP, IChemE and the Worshipful Company of Engineers.