Our thoughts on 'The Future Need for Petroleum Engineering'

“A few weeks ago we reposted an article by Scott Wilson on “Why We Matter”, continuing the theme I’d like to repost another excellent SPE article on “The Future Need for Petroleum Engineering”. This article presents an optimistic future, that can help us continue to hire great talent into our industry.

One of the questions we frequently get from graduates during hiring is “Isn’t your industry dead”, or worse the death blow statement “I thought you made software, I didn’t realise you’re oil and gas, I’m not interested!”.

The article presents IEO2019 predictions of energy sources in 2050. The blue and brown lines in the graph show that projected need for oil and gas will continue to grow.

When there is so much bad press about the oil industry and the need for reducing greenhouse gases and reducing CO2 emissions, it’s great to see that while renewables show healthy growth, there is still a need for hydrocarbons. The article also goes on to explain how our skills can be redirected to drilling for clean water, geothermal production and CO2 storage.

The article cites some examples of how data analytics, machine learning and digitalization can enhance our abilities to manage oil and gas production. It goes on to state that an engineer would have spent an average of 2 hours analyzing data from a test, while a machine-learning algorithm was able to complete the task in less than 4 seconds – we see similar results with ALPs software.

More developments in this area will continue our ability to optimize and economize our operations……