<p>I just wanted to ask if anyone has an opinion on going into petroleum engineering right now.</p>
<p>I live in Ontario and I've been accepted to the University of Alberta, but I am having a hard time deciding if petroleum engineering is a good profession to be in right now. I really don't want to move away from home and pay living expenses, food, etc... if the outlook of petroleum engineering is getting bleek.</p>
<p>Does anyone know what the market for jobs is currently like right now, especially due to the BP disaster? It seems that the whole world is hating oil right now, and I don't want to enter a field where people are getting laid off left and right. Yesterday they even said that Shell is closing their largest Canadian oil refinery.</p>
<p>That being said, almost all the sites I have seen say that petroleum engineering is only gaining jobs and that the baby boomers are retiring so I really don't know what's true and what's not.</p>
<p>Do you think petroleum engineering will still be a worthwhile profession in the next 10 years? Should I just go with mechanical engineering? Is the average salary of a petroleum engineer really 90K+ like stated on most sites? </p>
<p>Also, any opinions on a double major, mechanical eng and petro eng just to be safe?</p>
<p>I think there will be plenty demand for Pet Eng for the foreseeable future. Ironically, this tragic spill in the Gulf will cause the demand to rise instead of fall. The US government is likely to overreact and impose tough limitations on future deepwater drilling. That will do nothing but expedite the demand versus supply concerns that are very real in the world.</p>
<p>The world uses about 87 million barrels of oil per day, and can produce only slightly more than that at current prices and technology levels. The recession of the last two years has kept worldwide demand basically flat. But worldwide production hasn’t increased in that time frame either.</p>
<p>IMO, we have basically reached the point known as “Peak Oil”, which means that the world will never produce substantially more oil per day than it does right now. When the world economy gets just a little better, we may pass that point and begin the inevitable decline that forecasters fear.</p>
<p>FWIW, I think there will be great opportunities in the O&G industry for the next 25 to 50 years. Hopefully, a reasonable alternative will be developed before it becomes too late.</p>
<p>Thanks for the input. Wouldn’t a better economy increase the need for oil even more though, thus increasing jobs and promoting the building of oil rigs?</p>
<p>What do you mean by inevitable decline? We can’t just throw oil aside anytime soon, even if we can’t produce enough, can we? I just don’t see the world finding anything to replace oil within the next 50 years…</p>
<p>By inevitable decline, I am talking about the likelihood that we will never produce more oil per day than we produce right now. It will take huge investments to keep that 87 million barrels per day at a flat rate, and it will still not be sustainable. Those huge investments will need plenty of Pet E’s to implement.</p>
<p>Several of the world’s great oil fields are at risk of dramatic drops in production and predicted reserves. The most critical one is the giant Ghawar Field in Saudi Arabia. It has steadily seen an increased water cut over the past 10 years or so, and will probably produce much less oil than is forecasted or reported by the Saudi’s.</p>
<p>The world is in for a very rude awakening sometime in the near future with respect to oil supplies versus demand. And you are correct that we cannot just throw oil aside anytime soon.</p>