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.
Unless you are at the VERY top of your class when you graduate, you may have a hard time finding a job. In the US, we have shed nearly 150,000 jobs over the last 6 months due to the severe drop in the price of oil. Petroleum engineering graduates in the US are having a very difficult time finding a job. I would strongly recommend that you broaden your background by getting a degree in mechanical or civil engineering. Civil is a good fit with your geological background (I have my bachelor's in Civil). In this way you may be able to get a job outside the oil industry. It may pay less than petroleum engineers are making but you have a better chance of getting at least some kind of job. When the price of oil recovers (it will, but it's just a matter of time and it may take years), you can always jump back into the oil industry.
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If you are asking me what software programs you need to purchase, it would depend greatly on what type of work you plan to do. Reservoir engineers use different programs than drilling engineers do. The best way to answer that question is to review the courses required by universities that offer a degree in petroleum engineering. Each of those courses will have it's own set of software that is required. Unfortunately, when I entered the industry, we didn't have many computer programs at all. Personal computers didn't even exist yet. In my current work as an environmental engineer, I don't use any computer programs other than WORD, EXCEL and POWERPOINT.
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When I started out, I spent about 25% of my time at the rig or out in the field. Currently, I'm gone about 10% of the time. I have had some jobs where I worked a regular 9 to 5 day in the office for months and months on end, so had a lot of time with my family. It really depends on the business cycle and what area of the business you specialize in. When I was a reservoir engineer, I almost never travelled. As a drilling engineer, expect to travel quite a bit more.
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If you are still in school, the number one thing you could do would be to land an internship working for an oil and gas company. That will give you some practical experience. You could also take some courses in Petroleum engineering and geology. The basic problem solving skills you have learned as a chemical engineer will serve you well as a petroleum engineer. Based on the current market conditions, however, the competition is very intense for petroleum engineering jobs. You need to have great grades, good leadership experience (president of a technical society, a sorority or fraternity), good people skills and solid recommendations from professors.
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Toymaker
With all the high-tech kids toys, is there still a demand for traditional ones?
Nurse Practitioner
Could a nurse practitioner do the job of a primary care physician?
Air Traffic Controller
When would you order fighter jets to be scrambled?
Please check out earlier posts. I've already addressed that question.
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I can't really make a prediction on that. Nobody knows what oil prices will be like.
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I certainly don't use ALL of the math I learned every day when I do Petroleum engineering work, however, I can say that all the math I learned serves as the foundation for many of the software programs and simulations in reservoir modeling and drilling engineering design work that I have done. In order to trust the software that you use, you do need to understand what goes on behind the scenes. I will have to say that one of my favorite classes in college was Systems Science and Mathematics. The course was composed entirely of real world problems and the various mathematical methods used to solve each kind of problem.
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