<p>5, 10, 20 years?</p>
<p>Until someone invents a Mr. Fusion.</p>
<p>(Tough sayin', but I think petroleum engineers will be around for at least as long as anyone college-aged is going to stick around before retiring.)</p>
<p>As long as we use fuels. You see, the petroleum industry is not going to vanish over night; they are smarter than that. They will simply invest their record profits in renewable engergy, and slowly transition into producing fuels that way. </p>
<p>I bet in 50 years time, we will still have all of those use petroleum companies, however, I bet very few of them will be producing and refining petroleum.</p>
<p>So to answer your question, chemical engineers, specifically petroleum engineers, will just have to learn to transition into the new industry. Its the same for all other engineering professions as well. You think EE's learned the stuff they are doing now 40 years ago in college? No.</p>
<p>Petroleum engineers are generally smart people. Most will survive, and so will their high paying jobs. I also bet they will have a HUGE hand in developing alternative fuels.</p>
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As long as we use fuels. You see, the petroleum industry is not going to vanish over night; they are smarter than that. They will simply invest their record profits in renewable engergy, and slowly transition into producing fuels that way.</p>
<p>I bet in 50 years time, we will still have all of those use petroleum companies, however, I bet very few of them will be producing and refining petroleum.</p>
<p>So to answer your question, chemical engineers, specifically petroleum engineers, will just have to learn to transition into the new industry. Its the same for all other engineering professions as well. You think EE's learned the stuff they are doing now 40 years ago in college? No.</p>
<p>Petroleum engineers are generally smart people. Most will survive, and so will their high paying jobs. I also bet they will have a HUGE hand in developing alternative fuels.
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<p>Well, actually, that logic doesn't exactly follow, for petroleum engineering is not exactly the same thing as engineering for a petroleum company, and it certainly isn't the same thing as chemical engineering. Petroleum engineers are basically a specialized kind of civil engineering combined with mining engineering, in that they are concerned with the methods of drilling for and producing oil/gas. Chemical engineers, if they work for a petroleum company, will then take that raw oil/gas and refine it into usable end-products such as gasoline. </p>
<p>Hence, frankly, I don't see that petroleum engineers will play much role at all in terms of developing alternative fuels, unless those alt fuels are to be extracted from deep in the Earth. I certainly agree that the petroleum industry will probably be smart enough to transition to alternative fuels, but that's different from saying that the petroleum engineering skillset will still be marketable. </p>
<p>Now, of course, petroleum engineers are not dumb and they can retrain. But I don't know that they have any advantage in that respect over any other engineer.</p>
<p>It's hard to say. I think the industry will freeze hiring pretty soon.</p>
<p>Payne, can you please elaborate? Also, PE is more keen to business...</p>
<p>I know that upstream is quite profitable right now, but what about those going into downstream? Are they raking in the big cash too?</p>
<p>No, not as much. Salaries chase where the profit is coming from. Virtually all the profit is coming from upstream jobs.</p>
<p>we use oil for more than fuel. well still be mining for it long after alternative fuels kick in.</p>
<p>i would like to know more about this also since i am thinking of majoring in petroleum engineering</p>
<p>What do you want to know?</p>
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we use oil for more than fuel. well still be mining for it long after alternative fuels kick in.
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<p>Folks 'round these parts need their chapstick, after all.</p>
<p>Many oil companies are investing in alternative energies. </p>
<p>But keep in mind we use oil for other things...such as plastic. Not to mention airplanes will not be adopting these alternative energies for a long time after we transition cars over...</p>
<p>Quite frankly people, I'm a petroleum engineering major and if oil is no longer used, petroleum engineers are no longer needed. Not to say that a petroleum engineer can't do any other form of engineering. During the oil bust, many petroleum engineers went into mechancial and civil engineering jobs. Those fields are very closely related to one another. Any engineer who has studied fluids can become a petroleum engineer. Even aerospace engineers can become petroleum engineers. A petroleum engineer cannot do a chemical engineers job, neither can they do an electrical engineers job. Those engineers will be very valuable to petroleum companies in the future with alternative fuel developments. The only other avenue petroleum engineers can go into and still work for an oil company is geothermal energy. Now, I am speaking about the future of the industry. This will not happen overnight. We are just beggining to see this transition take place. It will be a wrong process. Petroleum Engineer as a career is a gamble to begin with. Now, with the state of the energy industry it is a gamble to even major in the subject. Of course you will find jobs now, and you will find job's into the near future. The thing is people, petroleum engineers are valuable because of their knowledge of how to extract and find oil. The more experience you have doing this, the more valuable you are to the company. If an oil company is not producing oil as it used to then you are no longer valuable. If the price is not their for oil you are no longer valuable. They have petroleum engineers being laid off right now with the price of oil as it is. They are not laying off their experienced personel, but they are laying off inexperienced one's. Petroleum engineering is essentially a race against time. If you can move up the ranks and secure a management position then you won't have to worry about job security. But if oil is not being produced then why pay you that salary for obsolete knowledge. What you will see, not now, but into the future, is the usefulness and value of other engineering specialties to the oil companies. By that time they won't be oil companies but will be energy production companies. All in all, your still an engineer, and a smart engineer can easily go into grad school and specialize in something else. That is why it is essential to keep your gpa up and your options open.</p>
<p>Now, once an engineer, your an engineer. If you think you are going to get your degree and quit using everything you learned in school you have another thing coming. Or just quit learning everything all together. If you think school was a challenge you have another thing coming. Now, geologist/geophysicist will really get the short end of the stick. They will have to find a whole new career path.</p>
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Now, once an engineer, your an engineer. If you think you are going to get your degree and quit using everything you learned in school you have another thing coming. Or just quit learning everything all together. If you think school was a challenge you have another thing coming. Now, geologist/geophysicist will really get the short end of the stick. They will have to find a whole new career path.
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<p>"If you think school was challenging"? Idk about you, but school is meant to be challenging in part so engineering students can handle an engineering career. Yes, a job as an engineer is likely harder than school was... but you make it sound as if all engineering classes shouldn't be challenging, which is crazy.</p>
<p>Also, I can't speak for a geophysicist but I can for a geologist as my father is one. The fact is, geologists as a whole won't need to find a "new career path" at all... my father doesn't even work with petroleum. Now maybe petroleum geologists might need to, but there is more than just one aspect to geology.</p>