[larrydallas]

The son of a woman I work with is a junior in college who is working as an intern in a small oil firm for the summer. She is really excited about his job. They are paying him about $4500 per month for 3 months and he has got a job lined up for when he gradutes in spring of 09. His immediate supervisor makes something like $21K a month but he has been in the profession 24 years.

These people do not know a thing about peak oil and diminishing oil reserves so I did not throw a damper on things by bringing it up. I just listened to her talk about it.

The question is...well..the long term outlook for petrolium based energy is bad but the short term outlook is very good since oil prices are soaring and the firms are paying a premium for good people who work for them and get the remaining oil to market.

So...can this guy expect to be making 6 figures for the next few years but then maybe get laid off when oil prices too high for the economy to be sustained yet still come out better than most people if he is wise and saves his income (aka invests in gold/silver)....OR.....do you think the economic cnsequences of energy prices soaring hit sooner than later so he will not have even a 5-10 year career in this area?

[3aidlillahi]

Very good job opportunities. Especially if one is smart.

Imagine, he'll graduate in 2 years, add two more for graduate school. Right now, Master's in Geology/Petro Eng. will make ≈$80k a year on the first year, many with bonuses (10k?). Over four years, prices will go up as well as the base price for oil companies (price at which they will determine a field to be economical - due to the tendency for oil prices to plummet historically). So while pay will go up for newbies, inflation will keep up. But $80 grand a year is pretty good, especially when you're 23-25.

If he's smart, invest that in alternative energy, land, silver/gold, energy stocks, etc. Then he can get more bang for his buck rather than the typical method of splurging what you have plus getting into debt which is common for people these days.

I doubt he'll really have a hard time keeping a job for a few decades. And again, if he's smart, put away a couple grand a year in the future, and he could retire, with some luck, on a good piece of land relatively young.

As the price gets higher and oil becomes more scarce, all that means is that there will still be demand for engineers, but they'll have to be very good and creative in order to capture the remaining oil.

[Denny]

Yes. If you think of the situation simply, we are not finding the bonanza oil fields anymore, we in essence are down to grasping at "straws" if you think of an oil drilling rig as a straw. We will have to have many more straws in the ground than ever before to get our fix of oil. Each straw is work to be done.

[Eli]

I have to agree with all the Yes's there is no better career to go in right now.

The lists of careers that are doomed are longer than your arm.

[larrydallas]

Thanks for all of the responses.

I wanted to hear what others had to say before I posted my forecast. I think the outlook is excellent in the next 2-5 years because oil prices will be pushed higher and higher so they pay scale will do the same for getting it to market.

BUT...something that is just discounted is that for the oil to stay high in price and sell it has to stay at a price point that is below what will break the average consumer. Right now with $4 gasoline in the US people who are minimum wage to about $8 per hour workers (perhaps 20-40 million people in the workforce) and well as part time workers are not able to make it. They are now financing their daily lives on credit card after credit card with default rates breaking records each month.

When the bottom tier of the economic ladder falls out of the functioning state it will have a ripple effect which means less economic activity occurs in the aggregate. Yes oil demand would drop and in theory price would come back down to get those people running again but once the damage has been done recovery can not be that fast.

I see it as being very similar to the real estate mess where banks, brokers, and builders were paying mad money to their workers when the times were good but now it all just went bust. You also have the democrats that are signaling they will tax big oil hard on the corporate end to lower or drop gasoline tax at the pump.

I think this guy should rake in money for the time before we get to the breaking point, save all of it, and then buy land to start some kind of private business on his own. I don't think we will go Mad Max overnight but more localized business will be the wave of the future since expensive transportation will make commerce as it is done today a bad option.

The quote from Gone with the Wind where Mr. OHara says "Land is the only thing that lasts" is very true.

This next X-mas season where we will probably have $5 gasoline in the US and God knows how much for heating oil will be a great indicator of what is ahead. People are no longer able to buy and sell homes like baseball cards to spin phoney wealth out of thin air. In fact, many people owe more than what their house is worth. The oil and gas industry will not be immune from how the general public is doing because that is who the customer is.