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.
I would definitely expand your scope. Unless you are working in a country with a nationalized oil company that is guaranteeing employment, there are very few jobs in petroleum geoscience this days, especially with just a bachelor's degree. Jobs in Petroleum Engineering are pretty scarce too, so having computer science in your tool kit will help. One of the keys to securing permanent employment, especially in the US, is to get a good summer internship, which means good grades and leadership activities are a must. If you want to broaden your opportunities more, you might consider a more general path, such as mechanical or civil engineering. Civil is a good fit with geoscience. There are almost always jobs available in mechanical or civil, although they may not pay as high a starting salary as petroleum engineering. When oil prices are high, major oil companies are always willing to hire mechanical, chemical, civil etc and train them up to do what needs to be done. They know there will never be enough petroleum engineers to fill the job slots when oil prices are high. I have written extensively on this in earlier postings if you want to read more about it. Best of luck to you.
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Many people who work in the petroleum engineering field do not have a degree in petroleum. Most of the integrated major companies and many of the large independent oil companies have internal training programs. The most common degrees they recruit are Mechanical and Chemical engineering. Personally, I have a Civil engineering degree and that was a great fit for my start as a Drilling engineer. The most important thing you can do is to try to get a summer internship with an oil company or a service company. If there is a Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) professional section near you, I would attend their meetings and do some networking. I believe you can join as a student member even if you do not major in Petroleum. I would also investigate attending their national convention or conference.
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You should specialize in the field you enjoy the most. The pay is fairly comparable in all three.
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You can find an answer pretty easily if you google it.: "An open-hole completion refers to a well that is drilled to the top of the hydrocarbon reservoir. The well is then cased at this level, and left open at the bottom. Also known as top sets and barefoot completions, open-hole completions are used to reduce the cost of casing where the reservoir is solid and well-known."
Just FYI, the purpose of this blog is to answer questions about what it is like to work in this profession, not so much to answer technical questions.
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EMT
Does your crew ever fake an emergency to slice through traffic?
Claims Adjuster
Do you ever feel bad for the people whose claims you deny?
Sr. Software Engineer
Is it basically impossible for a skilled programmer to be out of work these days?
Well, I happen to like both as I have degrees in both. The demand for petroleum engineers is very cyclical. We are in an "up" cycle now for petroleum (in 2018). The problem is that when the cycle is down, petroleum engineers are not in much demand by other industries. As recently as 2015, petroleum engineers could not get jobs upon graduation. Civil engineers are always in demand but they usually make lower salaries but their long term job stability is much higher. In the end, it is important that you really enjoy what you are doing and look forward to coming to work every day. Compared to many other careers, engineers in the USA make a good living.
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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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I do believe that unconventional wells are fracked more than once sometimes. As to the exact cause I can’t say. Your reasoning sounds logical. I have never worked unconventional reservoirs personally. My experience is in conventional sandstone.
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