Petroleum Engineering Education - Is the Petroleum Industry Underengineered and, if so, to What Extent?

Some of US have been impressed with the need for a better understanding of the future place of the engineer in the petroleum industry. In academic work we are continually asked to advise students as to the opportunities in different directions, to guide them in their selection of professions, and it would be extremely helpful to those in academic lines of work to have the opinion of engineers from the industry relative to the need for petroleum engineers. IS the industry going to require a continually growing number of engineers in the future years, or have we perhaps reached equilibrium in that regard ? In anticipation of this meeting, I undertook to canvass opinion among a number of engineers of my acquaintance and I have been rather astonished to learn that the expenditure on engineering salaries in the producing branch of the oil industry is extremely low. I have figures from eight or 10 of the larger oil companies and it seems to be a fair statement on the basis of these figures to say that the average American oil company is devoting less than 2 per cent. of its gross expenditures in oil production to the payment of engineering salaries. A few examples will be of interest. I shall not mention names of individual companies, but one large Mid-Continent company is spending slightly less than 1 per cent. of its gross expenditure—that is, less than 1 per cent. of the total expenditure in the producing department—on engineering salaries and about as much on engineering research, which might properly be regarded as a phase of its engineering work. Another Mid-Continent company is spending about 11/4 per cent. on engineering salaries. A large California company is spending about l1/2 per cent. The largest figure that has come to my attention is that of an important Rocky Mountain and Mid-Continent company that is spending a little more than 6 per cent., but that is apparently an extreme case. The petroleum producing industry is a highly technical business in these days. It is spending in excess of $500,000,000 annually in new