It's Not the End of Petroleum Engineering

Abstract

Is this the end of petroleum engineering as we know it? This prescient question led to the most downloaded paper from onepetro.org in 2019. The events of 2020 resulted in massive layoffs, decreased hiring and many fewer students studying petroleum engineering. In the 2019 paper the authors claimed that the future would hold fewer petroleum engineering jobs and very different types of jobs. This paper incorporates a broader range of data and proposes some specific ways to improve prospects for the discipline of petroleum engineering. The opportunity for a near-term recovery is very high as the world overcomes COVID-19 issues, oil demand recovers and the impact of chronic underinvestment in oil and gas production looms. The world's largest producers have very different abilities to respond to a near-term uptick in demand. Energy transition pressures continue to cap growth in demand; however, demand for petroleum engineers is expected to grow under almost every scenario, but not to pre-2015 levels. Increased demand in CCUS and jobs that improve sustainability of oil and gas will continue to outpace conventional jobs. Data analytics will play an increasingly large role in engineering activities. The "Is it the end?" paper started with a question, a question that I first heard asked in 1977 at the SPE Annual Fall Technical Conference and Exhibition in Denver to 1972 SPE President M. Scott Kraemer. I have heard it many times since then and asked it many times. "Would you recommend that your son or daughter study petroleum engineering?" The answer to that question was pretty easy and unanimously positive in 1977. Keep this question in mind as we review what has happened since the prior paper came out.