Why petroleum engineers earn big?

Petroleum engineering is a very well paid profession. I have already discussed that matter in my earlier post which you can read here. In this post however I would like to explore some of the reasons that account for the high salaries earned by petroleum engineers around the world.

Oil is black gold

Oil is a very valuable resource. In constitutes the major source of usable energy in the world. In fact the industrial progress of the past 150 years can be credited to the discovery and usage of oil. Petroleum engineers extract this “black gold” and it therefore does not come as a great surprise that they command such high salaries. Oil companies are filthy rich and a small fraction of that money ends up with petroleum engineers.

Inflation of oil prices

Owing to the rise in demand for oil over the last 4-5 years, the oil prices have literally sky-rocketed to a record high. This means even more money for oil companies and hence higher salaries for their employees.

Increasing oil demand

Oil is a non-renewable resource, which means that it is eventually going to get exhausted. What that means in the long term is that oil companies will be out of business and petroleum engineers will be jobless. However that scenario will not happen until the next 50-100 years or so. During the current phase however, the oil will continue become scarce. This should (in theory at least) increase the importance of petroleum engineers. Enhanced recovery methods will have to be employed, to recover the last drops of oil from the reservoir. Deeper wells will have to be drilled in order to discover new oil fields. All this adds up to some serious challenges requiring greater knowledge and expertise. Thus the importance of petroleum engineers will increase which should see them earning even more than before.

Sacrifices

A petroleum engineer on duty has to make many sacrifices to perform their job. Whether it is family commitments or any other special occasion (like Christmas or Eid), there is no room for sentiments. So if you are on duty, missing your friends and family on a New Year’s Eve, you have no alternative except to maybe look ahead to next year. That is one of the reasons why this job this job has a huge salary associated with it, to make it attractive.

Health and Safety

Accidents are a frequent occurrence on a drill site. Injuries happen, people die but life has to go on. That is way it is; if you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen. So all you chickens out there do not opt for drilling engineering or related work if you can’t take the rough and tough environment.

The job of a petroleum engineer (whether involved in drilling, reservoir or production) is one of the toughest there is. There is huge investment in the oil industry and the stakes are very high. Hiring and firing is very common in this occupation as a petroleum engineer is expected to work under pressure for long, stringent hours to meet deadlines. On top of that there is safety risk involved primarily for workers on the rig-site. One mistake could cost you a job while in come cases it has cost people their lives. Therefore petroleum engineers deserve to be paid the highest possible salaries.