Petroleum Engineering. So it doesn't really matter?

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>Hello everyone! There seems to be an abscess of posts on here about what degrees are good for petroleum engineering. Of course it’s a difficult question and a meaningful one as well. Many see the choices of degree possibilities as a problem, where they have to choose a ChemE or a MechE degree due to the lack of a Petroleum Engineering major at their university. Neither is perfect match for the job at hand and confusion sets in. </p>

<p>[Petroleum</a> & Reservoir Engineering | Students and graduates | United States | BP](<a href=“http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9030372&contentId=7056010]Petroleum”>http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9030372&contentId=7056010)</p>

<p>“To be among those new recruits, you’ll need to have (or be pursuing) an engineering degree (3.0/4.0 overall GPA), be willing to relocate nationally and ideally have a related internship or work experience.” -BP</p>

<p>[U.S&lt;/a&gt;. Recruiting Bachelor & Master Degrees - Drilling](<a href=“http://www.exxonmobil.com/USA-English/HR/careers_campus_bachmast_engineering_drilling.aspx]U.S”>http://www.exxonmobil.com/USA-English/HR/careers_campus_bachmast_engineering_drilling.aspx)</p>

<p>“Academic: Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Chemical, Civil, Electrical, Environmental, Materials, Mechanical, or Petroleum Engineering.” -ExxonMobil</p>

<p>As shown, even for the jobs related directly to petroleum engineering, almost any remotely accessible engineering degree will be accepted as a potential worker (if all the academic and work prerequisites are met such as internships, solid GPA, etc). Why? Because of on-the-job learning. I could be wrong, but most of the things you learn even in petroleum engineering you do not use on the job. ForeverLSU could help but I see he has quit the forums. </p>

<p>Any opinions on this? Anyone relieved from the struggle to find a petroleum engineering degree who doesn’t need the stress but can use the MechE or other degrees now to their advantage?</p>

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<p>It’s not that it doesn’t matter. It’s just that there are multiple means to an end.</p>

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<p>It matters, if you want to go into Petroleum Engineering then you should get a degree in Petroleum Engineering. You can certainly get into the field with other engineering degrees, but you are going to have to work a bit harder to get that first internship.</p>

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<p>Okay thanks for the responses! How much harder is it to get the internships with a non-Petroengineering major? And I’ve read about ChemE and MechE being both a ways to get into Petro but is there a preference due to related knowledge? What I’m asking is if the things you learn in MechE would at least be closer to applicable in drilling or other upstream jobs or would the knowledge of chemical systems help more? Thanks again!</p>

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<p>MechE seems to be closer to PetE than ChemE. Do oil and gas companies recruit your school?</p>

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<p>I’m a recent ChemE grad who now works with Shell. Although I work in the downstream business (refining), I can share my thoughts with you. </p>

<p>From my experience, ChemE is the only degree in which you can actually do a petroleum engineer’s job. </p>

<p>If your goal is to work in the upstream business (drilling) of the oil industry, most engineering degrees will qualify. However, your engineering degree will dictate what roles you’ll have upstream. </p>

<p>If your curious to learn what roles each degree can lead to, you can check out Shell’s description online. They give a brief description of the different jobs … </p>

<p>[What</a> Do Engineers Do? | United States](<a href=“http://www.shell.us/home/content/usa/environment_society/education/student/careers/engineering/]What”>http://www.shell.us/home/content/usa/environment_society/education/student/careers/engineering/)</p>

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<p>My feeling is that ChemE is more relevant to reservoir engineering while MechE is more relevant to drilling. That said, I have no evidence to suggest that either degree would confer an advantage to you as a job seeker.</p>

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<p>@noleguy I am a senior in high school who’s interested in the field. Everything I have read about and the people in the field I’ve talked to have created an interest in my mind. I’m applying to colleges at this point but the ones that I have been looking at for some time do not offer a Petroleum Engineering degree. And many of the colleges down in the Gulf Area are OOS with high tuition as I’m from the north. So to accommodate the needs, the choice between MechE and ChemE seems to be imminent. </p>

<p>After going through the careers section of the Shell website I found that many of the engineering majors (Mech, Chem, Civil/Structural) lead to being a Well Engineer. Is anyone here closely familiar with that opportunity? A part of what attracts me to the path of drilling/engineering/upstream is the lifestyle offered (28/14, 14/7) on and off. Is that part of being a “well engineer” or is that common throughout many of the disciplines in the field?</p>

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<p>You might get a 14/14 (domestic and offshore GOM) or a 28/28 (international) for a while during training (a lot of time is spent on a rig for the first year or two). After you make your way into the office it becomes more like 24/7/365 though. The oilfield doesn’t stop for anything.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the information Benc. So during your work as an engineer on-site at the oil rigs, what is the work like? There’s been info on here on 12 hour shifts and that is understandable. But what do you really DO during those 12 hour days? Can someone walk through a typical day? What needs to be done from a petroleum engineering perspective on a functioning rig on a day to day basis?</p>

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<p>First, there is a huge difference between upstream, downstream, and midstream. Upstream involves drilling, reservoir, production, completions, and some facilities. Midstream involves pipelines and facilities. Downstream involves refining. </p>

<p>Petroleum engineering is exclusively in upstream. You will find ChemE, MechE, CivE, etc. in all of them. If you want an upstream position, which is frankly where the money is, and you’re sure about it, take a PetE degree. If it’s not available, ChemE or MechE will not hurt and will give you more flexibility. ChemEs can generally work in upstream - I think production is most suitable. Most of the topics you learn in ChemE (thermodynamics, process, fluid dynamics) are geared towards facilities, but are applicable to many things. </p>

