Opportunity Gushes
Engineering students might want to consider a future in oil
A job in this business can take an adventurous engineer around the globe, from the steamy tropics to the icy reaches of the Arctic Circle. Starting salaries are more than 20 percent higher than the average pay for graduates with comparable training. Cutting-edge technologies like imaging and 3-D simulation have become essential tools. And choosing a career in this field means devoting oneself to one of the most difficult and urgent problems facing humanity today.
So it's ironic that the oil industry is grappling with a severe shortage of young engineers just as the majority of its workforce approaches retirement. Some fear a looming crisis. Without an infusion of new blood, they say, the industry's prospects for growth and innovation will fade just as the world's energy needs are increasing. But there is scant agreement on how the industry can beef up its workforce to meet future needs.
Boring. Many attribute the graying of the oil industry to a perception that petroleum exploration is an archaic, dirty business, lacking the allure of a computer or biotechnology career. "It's viewed as kind of a smokestack industry," says Allen Mesch, president of consulting firm PetroStrategies in Plano, Texas. Last year, Mesch's firm produced a report, "Petrotechnicals: The Real Scarce Resource," showing that enrollment in petroleum engineering programs, now averaging 1,500 students, is down 85 percent from its peak in 1982. "This is a great business to be in, but we've done a poor job of telling our story," said Rod Erskine, chairman of Erskine Energy, an exploration and production company, at a recent industry conference.
Still others say a deeper problem plagues the industry. Its demographics have become skewed over the past two decades by successive waves of layoffs and consolidation. Through the tumult, managers focused on retaining experienced professionals rather than grooming novice engineers for advancement. "The industry needs to change more than its image," says Michael Minyard, an analyst in the management development program at Amerada Hess in Houston. "It needs to change its reality."
The dearth of young professionals is no secret. The average age of working members of the Society of Petroleum Engineers in the United States is about 52, says Mark Rubin, the organization's executive director. Seventy percent of the technical staff involved in oil exploration and production in the United States is between the ages of 41 and 65, while about 20 percent is less than 36 years old. At a recent symposium on the issue hosted by the University of Houston's Global Energy Management Institute, or GEMI, Tim Holt, vice president of BP onshore operations, said "there's a problem brewing" unless the industry takes steps to bring new talent aboard.
That means there's plenty of opportunity for wannabe engineers. Dominic Spencer, 23, of Golden, Colo., once considered a chemical or mechanical engineering major but was captivated by a college summer job he had in oil exploration. He was assigned to a crew drilling a horizontal well. "I couldn't believe that there was a job where you could be out there doing the work on the rig instead of behind a desk, and the technology they were using was just amazing," he says. "That kind of hooked me." Spencer graduated in December from the Colorado School of Mines with five job offers. He opted to join Denver's Bill Barrett Corp., an oil and gas exploration firm. "There's not a lot of people my age to grow and learn with," he says. "But on the other hand, there's a large chance for advancement in the future."
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