Research found that master’s enrollment is sensitive to WTI spot prices, gasoline prices, and undergrad enrollment. When oil prices are high, students obtain master’s degrees in petroleum engineering writes KRISTA TAYLOR, Accenture

This year’s SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition featured 46 technical sessions and 34 training courses over the span of three days. The technical session on the Theory of Petroleum Engineering Education, Training, and Support of Natural Resources was packed with noteworthy speakers who shared thought-provoking research and initiatives surrounding the current state of the industry and how it is influencing academia and training.

The session opened with initiatives that invest in education and promote Walking the Walk: Industry Support of High School Education.

The segment, presented by Jennifer Todd and John Tobin from the Energy Literacy Project, brought attention to two scalable, sustainable initiatives. The Energy Institute Magnet High School in Houston, Texas introduces students to the world of energy and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math).

With subjects like offshore, geoscience, and alternative energy, these educators are devoted to helping ninth through twelve graders become literate, “science-savvy citizens”.

The Natural Resource Education Programme (NREP) in Colorado is an online programme, initially targeting eleventh and twelve graders, with a curriculum focused on augmenting Stem and earth science. By focusing on the “ologies” including geology, technology, and theology, NREP is making prudent development by addressing above-ground issues.

The segment that stirred the most discussion from the audience was the Theory of Petroleum Engineering: Big Bounce, Big Crunch, or Big Freeze? by Tatyana Plaksina and Eduardo Gildin from Texas A&M University.

Motivation for the research was the idea that undergraduate enrollment exhibits certain behavior and repetitive patterns due to fluctuations in crude oil price. The research explores commodity price patterns and the effect on undergrad enrollment, graduate enrollment, and faculty count.

Student enrollment and interactions between academia and the industry were compared using The Beer Game analogy referenced in P M.Senge’s The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. If students are the beer, academia is the brewery that cannot expand as fast as the industry wants it to.

Research found that master’s enrollment is sensitive to WTI spot prices, gasoline prices, and undergrad enrollment. When oil prices are high, students obtain master’s degrees in petroleum engineering. Statistical analysis also revealed that rig count, one of the biggest indicators of oil and gas economic health, played a significant role in PhD enrollment.

Currently, everyone is hoping for a big bounce in this elastic industry similar to the come-back of 2008 when the micro-cycle of price decline occurred. A more likely scenario is a big crunch, similar to the 1980s when oil prices first caused high demand for petroleum engineers then abruptly declined, leaving a generation gap in the energy industry. A third scenario, a big freeze, may occur where there’s a partial recovery and universities find a way to divorce themselves from the industry and regulate themselves effectively to ensure their long-term survival.

To modernise how the next generation of petroleum engineers will learn and educate themselves on industry trends and potential job roles, T Aggour and T Donohue introduced two online competency-based tools.

A new global Online Petroleum Engineering Learning System marketed to universities was created to either replace certain instructor-led training with e-Learning modules or be used as a supplement to existing curricula and serve as a digital reference library.

The e-learning tool gives faculty more time to devote to hands-on, focused discussions and enables large numbers of students to grasp basic skills and fundamental principles of the subject matter.

Initial research for the second e-learning tool looked at the industry’s expectations of petroleum engineering graduates and how these can be explicitly defined and measured to help students prepare for their careers. Studies show that 11 per cent of business leaders versus 96 per cent of chief academic officers believe that graduates have the requisite skills for the workforce.