<p>You only get 12 hour shifts if you are on a field position. These can get very strenuous (sometimes boring if you’re just waiting for approvals). However, you learn most in the field. Depending on the job, you can be in a truck checking well logs, checking where to perforate the well, monitoring the fluids as you drill, etc. You can be the person checking on already drilled wells. You can be in a facility where they separate oil, gas and water before sending raw material to refineries. I’m not sure since I’ve never personally had 12 hour shifts although I’ve been in 9 hour working shifts in the field. </p>

<p>I’ve been in mostly office positions (reservoir, development, some facilities). You get some field visits, but around 85% of the time you are in a downtown office. </p>

<p>In my honest opinion, take ChemE over MechE if those are the only options. If you have electives look for the following courses or key words:
-intro to geology or geophysics
-well logging
-waterflooding
-reservoir simulation
-flow in porous media</p>

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<p>Reservoir is where you search for the well and decide the equip used, how much oil is available and stuff? Also deals with hydrofracking I assume?</p>

<p>Would ChemE or MechE be more suitable if I wanted to pursue something involving extraction(mainly cracking process, etc)</p>

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<p>Reservoir is where you search for where to drill, determine how much oil/gas is in the ground, the time frame to produce it, the recovery method, etc. This involves a lot of work with geologists and geophysicists. You basically are the bridge between the geoscience aspects and the engineering aspects. </p>

<p>Hydrofracking is technically under completions engineers. However, this is a concept that should be understood and actively checked by reservoir, production, drilling, completions and facilities engineers. </p>

<p>The cracking process is in downstream. Like refining, process controls, etc. I would say this is a bread-and-butter job for a chemical engineer.</p>

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<p>I would put frac firmly in upstream, but maybe that’s just the service company end of me talking. If you want to get very involved in frac then you want to be working for a service company like Schlumberger or Halliburton. If you want to be involved in the entire completions side of things then get on with an operator. From a field perspective frac is all raw horsepower and pumping, from an engineering side you’re talking a lot of hydraulics, some chemistry, some geology. </p>

<p>My time in the field was a 24/7 on call deal since I work for a service company. I went from rig to rig and was very specialized in what I did. The field portion of a drilling or completions engineer training is a much broader overview of all the processes involved. For example, I know quite a good bit about drilling, casing, remedial work, etc but beyond a basic bond log I can’t read logs, analyze reservoirs or design a hydraulic stimulation job.</p>

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<p>If you want to work in E&P (Upstream), the geology background that’s a part of a Pet E degree is pretty important. They bring in people from other disciplines because they have to, not because they want to.</p>

<p>Pet E has some aspects of mechanical, of chemical, of hydrology, of geology, plus things specific to Pet E, frothed and blended in a way to make a Starbucks barrista proud. </p>

<p>I’m pretty sure Chem and Mechanical engineering don’t have courses in Reservoir, Log Analysis, Drilling, Pressure Transient analysis, casing and tubing design, rod pumping design. I’ve been doing this for over 33 years now and I still use aspects of all of those classes. As for geology, you really need some understanding of structural and sedimentary geology if you’re going to be a good all-around Pet E.</p>

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<p>Dude Mechanical engineering is the closest thing to petroleum engineering. A good friend of my older brother is a recruiter for Exxon mobile, he actually told me sometimes Exxon actually prefer to hire ME guys over petrol guys because Exxon love to rotate their engineers and the ME guys picks up aspect of reservoir, production, drilling and completion much faster than Petro guys do in mastering facilities engineering aspects because petroleum engineering curriculum is so narrow. I am a civil engineering grad i always wished i did mechanical engineering. I swear to god in my current place of employment Chevron their are more Mechanical engineering guys in their drilling and completion department than Petrol guys. Mechanical engineering is by far the most versatile engineering degree one can get. you can still get an upstream job with a chemical engineering degree but someone with a mechanical engineering, mining engineering or geological engineering degree will be chosen over you any day of the week. oil companies generally hire chemical engineering guys for two things that is process engineering or facilities engineering maybe reservoir engineering if get lucky or have had internship experience. The only job function that petro guys will somewhat be favored over ME guys in the upstream sector is reservoir engineering. if you want upstream job and want to be able jump ship when oil and gas companies starts to lay people off because gas prices have fallen off the cliff get a mechanical engineering degree there are many other industries you can jump to, it not going to be well paying as oil and gas but it still still much better that collecting unemployment check everything i said is based on multinational companies like Exxon. chevron, total, Connoco,shell, etc and larger Independent companies like Anardarko, Devon, etc. please be easy on my English i am Nigerian.</p>

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<p>“oil companies generally hire chemical engineering guys for two things that is process engineering or facilities engineering maybe reservoir engineering if get lucky or have had internship experience.” </p>

<p>100% false. Look at top PE schools like UT Austin, Stanford, etc you’ll find many reservoir professors were from chemical engineering. </p>

<p>In the larger picture, if you have an actual engineering mentality, then you should be able to pick these up on the job regardless of which program you took. An engineering education teaches you how to think and how to solve problems, as opposed to teaching you which book and what page to look for Darcy’s equation.</p>

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<p>Yes if you read my post i said a chemical engineering degree can get you there but a Mechanical engineering or petroleum engineering degree is preferred everywhere mechanical and petroleum engineering degree is on top of the food chain when it comes to upstream positions like drilling,completion, and production engineering. when it comes to reservoir engineering its been my experience that a chemical engineering degree will open more doors than a mechanical engineering degree not to say you can’t get a reservoir engineering with an ME degree</p>