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.
There aren't too many schools that offer Petroleum Engineering. The top ones, in my opinion, are University of Texas, Colorado School of Mines, Penn State, LSU, Stanford, Oklahoma, Texas A&M. There are probably ~ 100 schools or more that offer Chemical Engineering. Some of the top ones are those above plus Univ of Minnesota, Washington Univ in St. Louis, Ohio State, Univ of Michigan.
ABET is the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. They certify that Engineering schools meet certain criteria. You only want to attend an ABET accredited school if you plan to practice engineering because companies will know that you have mastered certain subjects. Most schools that offer engineering ARE accredited, but a few are not. (Princeton university, for example, was NOT accredited for chemical engineering back in the 1980's but probably is now). In addition, there are new schools that are not accredited until they have been in existence for a few years. One that springs to mind is Olin College. It is now accredited but the first few years it was not, so it was a leap of faith for those first few classes of students. They are taking a very innovative approach to teaching engineering - my daughter visited and considered attending. Olin is very intent on keeping tuition affordable and getting internships for students. Cooper Union is another terrific engineering school in NYC that has the same mission. It has probably changed, but when I was in high school, IF you could get in to Cooper Union, it was free!
SPE is the Society of Petroleum Engineers. They are the technical society for practicing PE's and for students. There are similar organizations for Civil, Chemical, etc. Don't forget to check out the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) - they offer scholarships for all disciplines. There is also NSBE (for African Americans), SHPE (Hispanic) and AISES (Indian Americans). All are working to encourage under-represented minorities to pursue a career in STEM.Good luck to you!
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Energy companies hire a lot of chemical and mechanical engineers, so your Chem E background is vary valuable. The best thing you can do to be more competitive is to get an internship at an energy company. If you college offers a Petroleum Engineering program, see if they have an intro course that you could take. If not, I would take a course in geology and in groundwater hydrology. The Civil Engineering department may offer the second one. I took a course like that at night while working full time. We studied many of the same principles that reservoir engineers need such as porosity, permeability, reservoir properties, etc. I had course in soil mechanics, which also came in handy. It all really depends in what aspect of petroleum engineering you are interested in. If it is reservoir engineering then geology / hydrology are useful. If drilling, a lot of the civil courses are useful - steel design, concrete design, project management. If you are interested in processing oil and gas once it has been produced, then your Chem E courses are super applicable. I would hope that your Chem E program requires you to take some basic economics course. If not, then you will need that. Hope this is helpful.
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Environmental Engineers work on 3 aspects to prevent this: Designing equipment (underground storage tanks, piping, valves, alarm systems, leak detection devices) to prevent leakage; Writing operating procedures to ensure the equipment is used properly and Training the people to use the equipment; They also work for Regulatory Agencies who inspect service stations and loading depots to ensure local laws and regulations are being followed and issuing fines and penalties when they are not. Depending on the jurisdiction, they may have authority to shut down a facility that is posing a danger to the environment. In the United States, the SuperFund program was created to clean up facilities that have polluted the environment.Environmental Engineers may have degrees in Environmental Engineering (a relatively new degree created in the last ~20 yeara) or they may be Civil Engineers, Chemical Engineers. Occasionally they may have a degree in Petroleum or Petrochemical, but I haven't encountered very many with that background.
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I have seen many cycles in the market. When times are good, Petroleum Engineers command the highest salaries and often get many perks, like a company car. However, when times are tough, they can't even get a job if they have a petroleum degree and no experience in any other industries. Their most common solution is to go back to school to get a master's degree in chemical, mechanical or industrial OR look for work in an overseas location, in a potentially challenging environment (Sub-saharan Africa, Saudi Arabia, etc.) I'm not much of a risk taker, so that's why I generally don't recommend a BS in Petroleum. The market can change very quickly, so although your freshman year in college, things look great, it can change by the time you graduate. The market will definitely bounce back, but the question is when and how long will it last?
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Given the current state of the US situation, I would go for option 1. It gives you the most flexibility. Try to get summer internships with an energy company and then evaluate the market once you have finished your bachelor's degree. Many companies will pay for you to get a Master's degree at night, going part time. That's what I did. It's a tough slog to get through the coursework AND work full time, but I was making a great salary and had no student loans to pay off when I was done.
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I suggest you do some research on the price of crude oil. It is lower than it has been for awhile so the prospects for petroleum engineers is not good. I also suggest you read my prior posts as I have answered numerous questions on this. I am not a fan of specializing in an undergrad degree. I highly recommend the general, traditional degrees like civil, mechanical, chemical and electrical. You will get a lot of on the job training no matter where you work. Engineering school is mostly about learning basic principles, learning how to solve problems and working in teams. Also, you will get a higher starting salary as a petroleum IF you can get a job. If/when you get laid off it will be tough to find another job. We are seeing a lot of volatility in the market right now.
Ps - I'm not a "sir".
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Yes, according to the US bureau of labor statistics, in the US, the demand is growing at 15% per year. That said, the oil business is very cyclical and things can collapse quickly, like they did in1985 and in 2014.
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