Mining/Petroleum Engineers?

[Khayembii Communique]

Anyone here know anything about Mining/Petroleum Engineering? Am considering going to grad school for this and had a few questions!

 

[phreak]

My brother is a petroleum engineer with several patents for his company so I may have some insight. I'll help if i can

 

[ezlau]

I'm a graduating senior in Mining Engineering Undergrad program. PM me if I can help you with some details.

 

[Trompe le Monde]

im in the industry

ask away

 

[Lord-Barrington]

You'll make good money and work in the middle of nowhere.

Is that pretty much it?

 

[Trompe le Monde]



You'll make good money and work in the middle of nowhere.
Is that pretty much it?

you may, but that is not the most common case

petroleum engineers are titled as drilling engineers, production engineers, or reservoir engineers

the first is more involved in the mechanical aspect of drilling program (i.e. HOW to drill), and the latter more academic (i.e. where to drill)
accordingly, the first is likely to spend more time on-site/at the rig (e.g. in a trailer), and the latter working from an office - with occasional rig visits

the location also varies... "middle of nowhere" could be in rifle, colorado; in the middle of the gulf; but it could also be in denver (multiple mid-majors), copenhagen (maersk), oslo (statoil), the hague or rijswijk netherlands (shell), etc.... jakarta... balipapan... luanda... kuala lumpur... good or bad its all there

pay.... extremely competitive, considering for many of these guys (reservoir engineers especially) its a 40hr workweek whereas your other 6-figure peers are pushing 60-80 hrs

 

[Khayembii Communique]

Do you need a PhD? I heard some story on NPR about Petroleum Engineers all getting PhD's or something.

I was thinking about finishing a masters in 2-3 years, figured it'd be the easiest way to massively increase my income and sounds like a job I'd probably like. Reservoir engineering sounds like something I'd really like, though I do also really like to travel all over the place.

 

[Trompe le Monde]

absolutely not

as a generalization, common entry points into energy are: geologists MS-PhD, geophysicists BS-MS, and engineers BS-MS, weighted towards BS. (check some listings to spot this trend)

depending on the employer -- service co, mom & pop, mid-major, supermajor-- and where their assets are, you can get very little to tons of travel as an R.E.

 

[Khayembii Communique]

Hmm, okay, could I get this job with just a BSCE in Geotechnical? Or is that not similar enough to a petroleum degree? I thought it'd be a good prereq for the MS but wasn't sure about job prospects with just the BS. My dad pointed out recently that my degree just says BS Engineering, after all..

WTF kind of mom and pop cos. hire RE's?

 

[Lord-Barrington]

Interesting bits of info.

I was always under the impression that pet. engineers were more often in the field, and thus farther way from the head office and in the middle of nowhere. Guess I was mistaken!

 

[Lord-Barrington]



Do you need a PhD? I heard some story on NPR about Petroleum Engineers all getting PhD's or something.
I was thinking about finishing a masters in 2-3 years, figured it'd be the easiest way to massively increase my income and sounds like a job I'd probably like. Reservoir engineering sounds like something I'd really like, though I do also really like to travel all over the place.

Keep in mind that business travel mostly sucks. I say this not as a petroleum engineer but as a business traveller. Choose a job that lets you get out of the office at times but beware of 60-75% travel jobs. Those get old really, really fast.

 

[Trompe le Monde]

petro engineering has a very specific focus and coursework, and geotechnical engineering holders will have a much tougher - but not impossible - time to grab the same positions.

if you are already a degree holder, enroll in mspe. go for internships when available. the experience might help some should the industry turn sour.

i have a few friends who left operators to work at small shops as consultants, or performing petro economics evaluation to grade-and-trade leases

 

[Trompe le Monde]



Interesting bits of info.
I was always under the impression that pet. engineers were more often in the field, and thus farther way from the head office and in the middle of nowhere. Guess I was mistaken!

many drilling engineers do spend a lot of time at the well site. the good thing is , at least for young single males , is the offshore rotation: consecutive weeks 'on' and weeks 'off'. that leaves a great opportunity to save money (0 expenditure), and tons of time to travel, but also a great opportunity to burn it all away

 

[Ad Fundum]

I'd like to know more about this field, although I don't know what to ask. I currently have a BS in Biology (chemistry minor) and working in an unrelated field (hospital informatics). While the field I am in is booming right now, I have a suspicion that it has a shelf life of ~ 5 years. I'm assuming they don't have 3 year masters programs for petroleum engineering? I find the field interesting because of the travel and pay but I know very little about the actual day to day work.

The highest I went in mathematics was calculus II and it tested me. I took the course in an accelerated 8 week program and found it challenging (my professor had a heavy accent so I ended up buying the solutions manual and teaching myself/recognizing trends of how specific problems were solved), I'm assuming the math required for this field will be quite a bit more complex? Can anyone tell me about the difficulty of the curriculum?

 

[austinite]



I'd like to know more about this field, although I don't know what to ask. I currently have a BS in Biology (chemistry minor) and working in an unrelated field (hospital informatics). While the field I am in is booming right now, I have a suspicion that it has a shelf life of ~ 5 years. I'm assuming they don't have 3 year masters programs for petroleum engineering? I find the field interesting because of the travel and pay but I know very little about the actual day to day work.

The highest I went in mathematics was calculus II and it tested me. I took the course in an accelerated 8 week program and found it challenging (my professor had a heavy accent so I ended up buying the solutions manual and teaching myself/recognizing trends of how specific problems were solved), I'm assuming the math required for this field will be quite a bit more complex? Can anyone tell me about the difficulty of the curriculum?

I'm an EE, not petroleum, so I know little about petroleum specific topics, but in most cases the math in different branches of engineering is analogous. I don't think you can project success as an engineer from a single calculus course. There are plenty of good engineers that did poorly in the first calculus class, and there are plenty of people that got A's in calculus who would get destroyed by a full engineering curriculum.

That being said, I think pretty much everyone who is an engineer at least thought that they were good at math originally. If you lack confidence before the real math classes start, that is a bad sign. Calculus, while a leap from high school level math, is nowhere near the minimum of what an engineering student must learn. If you are confiden in your ability, but simply think external factors made the class more difficult (bad professor, compressed schedule, poor work ethic, personal life issues, etc) then I would be less concerned provided that you can fix those external factors in the future.