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.
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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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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1. I chose engineering as a career mostly by default. I was good in math and science and LOVED solving practical problems relatively quickly. I did not like medicine, law or business school. I was lucky to have high school teachers that steered me towards engineering. I did not know excactly what I wanted to do within the field of engineering when I first entered colled.
2. Career wise, I figured out during my early college career that I wanted to work with things that I could touch, feel and see (i.e. civil engineering). Electrical engineering was too abstract for me, though I loved the math & computer engineering aspects. Chemical engineering was just a bit too complex for me (too many variables all at once). Civil engineering also had that "people" orientation that seemed to be less present in the other disciplines. Mechanical engineering was my second option if civil did not work out. When I graduated, there was a HUGE demand for engineers to do petroleum work and a degree in civil was a relatively good fit for drilling, where I started (cement design, casing design, working with geologists, doing project management / scheduling work). I started in drilling with the hope that it would work out and it did, but there was a bit of "fingers crossed" on my part at the beginning. I had several job offers and went with the company that seemed to suit my personality most closely. Over time, I moved into environmental work (which was a part of our Civil Engineering department at universtiy) as opportunity presented itself.
3) Re. the positive and negative aspects, I think I have covered this in previous posts.
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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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Choose Mechanical. It is more versatile and less dependent on the price of oil and gas. The price of oil has collapsed in the last 6 months and many, many companies aee laying people off. There's no guarantee the market will recover by the time you finish your degree. If it does not, you will have a tough time getting a job. If it DOES recover, companies will be hiring petroleum and mechanical and chemical engineers.
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Someone asked a very similar question previously, please go to the beginning of theses posts and you will find it around the 20th question or so.
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To answer your question, I need more information on what the courses of study are and the country in which you would be studying. I will admit that I am most familiar with USA programs, so am not sure if I can help, but with more information, I will try.
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