Petroleum engineer is the new hot job
Posted
May 06 2008, 03:05 AM
by
Jon Markman
Rating:
If soaring gasoline prices are blowing a hole in your commuting budget, perhaps you ought to consider going to work for an oil company. That seems to be the employment road to riches these days, as the industry reportedly faces the loss of half of its aging work force over the next decade.
According to a report by Cambridge Energy Research Associates, the energy industry will lose as many as 15% of its engineers in just two years to retirement, and has therefore launched an all-out assault on finding, training and retaining new young staffers. It sounds like the boom in demand for software developers in Silicon Valley in the '90s. Bonuses and perks are escalating as companies vie for talent. Report author Pritesh Patel said new workers will stream into the industry from around the world, but there will still be a “knowledge gap” that will hamper efforts to find and exploit new oil and gas reserves.
It sounds like this is a better direction for college graduates to head than the traditional havens of medicine and law. The Society of Petroleum Engineers has published a survey that shows the average base salary for petroleum engineers was $122,458 in 2007, up 5% from 2006. Bonuses, housing allowances, retirement plan contributions and the like reportedly push the average compensation to $167,712. All this at a time when doctors and IT pros are facing cutbacks.
The Financial Times reports that the talent shortage will worsen soon, as fewer than 1,000 students are being produced annually by geociences grad schools, a figure that’s down 90% from 1982. With talent so hard to find, The FT reports that oil and gas companies have begun to scour high schools to offer internships and scholarships to entice kids to enter the field. Also sought-after: financial support staff skilled in the special needs of the industry.
So if you’ve got a son or daughter entering college next fall who’s as comfortable with an HP 35 scientific calculator as with an iPod, point them in the direction of the geophysics department on their new campus. That’s where the jobs are going to be when they’re ready to graduate. It's actually a pretty cool occupation for young people, as they are virtually guaranteed to travel the world, from Angola and Kazakhstan to Indonesia and Brazil, to help energy companies slake the world's insatiable thirst for new oil and gas sources.
