This program is multidisciplinary, aiming to equip the students with the necessary skills to understand and develop unconventional hydrocarbon resources. Advancement in technologies, including horizontal drilling and multistage hydraulic fracturing, made it possible to extract these resources with commercial quantities. The Kingdoms goal of increasing gas production depends heavily on developing these resources using the state-of-the-art technologies.

Students choosing this concentration will acquire the necessary background to identify and characterize unconventional resources using geological and petrophysical tools. They will learn the flow behavior of unconventional gas and oil resources at the nanoscale level, including gas adsorption and diffusion mechanisms. They will also be able to design recovery strategies, including fracture jobs and artificial lift methods, and assess their performance. The students should be able to evaluate the production potential, decline curves, and economic value of these resources.