Global Progress in Oil and Gas Well Research Using Bibliometric Analysis Based on VOSviewer and CiteSpace

Pan Zhang, Yongjun Du, Sijie Han and Qingan Qiu
Additional contact information
Pan Zhang: Department of Industrial Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072, China
Yongjun Du: Department of Management Science and Engineering, School of Economics and Management, Lanzhou University of Technology, Lanzhou 730050, China
Sijie Han: Department of Industrial Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072, China
Qingan Qiu: School of Management & Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 15, 1-27

Abstract: Studies related to oil and gas wells have attracted worldwide interest due to the increasing energy shortfall and the requirement of sustainable development and environmental protection. However, the state of oil and gas wells in terms of research characteristics, technological megatrends, article-produced patterns, leading study items, hot topics, and frontiers is unclear. This work is aimed at filling the research gaps by performing a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of 6197 articles related to oil and gas wells published between 1900 and 2021. VOSviewer and CiteSpace software were used as the main data analysis and visualization tools. The analysis shows that the annual variation of article numbers, interdisciplinary numbers, and cumulative citations followed exponential growth. Oil and gas well research has promoted the expansion of research fields such as engineering, energy and fuels, geology, environmental sciences and ecology, materials science, and chemistry. The top 10 influential studies mainly focused on shale gas extraction and its impact on the environment. More studies were produced by larger author teams and inter-institution collaborations. Elkatatny and Guo have greatly contributed to the application of artificial intelligence in oil and gas wells. The two most contributing institutions were the Southwest Petr Univ and China Univ Petr from China. The People’s Republic of China, the US, and Canada were the countries with the most contributions to the development of oil and gas wells. The authoritative journal in engineering technology was J Petrol Sci Eng, in environment technology was Environ Sci Technol, in geology was Aapg Bull, and in materials was Cement Concrete Res. The keyword co-occurrence network cluster analysis indicated that oil well cement, new energy development, machine learning, hydraulic fracturing, and natural gas and oil wells are the predominant research topics. The research frontiers were oil extraction and its harmful components (1992–2016), oil and gas wells (1997–2016), porous media (2007–2016), and hydrogen and shale gas (2012–2021). This paper comprehensively and quantitatively analyzes all aspects of oil and gas well research for the first time and presents valuable information about active and authoritative research entities, cooperation patterns, technology trends, hotspots, and frontiers. Therefore, it can help governments, policymakers, related companies, and the scientific community understand the global progress in oil and gas well research and provide a reference for technology development and application.

Keywords: oil and gas well research; web of science; VOSviewer and CiteSpace; exponential growth; hotspots; research frontiers; technology trends (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/15/5447/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/15/5447/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:15:y:2022:i:15:p:5447-:d:873397

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().