Another Energy Shortfall

If you have math-whiz kids, consider encouraging them to become petroleum engineers. They’ll make a fortune, and probably spend time in such garden spots as Kuwait, Kazakhstan, or scenic Sakhalin Island.

As BusinessWeek recently noted, a growing shortage of technical types — petroleum engineers, geophysicists, technicians — is now plaguing the energy producers and their oilfield-services peers. Schlumberger CEO Andrew Gould talked about the shortage when his company released its latest quarterly results, as have other industry leaders such as ConocoPhillips CEO James Mulva.


By now, you needn’t be a Texas wildcatter to know that we’re facing oil production declines in many areas of the world, as formerly thriving fields grow tired, lose pressure, and yield less crude. In the U.S., for instance, output has declined more than 20% in just the past decade. And that phenomenon is being repeated in other producing areas, including Mexico and the North Sea.

To compensate, producers have moved into much deeper waters and more remote locations in search of new oil discoveries. However, this trend only increases the need for sophisticated technologies and the experts who can effectively employ them. But progressively larger numbers of today’s oil-patch engineers are more likely dreaming about retirement than offshore horizontal wells.

Motley Fool