Petroleum Day 2024 is on Sunday, November 17, 2024: Why did you choose petroleum geoscience?

Sunday, November 17, 2024 is Petroleum Day 2024. The Birthday Blog Petroleum Day

Petroleum Geoscience covers a broad range of subjects; geology, geochemistry, geophysics, and also integrates with Petroleum Engineering and Chemical Engineering.In the UK, Petroleum Geoscience courses are offered by a number of leading universities at masters (MSc) level, normally within Earth Science or Geological Science Departments.

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Why is Petroleum Geoscience important?

The global demand for hydrocarbons is huge, with the world consuming over 80 million barrels a day, a staggering 30 billion barrels a year. To put that in perspective, a giant oil field is anything bigger than 500 million barrels, and giants are becoming harder and harder to find. The majority were found in the 1960s and 70s and since then the discovery rate has fallen year by year. But we are consuming the equivalent of 60 giant oil fields a year! Proven world oil reserves are just over 1400 billion barrels, which means that we have just over 45 years of known oil to produce at current rates. But demand is expected to increase as developing countries industrialize, so the challenge is to find more oil and gas to meet this insatiable demand.

What do Petroleum Geoscientists do?

The role of unlocking the world’s remaining hydrocarbon resources, both the traditional “conventional black oil” and also new sources, such as oil shales, very heavy oil or coal bed methane, is lead by geoscientists. Petroleum Geoscientists are key players in exploration for all these new potential hydrocarbon reserves, and also in the drive to maximise recovery from those oil and gas fields already discovered. They are involved at all stages: from “new venture”, assessing regional data to focus in on the most prospective countries and basins, to the ultimate test, drilling the wells.

A key role is acquiring the best possible data to image the subsurface, either seismic data (imaging the rock units 2-4 km below the ground), or undertaking geochemical, gravity or magnetic surveys. This may also involve fieldwork to examine the rocks that crop out onshore. And then having acquired the geological information, petroleum geoscientists interpreted the data using the latest software to produce 3D subsurface models, and eventually select the optimum locations to drill a well. Future oil reserves will be found in challenging high cost environments, that require the most innovative technology to explore.

Whether it’s in deepwater offshore west Africa, drilling in 3km of water and to depths of 4 or 5km below the sea bed, or in the cold barren wastes of the Arctic, it is geoscientists that lead the exploration effort. To locate hydrocarbons in the subsurface requires integrated teams that model the distribution of reservoirs and source rocks and then locate the traps that may contain the oil. It’s a big high cost game, with wells costing in remote areas in excess of 100 million dollars. There is no guarantee of success, and many wells fail (just produce water!) but if large oil and gas reserves are found, the so called “elephants” that all companies are searching for, there are big rewards.

Demand for Petroleum Geoscientists

It is the job of a geoscientist to reduce the exploration risk by improving understanding of the rocks and fluids in the subsurface. To do this means that oil companies need the best geoscientist, and as the task of exploration gets harder, so the need for petroleum geoscientists grows. Add to this a rapidly aging workforce in most of the multinational oil companies, and the result is an ever growing demand for petroleum geoscientists and engineers. It’s a global market, and the big players, some of the biggest companies in the world, such as ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, Chevron Texaco, Total, ENI, recruit internationally. But as well as these integrated oil companies, there are a huge number of large medium and small oil companies, and consultancies and service companies, that all employ geoscientists. In the UK alone hundreds of companies are involved in oil and gas exploration employing petroleum geoscientists.

Question for Petroleum Engineers?

I'm not a petroleum engineer(but I play one on TV). I'm currently an engineer of another flavor. :) And the answer to your question is "yes". You should definitely stick it out. Engineering is a tough major. No doubt about it. Be prepared to hit the books while your buddies are drinking beers. You don't have to live like a monk... but not too damn far from it. And math skills are a definite must. You don't have to be a genius. But you will be expected to have a good command of calculus along with all the other engineering courses. For petroleum... that's code for "organic chemistry". My personal opinion was that Ochem was all black magic. A little of this ... a little of that... we flash it with some uv or stomp on it with this solvent... a MIRACLE OCCURS and this other weird sh*t comes out the other side. Pchem was much more my cup of tea. But no matter what flavor of engineering you go into... do it. Cuddle up to the math. Give yourself to the darkside. The sooner you give into it and just do what needs done to master it the better off you'll be. 1 last suggestion. If you can find a coop 2+2 program with a community college and a decent engineering school (and yes they do exist) you can do it easier and cheaper. Oh.. I lied. 1 last thing. If you think you can't put the effort into it... don't. Get a job and flip burgers for a few years. Party, fight and f**k yourself raw. Wake up covered in your own vomit in an alley somewhere. Live on raman noodles, french fries and mustard. Freeze your a** off in the winter and fry in the summer. Trust me. When you finally come up for air.... you will be ready to hit the books. So if you're 1 of those guys that's going to go hog wild after graduation... go with plan B. Come back to plan A later. But do it either way. There is always something new and interesting for your brain to play with. It's rarely boring. You'll never be sorry you did.

can i use petroleum jelly (vaseline) every day?

its the best to use and you could used every day,i used on my hands,on my feet's,my faces, hands it is working for you is safe to used.