re: US College Students Are Shunning Oil-Industry Degrees for ESG Future

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It's already been noted across the industry that the COIVD 2020 downturn motivated quite a bit of elder field experienced folks to just retire early from the industry

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I was one but with the money they are offering right now it's hard to say no to one more ride on the merry go round.

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My daughter is working on her PhD in MechE

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Good dad

Kids don't just trip and fall into being successful.

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don’t understand why petroleum engineering is even a degree. It seemed like a marketing gimmick.

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Never heard of geology, have you?

This article feels a bit silly.

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This year, the number of new petroleum-engineering graduates in the US is expected to total about 400 -- an 83% decline from 2017, when they peaked at more than 2,300

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The oil market crashed from 2014-2015. So PETE graduation peaked 2-3 years after. Makes perfect sense, as that class would have been midway through their program (likely already taking some amount of PETE classes) when the downturn happened.

Similarly, the current oil boom cycle has really only been going for about a year. It’ll take a few years of high prices/demand for engineers before PETE enrollment & graduation rates get anywhere near 2015-2017 levels.

Maybe some of it has to do with an “ESG” mindset but most of it is due to the fact that we are less than a decade removed from the worst bust cycle since the 1980’s.

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I don’t understand why petroleum engineering is even a degree. It seemed like a marketing gimmick.

It doesn’t seem materially different enough from chemical engineering.

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Awful take. PETE and ChE have about as much overlap as ChE and ME. Probably less overlap than mechanical and civil.

You don’t learn about reservoirs or geology in ChE. You don’t learn about distillation or reactors in PETE. Are there jobs in the oilfield that are available to engineers from multiple disciplines? Sure. That happens with most degrees. But there are very few reservoir engineers without petroleum engineering degrees (or advanced degrees in geology), just as there are very few process engineers without chemical engineering degrees.

Now, I would agree that ChE is a far more versatile degree than PETE. But companies still need PETE graduates.

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Even if laid off engineers that want a job will get a job pretty easy.

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I have not seen this or experienced it. You get specialized in oil and gas then no one wants you. I had to go back to school to get my MS in a different discipline to get an engineering job. My current employer (engineering firm) said they get a ton of resumes from oil engineers when there is a crash and they don't hire any.

It's not just petroleum engineering. It also impacts geology from people with geology degrees working the patch and frac sand mining. LSU's geology department has gone through booms and busts related to the oil industry--on-shore and off-shore. Oceanography sinks and sails with the oil industry.

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What does ESG future mean?

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Faith in an industry based on unicorns and rainbows that will result in an economic collapse

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Maybe some of it has to do with an “ESG” mindset

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I think its more about kids not wanting to commit to O&G because of the political climate, which includes ESG. The future in that industry is in doubt.

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I think its more about kids not wanting to commit to O&G because of the political climate, which includes ESG. The future in that industry is in doubt.

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Bingo.

ESG ratings by themselves are not necessarily a culprit (except for maybe high school and college kids being bombarded in the media about how horrible for the environment and sustainability fossil fuels are), but it’s the influence of that on the financial sector and investors in moving money away from supporting continued fossil fuel development.

Hopefully this current global energy crisis can help stifle some of that BS.