<p>not just pet e’s. Oil companies pay well for all sorts of engineering majors ranging from chem e, to ee to cs guys. They need all sort of talent as they work on very complex problems that require knowledge of many fields.</p>
<p>Lets not forget geophysicists and petroleum geologists. Some of their salaries make the engineers look like liberal arts grads. That is an exaggeration, but their salaries tend to be higher. I think it is a result of them universally having to get a masters to get into the field.</p>
<p>I find the whole concept of oil industry or oil usage going down the drain laughable. The industry has peaks and valleys due to economic downturns however it cannot just phase out. That is not only ridiculous but impossible.</p>
<p>I recently attended a presentation with Chevron where they plan to add to their production by 20 percent by 2020. Not to mention we have only used about 1 trillion barrels of oil since we started drilling for the black gold. There is relatively 60-70 percent of the oil left in every well ever drilled. There is also estimated to be 4 trillion barrels of oil including conventional, estimated and known reserves, unconventional like oil shale and tar sands. </p>
<p>The U.S. government is committed and the money they are sinking into the interior department, specifically the Bureau of ocean and energy management gives you some indication of the way things are going. The two agencies being BSEE and BOEM, I highly doubt you want to go off burying the oil industry. It is a cash cow, 16 and 2/3rds percent of everything produced on the outer continental shelf is Uncle Sam’s as soon as it comes up the well head. Also, if you want to bury it, I think you have to overthrow the two most profitable companies in the US, being Exxon at #1, and Chevron #2. If you want to go ahead and throw rocks at some 400-600 billion dollar alpha male gorillas, be my guest. They have 50-60 year projections. That just goes to show you how well they plan and organize their business. Rightfully, they are at the top because they plan so well and hire top talent. Not to mention nearly every major offshore development is a shared endeavor between multiple companies. Look at Shell’s Perdido platform, it is a joint venture between BP, Chevron, and Shell as the operator. What other industry allows their competition to also be their co worker and business partner on projects? </p>
<p>The energy industry is hot because it is the life blood of every economy. Without energy there are no other businesses, there are no jobs, there is no food, there is no education. A lack of energy supply equals a lack of economic growth. You can only grow as much as your energy supply allows you to. To destroy the energy industry would be a end game scenario.</p>
<p>It is also foolish because it is the boys/girls on wall street who determine what is really developed in our society. If the energy industry is where the money is being made then that is where they will invest. The oil companies go through a great deal to keeps cost and projects rolling to make the stock look great come the quarterly reports. It is even more vital when talking about oil field service companies. They have been at this for a while, they know how it works.</p>
<p>I watched a very good lecture from a Chem E professor at Stanford, and in that lecture he talked about oil projections, particularly supply and where the graduates of Stanford were choosing to go. Very few of those guys choose to go into it, Why? He says it is simply not the hip thing to go into. That is just it. Trendy, upbeat, “world changing mentalities” like to go where stuff is moving a long. He also said a lot of the students just don’t care about petroleum engineering enough to even consider it as a major. I think at one point he even laughed at it, he even said his students just don’t do it anymore. They don’t do refining. Many see an oil job as a boring or a safe bet. Many go into material research.</p>
<p>Much of what is said is true. The lack of programs, lack of teachers to lead the programs, location, location, location. Many don’t see Houston as a “happening city.” Would you rather work for Exxon in the Woodlands, Texas, or work for Google in Mountain View, California? Many people don’t want to be in west Texas fighting the heat or rattle snakes. They don’t want to be in North Dakota in the frozen tundra or being attacked by a Yeti. It is also known to mess up relationships pretty quick with people traveling everywhere. A classmate of mine’s father is an engineer with Chevron. He travels to Singapore every other month and is gone for 28 days. That takes its toll on a family, he does get those 28 days off to travel though. Both my father and his brother went through divorces because they worked out in the gulf and their wives cheated on them. There are a lot of things you have to consider and take into account. A lot of the time you have to work with people who have less than a high school education and probably have a criminal record. You have to be able to communicate and lead these individuals. It is not easy. All of these issues contribute to the pay and overall compensation engineers get. </p>
<p>Let me ask you this, how many companies have pension plans these day, how many of them offer you 7-8 percent contribution matches, dollar for dollar on your 401k. How many offer you 20k-30k signing bonuses at the start? How many can you retire with 3-5 million in the bank as a field employee? How many jobs can you work travel around a bit, and also get a few weeks off to go where you want to go and do what you want to do. You have 14,21,28 days in some cases as a drilling engineer to go where your heart desires. Very good for someone who is young, single, and doesn’t mind being in a remote place. It is good for someone wanting to build some capital fast, sometimes they have really good relocation packages as well. </p>
<p>To anyone who hates the oil industry, I suggest you throw away everything made by it as well. You won’t have much left in your house. Your chemical, medicines, plastics, vehicles, maybe even the house itself. The roof, the siding, the counter tops. Haha, go ahead and start looking. Just ride around on some metal tracks, throw your tires in the garbage. Good luck lubing up the engineer or the axle. Oh, I hope your electricity isn’t powered by gas generators, or coal fired power plants either. Hopefully you live next to a nuclear power plant. I love people like you, truly do. Oblivious to the world, must be nice.</p>
<p>I grew up in West Texas… The boom ended right when I was born … spent most of my life in that abandoned wasteland .seen first-hand how fast the jobs , money, and people disappeared . now , it’s booming again … which is great . .people can debate economic theory and what not , but this stuff has a history of repeating …it will happen again.</p>
<p>No doubt it will eventually happen again. However, the world has to meet unprecedented energy demands. Population increases, expanding and emerging economies. If the oil industry was to collapse, it would be devastating for the entire world economy. We may eventually see a slow down. However, a total collapse, I think, wouldn’t be likely.</p>
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<p>Do miners really make a lot of money? From reading history books, I thought that mining was a low-wage profession. I wonder if things have changed.</p>
<p>Well I find that often times salries represent a lot of things. A person might look at a $$$$$$ salary and get starry eyed but do not know why it is that much anyways.<br>
I am sure its is not so but look at it from this point of view. </p>
<p>That $$$$$$ salary could mean </p>
<p>$ Bad working condition’s </p>
<p>$ long working hours </p>
<p>$ Dangerous </p>
<p>$ numerous Responsibilities/stressful </p>
<p>$ Isolation from your family</p>
<p>I know for a fact that most drilling engineering work a 21/21 schedule for the first 3-5 years of there career. That is 21 days offshore or in the field and 21 days at home. Some schedules may even be more then that, like 28/28. It is very hard for you to start a family or be in a relationship during that time period. More then likely if you aren’t married before you go on that type of schedule, you won’t be until you get an office job. Not too many people are willing to put up with that. The working conditions on today’s rigs wouldn’t be bad for the engineer. However, if you work for a service company it could be bad and the hours could be long. Oil field operations are large and expensive projects. All that responsibility usually rests on the back of the engineer in charge of the operation. Other engineers don’t get that kind of responsibility early on, which may also be a reflection of the salary differences. I’m still surprised so many people are going for it and I assume they don’t know what they are getting themselves into.</p>