I am a current high school junior looking at this as a potential major which also will influence my college choice.
I know oil has dropped to the lowest in years. Layoffs have started in oil giants such as BP. Is Petroleum engineering a good major to get into in the near future? Will the classes of 2019+ still have the job opportunities?
Thanks
It’s difficult to project 4 years into the future. The oil industry cycles more than some.
That is what I have heard. If jobs were still there in four years, do you think the salaries would still be as high as they are today?
If you look at every thread on here it’s all about petroleum engineering or chemical with some type of petroleum concentration. That alone steers me away because there isn’t a very big availability as is. If you look at the oil industry today, fracking is the source of low gas and oil prices. Take any into to geology course and you’ll see that’s the case for 10-15 years at best. It’s scary seeing the reality of the oil industry because we are on our last leg of fossil fuel. If you want to deal with fuel like me, go into Chem eng and do bio fuel or bio energy for renewable sources for fuel. Unfortunatly, with policies and the oil industry today, there isn’t a huge availability in the bio energies. At least for the time being. Being as conservative minded as I am, that steered me away because I’m not much of a gambler. In reality it’s just hard to predict the future and anything can really happen.
If I were you, I would go into mechanical or chemical engineering. You can still be petroleum engineer with these degrees, but they are more diverse so you have other options. Mechanical engineering can go into oil as well as natural energy, automotive, aerospace, and manufacturing. This is more broad for many future branches you can go into. Some schools offer a certificate in oil and gas, so you can get a broad engineering degree and an oil certificate.
Personally, I wouldn’t touch Petroleum Engineering with a 10 foot pole… Very uncertain future lies ahead for that field IMO. While there is probably plenty of oil out there to last through any fresh grad’s career, the demand is likely to decline significantly within the next 10 to 20 years as we move away from gasoline/diesel powered vehicles.
I agree with others here that Chemical Engineering with a minor or concentration in petroleum sounds like a wiser decision.
@fractalmstr unfortunately I can’t see us moving away from gas/diesel powered vehicles over the next 10-20 years. How many affordable electric cars (and remember affordable also extends to emerging markets) are being produced right now? Now compare that to the number of gas and diesel cars. It’s not even close, and even if a parity is reached, there will still be a huge number of gas powered automobiles on the market.
Chemical engineering as regards technology found in storage batteries would be more promising. Boiling oil has an increasingly limited future.
The crash in oil prices right now is a perfect example of why Petroleum is a bad risk, if that helps you any.