Where will the new engineers be trained? 2

[BitTwiddler]

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05179/529695.stm

"The stickiest problem, however, may be finding enough experts to execute oil projects. The U.S. oil sector's main lobby, the American Petroleum Institute, said last month that industry employment peaked at more than 860,000 jobs in 1982, then shed more than half a million jobs through 2000. And API says enrollment in petroleum-engineering programs at U.S. universities stood at about 1,500 students in 2003, down 85 percent from a 1985 peak. Yet the companies surveyed by API, which represent just 17 percent of the industry, said they expect to need more than 5,000 engineers in the next five years."

If the USA does not produce the next generation of petroleum engineers, which country will? China?

 

[GregLocock]

Australia and Canada more likely.

Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[zdas04]

GregLocock,
Trouble is that even an excellent petroleum engineering program at a school like the University of Calgary is looked upon by US companies in the same way as ITT Tech. Prejudice is bad wherever it comes from and the US Oil & Gas insustry has an incredible bias in favor of about 4 US schools, everyone else is seen as second, third, or fourth rate.

The industry seems to finally be coming out of its twenty-year depression, us old farts are leaving in droves, and the new kids are largely re-inventing the industry without guidance. I expect that in 5 years it will feel much like the wildcat days of the 1800's (unfortunately, with the same outragous death toll from industrial "accidents"). There is really nothing that can be done about it. If the old folks don't leave, the companies still won't hire their replacements until they die.

On one hand we're begining to come out of the siege mentality that has persisted in the industry since 1986. On the other hand, today's managers vividly remember firing those half million workers and don't want to go through that again.

I see a very bleek time and neither of my sons will even talk to me about coming into the industry.

David

 

[DrillerNic]

About half the people on my MSc Pet Eng course at Imperial College were from outside the EU...and it was full, as was the Pet Eng course at Heriot Watt. RGIT in Aberdeen has just started a course in Oil Field Engineering (basically half a Pet Eng course and half a proces engineering course bolted together) and most of teh peple on it appear to be west Africans.

So I'd suggest that the next generation of Petroleum Engineers may be from the third world, but educated in places like Australia and the UK, and possibly Russia (the quality of Pet Eng training there is scary: guys who have solved the various welltest models, sealing fault, constant pressure boundary etc rather than being shown the shape of the solution as is common in the west...)

 

[QCE]

Most of the jobs in the petroleum industry can be done by mechanical, chemical or electrical engineers. Actually most reservoir modelling jobs given to new grads could be done by a monkey. I think this worry is overstated.

 

[zdas04]

QCE,
Have you ever met an old driller with all of his fingers? I haven't.

Lets keep the monkeys in management and let competent people design and supervise the real work of producing Oil & Gas.

David

 

[QCE]

Are you saying that mechanical, electrical and chemical engineers coming out of a regular degree can't become petroleum engineers?

Are you saying that only petroleum engineers can work in the oil field?

I don't even understand why the questions is being asked when most engineers in the industry don't have petroleum engineering degrees but generic mechanical, electrical and chemical engineering degrees. Next question.

The oil industry will never have a shortage of engineers because they pay the most. If anything all the engineers running to oil and gas jobs will leave a shortage in other fields.

 

[vooter]

"The stickiest problem, however, may be finding enough experts to execute oil projects."

Yeah, sure...

Start paying petroleum engineers $200k a year and everyone will major in that - or, as QCE says, the other fields will make the mad dash to the big oil companies.

These kinds of "panic" or "OMG! We're running out of engineers!" stories don't mean a thing. It's not like we're running out of retail clerks or something.

 

[BobPE]

Have you tried to hire an engineer lately vooter?

bob

 

[makeup]

When Oil and Gas first came town here back in the 60's there was no skilled labour pool apart from a few travelling Americans. There were no degree courses in which to major. All we had to offer were tractor drivers, car mechanics and farm workers. 40 years later every viable ounce has nearly been exacted.

My point being, we didn't need a degree to do the job.

 

[vooter]

Well BobPE, I haven't. However, I do see many young engineers gravitate to "project management" because they've demonstrated that they're smart enough to play with money. That's what's really needed: money managers, not engineers.

When the CEO of this or that company can sit back and count his or her money while business is down - after laying-off half the staff (like, oh, say, Tyco or Vivendi), there's no crises.

Likewise, there's a plague of project manager-types who think they know when something is "good enough" and that's when they stop paying for engineering...

As long as there's a buck to be made in selling oil, there's not going to be any shortage of people to do the work. If worse comes to worse, the CEO will hire his teenage children to log the wells.

And as long as good help is hard to find, the more our salaries should raise. I say that's a good thing, eh?

 

[SomptingGuy]

DrillerNic: "About half the people on my MSc Pet Eng course at Imperial College were from outside the EU..."

So that explains why we hardly ever saw RSM people in either of the college bars in my time... (And their rugby team sucked :-D )

 

[DrillerNic]

Sompting- all the MSC Pet Eng people were all chained to the desk, trying to finish that evening's assignment! And then we'd head to Paper Tiger or whatever that chineese place near the tube was called was called for "all the onions you can eat".

We didn't work hard & play hard, we just worked harder....