Oil Comp Engr
38 Years Experience
Houston, TX
Female, 60
I recently retired from a major integrated oil company after 38 years. I have degrees in Civil and Petroleum Engineering. I worked with safety, health and environmental management systems and operations in the upstream (finding and producing oil and gas) and downstream (refining, chemicals and distributions) areas. I travelled all over world, enduring good & bad business cycles and good and bad managers.
It will depend on the university you plan to attend. They may require you to take some undergraduate petroleum engineering courses as a pre-requesite to taking the Masters courses. I suggest you contact the university you plan to attend. There might be some courses you should take before you finish your bachelor's degree to speed up the process.
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Very solid job prospects for an engineer. Keep in mind that the oil sands are much more like a mining operation than traditional petroleum engineering projects. There are some insane salaries but you need to check out the laws and regulations as well as tax laws for non-Canadian citizens. Most of the oil sands are fairly remote and the weather is bitterly cold in the winter. However, it's probably not any worse than working on an onshore platform in terms of being remotely located. If you are looking for really insane salaries, check out the mining industry in Western Australia. The locations (in and around Karratha) are pretty remote and the cost of living is high (try $300+/night for a hotel not much better than a typical Holiday Inn in the USA) but most of the folks work 3 to 4 weeks on, have their living expenses paid while working and then get 3 to 4 weeks off. I met some folks who were high school graduates, told me that made the US equivalent of $100k/year (my Australian friends told me that the salary sounded about right) and go to Bali for their days off. Cost of living in Bali is fairly low and you can't beat the scenery. Not conducive to family life, but a great way to make some money while you're young. The demand for workers has been so high that the folks I met said there were quite a lot of foreigners working there. Again, check out the immigration and tax laws.
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Most US based companies will want you to have the permanent, legal right to work in the USA. That could mean possessing a green card or being a US citizen. A few companies might sponsor you for a green card / visa, but it's best to ask about that first. I am not personally aware of any companies that sponsor for folks with anything less than a PhD. A good GPA would be mostly A's and a few B's. Not sure what system you are on, but in the USA, I would consider a good GPA to be at least a 3.3 (out of 4.0).
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I think this depends on your goal. If you want to LIVE in an international location for a long period of time, you might want to look at companies that have opportunities in the countries in which you are interested. For example, engineers are usually in pretty strong demand in the Middle East That said, be aware that it can be a bit challenging for women (I assume by your name that you a woman). Saudi Aramco is usually hiring, but Saudi Arabia can be very challening for professional women. Other countries like Qatar (see RasGas company) and the UAE are more "westernized". If you want to TRAVEL to foreign countries, one of your best bets would be to start in a drilling position with one of the large integrated oil companies (Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, etc). Drillers tend to travel the most and there are opportunities for rotational assignments (28 days on and 28 days off) and you can travel on your days off and really see the world.
Depending on your nationality, it can be difficult to get hired by a foreign company if there are work permit requirements and / or requirements for the company to hire local citizens before hiring non-nationals.
Best of luck to you.
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You need to define "advanced" chemistry. Every petroleum engineer (in the USA) will take the basic 1st chemistry course and lab in order to get a bachelors of science degree. Whether more chemistry courses will be of benefit depends on what they decide to specialize in.
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The Society of Petroleum Engineers does a far better job than I could of describing this. I suggest you visit their website: www.spe.org/disciplines/
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So you already have a BS degree and you will be getting two Master's degrees. Gettig a third master's degree seems a little excessive to me, personally. As a potential employer, I would wonder why someone got so many degrees. Is this person a professional student or does he/she really want to work? If you think you really love reservoir engineering, I would seek a position at a company that allows some flexibility to move between departments. At really small companies, an engineer sometimes has to "do it all" - facillities design, environmental issues, manage the budget and reservoir engineering. If you can find a smaller company where you can study on your own to learn reservoir engineering, that might be a better approach. At the end of the day, what really counts on a resume is what you have accomplished, not just what you have studied. Best of luck to you.
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