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.
Very tough question. Petroleum engineering, historically, HAS been cyclical. When times are good, petroleum engineers command the top salaries. Right now, the price of oil has dropped below $80/bbl and some are saying that domestic spending (and thus demand for PEs) will drop. I suggest you take a look (probably on Wikipedia or SPE.org) to see how quickly oil prices can rise and fall. In bad times, other industries tend not to hire petroleum engineers because there is a perception (partly true) that they are too specialized to adapt to a general manufacturing job. On the flip side, large oil companies have extensive training programs and are geared up to train MEs, CEs, ChEs to do petroleum work. If you think that you will be at the top of your class at Texas Tech, petroleum engineering is not too much of a gamble and you will have your pick of jobs among both independent companies and major oil companies. (If AP Physics, AP Calculus, etc. come easily to you, that's a good indication that you will probably do well in college.) However, if you graduate with a 3.0 average or less in Petroleum Engineering with mediocre internships and the economy is down, you may have a tough time finding a job. I tend to be a bit risk averse and recommend to folks to stick with a broader degree (you almost can't go wrong with mechanical or chemical engineering in terms of versatility) and try for internships in the oil industry during university. You also should investigate how difficult it would be to switch into petroleum engineering during your second or third year OR possibly get a dual degree such as ME and PE if you can afford that. If you have a lot of AP courses, purusing a dual degree may be a realistic option. Definitely talk to the advisors at Texas Tech. Hopefully they won't make you select your major until after you are admitted. Best of luck to you.
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I honestly don't know very much about 3D printing so I can't answer your question.
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If you will post your email address, I will contact you. I don't post my personal email on this forum
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It will depend on your employer and how well you did in school. The oil industry is doing pretty well in Australia but you will likely need to be living in Melbourne or Perth. With a degree in Chemistry, I would approach one of the major service companies that supplies drilliing mud & related service. They often employ chemists. Try the MI Swaco division of Schlumberger, Baker Hughes company or Newpark. Try doing a google search for drilling fluid companies in Australia. With your background, you might be able to pursue your degree part time while working.
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Wow. Tough question. Many books have been written about the topic and I can't begin to distill this into a simple response but I'll try. Crude is somewhat unique among commodities because it does not have a "shelf life", offers an unbelievably good concentration of btu's per volume, we need it to enjoy the lifestyle we have, create cosmetics, plastics and pharmaceuticals, it's not a renewable resource and much of the easy reserves are gone. Keep in mind that at the time of the Iraq war we had not fully mastered the horizontal drilling and fracking technologies that have allowed the US to become a net exporter. So, at the time of the Iraq war, I think there was real concern that the large volume of reserves could shift the balance of power in the Mid East.
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Although I have a BS in Civil and did start as a drilling engineer, your chances are better with a BS in Mechanical. When I graduated (30+ years ago), petroleum engineers were in very, very short supply. Also, I had some significant summer internship experience, graduated top of my class and am female. Women engineers, while not exactly abundant these days, were very scarce 30 years ago.
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