Why the world needs more petroleum engineers

Many workers today are disillusioned with their jobs, thinking they exist as spectators and not movers or changers. Petroleum engineers might be exempt from this feeling—they impact people’s lives in a big way. They extract and refine hydrocarbons to turn them into energy, which fuels industrial, commercial, and domestic activity. Petroleum engineers are easily classified as “movers.”

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Energy is a big part of people’s lives, and with more sophisticated technology, it even forms an insatiable need. Workers in the energy sector are so indispensable in the industry that a shortage of them would be catastrophic. Petroleum engineers are highly skilled and difficult to replace without attendant reforms in tertiary educational systems. The high level of specialization in their line of work --- manifested in both their formation and on-the-job training --- makes their position unique and difficult to fill. At the core of the responsibility of a petroleum engineer is ensuring abundant energy production with little environmental impact. This is what makes petroleum engineering a career for the highly skilled.

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Becoming a petroleum engineer is easier said than done. A petroleum engineer should have ample knowledge from a wide range of disciplines ranging from mathematics, geology, physics, and chemistry to create better and more efficient systems of harnessing hydrocarbon energy to bring about a balance between cheap abundant energy and a clean and safe environment.

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More about petroleum engineers and how they make things work can be found in Ali Ghalambor’s book, Petroleum Production Engineering, A Computer-Assisted Approach. More information about the author can be found at this Twitter page.

Filling up the classrooms: The rise of petroleum engineering students

Back in 2004, the petroleum engineering industry was in a tight situation. Petroleum engineers were a rare commodity, and oil companies were looking for fresh college graduates. Most petroleum engineers were already aging by then, and many people dreaded a looming staffing crunch. The last decade was a difficult time, indeed.

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Today, however, the tables have turned and the future looks promising. A flourishing job market and high starting salaries have ushered in a new wave of future petroleum engineers to continue the legacy of distinguished forerunners, such as Dr. Ali Ghalambor and Dr. Boyun Guo.

The major factor: attractive starting salaries

In 2011, CNBC reported that petroleum engineers get one of the highest starting salaries, with fresh graduates expecting to earn a whopping $80,849 per year. In 2012, Ostermann reported that the figure rose to a minimum of $89,000 per annum—a large payoff for a mere bachelor’s degree.

Paul Willhite, a distinguished engineering professor at the University of Kansas, believes that many factors lie behind the sudden employment boom. Among these factors, oil prices have been most indicative.

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“One is the oil price is at historic levels, and it’s unlikely to go down much in the future,” he said. “In my view, the era of cheap oil has passed.”

Moreover, the impending retirement of many middle-aged petroleum engineers has threatened a likely turnover, further raising the demand for workers.

With all these taken into account, taking a petroleum engineering course may be more relevant now than it ever was in recent history.

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This Twitter page provides more relevant updates on the oil and gas sector.

Installing offshore pipelines: Facing the challenge of bringing gas onshore

Due to great demands for oil in recent years, offshore pipelines are also receiving great attention. To date, over a third of the growth in drilling worldwide is expected to come from offshore pipelines alone. This fueled a greater need for the development of offshore pipelines than before, and the number of petroleum engineers needed to efficiently develop and manage these systems has also increased.

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The task wouldn’t be easy, though. Offshore pipelines are known for being complicated systems as they are installed at the bottom of the sea, and engineers are required to have years of education and training before they can operate offshore pipelines. The location of these pipelines alone makes for an extremely demanding installation process; more so with all the details that come with the nitty-gritty of a system’s operation and upkeep.

Specialized knowledge is required to fulfill such a specialized function. Unfortunately, there has been a notable shortage of literature on petroleum engineering, prompting industry experts Boyun Guo, Shanhong Song, Ali Ghalambor, and Jacob Chacko to write Offshore Pipelines, an up-to-date reference for engineers and developers to conquer the challenging task of bringing oil and gas onshore.

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The authors wrote the book with pipeline design engineers, pipeline operation engineers, and management personnel in mind, taking into consideration the following objectives:

• For learners to be able to learn cost-effective methods in the management and operation of offshore pipeline systems.

• For learners to be acquainted with the burgeoning science of “deepwater pipelining,” a relatively new technology which has been only developed in the past 10 years.

• For learners to be able to master the art of designing pipelines at a low cost without compromising safety and long-term operability.

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This Ali Ghalambor Twitter account updates followers on the oil and gas industry.

The roles of a pipeline design engineer in offshore drilling

The oil and gas sector greatly relies on pipes. To ensure the profitability of these sectors, an efficient piping system must be established. These systems are used to convey fluids, which may either be liquids or gases, from one location to another, and are central to petroleum processes.

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To ensure the efficacy of fluid transport using these piping systems, a relatively new engineering discipline has emerged: pipeline design engineering.

In recent years, the demand for pipeline design engineers has increased alongside the need for offshore drilling. To date, over a third of the growth in drilling worldwide is now expected to come from offshore pipelines, thus fueling the clamor for improved academic preparation for the challenging tasks that may confound the budding engineer.

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It is for this reason that industry experts Boyun Guo, Shanhong Song, Ali Ghalambor, and Jacob Chacko penned Offshore Pipelines to provide students with up-to-date reference in facing the challenges of bringing oil and gas onshore. It also equips future pipeline design engineers with the following sets of skills:

• The ability to design low-cost pipelines that allow for safety and long-term operability.

• The ability to operate pipeline systems in a cost-effective manner.

• The ability to understand the relatively new science of deepwater pipelining.

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Dr. Ali Ghalambor is a renowned leader in the oil and gas sector, and has constantly been recognized for his invaluable contributions in petroleum engineering technology and education. To read more updates on the oil and gas industry, visit this blog.

Computing for hydrostatic pressure

Fluid statics plays a vital role in the practice of petroleum engineering. Oil, essentially a fluid, is still governed by the laws that generally affect fluids. Thus, even at the state of rest, petroleum engineers must be able to understand the principles that underlie its movement, or lack thereof. One of the most important concepts in fluid statics that all engineers must master is “hydrostatic pressure.”

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According to Gas Volume Requirements for Underbalanced Drilling: Deviated Holes by Ali Ghalambor, hydrostatic pressure is “the pressure of the weight of fluid.” In other words, it is the pressure exerted by a liquid at an equilibrium state due to gravitational force. Its value is considered to be directly proportional to the height of a liquid column of uniform density.

A liquid’s hydrostatic property remains variable because it is heavily influenced by two factors: local gravity and the liquid’s density. The interplay of these quantities results to a particular liquid’s hydrostatic pressure.

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In SI units, the hydrostatic pressure of a liquid column may be calculated as follows:

Height (in meters) x Density (in kg/m3) x Local Gravity (in m/s2) = Hydrostatic pressure (usually expressed in N/m2 or Pascal) 

Hydrostatic pressure, while hardly ever completely accurate, is a very expedient way to relate pressure to a height of liquid. Its practical uses in petroleum engineering include the “hydrostatic test,” a way to determine strengths and leaks in pressure vessels such as pipelines and fuel tanks.

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This Twitter account shares more about Ali Ghalambor and his work.