Petroleum Engineering
Installs, operates, & maintains oil equipment properly
How to become a Petroleum Engineer
Petroleum engineers must have a bachelor’s degree in engineering, preferably in petroleum engineering. However, a bachelor’s degree in mechanical or chemical engineering may also suffice. Employers also value work experience, so cooperative engineering programs, in which students earn academic credit for structured job experience, are valuable as well.
What they do (one sentence)
Petroleum engineers design and develop methods for extracting oil and gas from deposits below the earth’s surface. Petroleum engineers also find new ways to extract oil and gas from older wells.
Salary
$130,280 a year
Duties
Design equipment to extract oil and gas in the most profitable way
Develop ways to inject water, chemicals, gases, or steam into an oil reserve to force out more of the oil
Develop plans to drill in oil and gas fields, and then to recover the oil and gas
Make sure that wells, well testing, and well surveys are completed and evaluated
Use computer-controlled drilling or fracturing to connect a larger area of an oil and gas deposit to a single well
- Make sure that oil field equipment is installed, operated, and maintained properlyes
Whats the enviroment like?
Petroleum engineers generally work in offices or in research laboratories. However, they also must spend time at drilling sites, often for long periods of time.
What is the job outlook for this career?
Employment of petroleum engineers is projected to grow 26 percent from 2012 to 2022, much faster than the average for all occupations. Oil prices will be a major determinant of employment growth, as higher prices lead to increasing complexity of oil companies’ operations, which requires more engineers for each drilling operation.