MSc Advanced Chemical Engineering

Fees for entry in 2027 have not yet been set. For reference, the fees for the academic year beginning September 2026 were as follows:

• MSc (full-time)
  UK students (per annum): £15,800
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £39,400

The fees quoted above are fully inclusive of tuition, administration and computational costs.

Fees for entry are subject to yearly review. The University reserves the right to increase your tuition fee by up to 7% each year for courses lasting more than one year, including to reflect rising costs associated with delivering our educational and wider student experience. Postgraduate fees information .

Always contact the admissions team if you are unsure which fee applies to your qualification award and method of attendance.

International student CAS deposit

Self-funded international applicants are required to pay a deposit of £2500 towards their tuition fees before a confirmation of acceptance for studies (CAS) is issued. Some applicants will be required to pay a higher deposit. More information on tuition fee deposits .

All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).

We offer a number of postgraduate taught scholarships and awards to outstanding UK and international students each year.

The University of Manchester is committed to widening participation in master's study, and allocates £300,000 in funding each year. Our Manchester Master's Bursaries are aimed at widening access to master's courses by removing barriers to postgraduate education for students from underrepresented groups.

We also welcome the best and brightest international students each year and reward excellence with a number of merit-based scholarships. See our range of master’s scholarships for international students .

And, if you have completed an undergraduate degree at The University of Manchester, or are currently in your final year of an undergraduate degree with us, you may be eligible for a discount of 10% on tuition fees if you choose to study on a taught postgraduate course here. Find out if you're eligible and how to apply .

For more information on master's tuition fees and studying costs, visit the University of Manchester funding for master's courses website to help you plan your finances.

The course starts by examining crude oil and natural gas properties. Refinery product properties are then examined. Petroleum refining requires special techniques for the representation of physical properties and process calculations. These will be developed before turning attention to refinery processes. For each process, the physical principles, chemistry and process flowsheets will be studied. Refineries need various supporting processes that will be reviewed. Systematic methods for hydrogen integration will be introduced. Then the integration of these processes to achieve different refining objectives is addressed.

For natural gas processing, the exploitation of the gas requires the gas to be transported to the market by pipelines or liquefaction. Alternatively, the gas can be transformed chemically to liquid fuels or converted to power. The module will give particular emphasis to the exploitation by liquefaction.

 

Course Contents

Introduction

Lecture 1         Crude Oil and Natural Gas

 

Petroleum Refinery Processes

Lecture 2         Bulk Properties of Refinery Streams

Lecture 3         Modelling Physical Properties of Refinery Streams

Lecture 4         Refinery Liquid Fuel Products

Lecture 5         Crude Oil Distillation

Lecture 6         Heat Integration of Crude Oil Distillation

Lecture 7         Catalytic Cracking

Lecture 8          Residue Reduction

Lecture 9          Octane Processes

Lecture 10       Hydroprocessing

Lecture 11       Hydrogen Supply

 

Petroleum Refinery Integration

Lecture 12       Hydrogen Integration

Lecture 13       Sulphur Recovery

Lecture 14       Refinery Integration

 

Gas Processing

Lecture 15       Compression and Expansion of Gases

Lecture 16       Refrigeration Processes

Lecture 17       Liquefied Natural Gas Cycles

 

Conclusions

Lecture 18       The Future of Oil and Gas Processing

 

  

 

On successful completion of CHEN60202, a student will be able to… (1) Apply techniques for the representation of physical properties of petroleum streams and their application to process calculations in petroleum refining. (2) Analyse and evaluate oil and gas processes and operations using relevant metrics. (3) Appraise how for the effective integration of refinery processes can be exploited to achieve different production objectives. (4) Demonstrate skills for defining, analysing and solving problems that are special to oil and gas processing.

 

 

Assessment task	Weighting within unit
Examination Coursework Online test	50% 30% 20%

 

Feedback will be delivered via the virtual learning environment.

Core Reading

1.Gary JH and Handwerk GE (2001) “Petroleum Refining: Technology and Economics”, Marcel Dekker.

 

Essential Reading

 

2. Riazi MR (2005) “Characterization and Properties of Petroleum Fractions”, American Society of Testing Material

3. Meyer RA (2003) “Handbook of Petroleum Refinery Processes, 3rd Ed”, McGraw Hill.  

 

Recommended Reading

4. Chang A-F, Pashikanti K and Liu YA (2012) “Refinery Engineering”, Wiley-VCH.

5. Hydrocarbon Processing (2017), “2017 Refining Processes Handbook ”, Gulf