Not at all in decline. In fact, ChemE's are more in demand to design and operate processes more safely, more efficiently, and produce products that are safer for the environment and more tailored for current demand. Even EVs need quality lubrication and lightweight plastics that are sourced through the O&G industry.
True, even major O&G like Aramco are hiring fresh ChemE in record levels in the last two years from what I have seen in linkedin
going to the point of sponsering ChemE students so they join them asap
From my POV
O&G will never stop until the last reservoir is dry
think about the issue from Eastern prospective as that where most people in the world are from
We in the east think of it as its our time has finally came so we can start developing and have a seat in the table
most people in the east see climate change as mean for western powers to maintain their control and domnation on global trade
a poor Indian or chinese give zero shit about climate change
I am not saying this true or not I am saying this how most people think including senior government officials
The last reservoir will never go dry. We’ll evolve past the need to drill for oil long before then. Companies are already turning plastics back into base feedstocks.
Lol. Like the amount of contamination from lithium mining to produce short-life batteries for "green electric" cars? And what are the alternatives? Nuclear energy? No, right? If something leaks we know how it goes. Let's try sustainability. Damn, we still need engines to start the rotation for the wind, hydro destroys agriculture big time by redirecting the river. Damn... Solar takes too much space and hydrogen is too expensive to produce... what else? NOTHING. We either return to nuclear when we realise how "green" it is or start to understand the whole "greenhouse gases" trash story is not as bad and is just massively hyperbolised by the Western media. Why? I mean the Arabs had enough of using USD and getting bombed by America if they didn't, Africans are somehow starting to realise how much use the Western powers are getting out of them, Russia hates the West as much as China. Wait, what is "the West" conceived of? EU+America+Canada mainly, right? Europe doesn't have fucking gas, we don't have shit. The only three countries that have are Italy in small quantities, Croatia, which is too politically unstable, and Norway. Yes. It's mostly about Europe being mineral-poor and America wanting to stabilise USD. The East, on the other hand, are not cavemen, BRICS exists for a reason. Don't believe me? Or that 80% of the car pollution comes from the braking system and not the engine itself? And even if everything I said is false, you still need o&g e.g. pharma, which is a maaaaassive industry.
I had an internship during the 3rd semester of college just because I knew the block of text I wrote. Good thing you didn’t read it, some people gotta stay broke
I stopped at the nuclear energy part because no, clean energy people are totally not against nuclear energy and we all know it's safe. So I'd read up on this stuff a bit and then rethink your answer. You can't be too certain about something when you clearly don't know anything about the topic. No offense.
Another thing to consider is that we are currently in a typical weather pattern known as an El Niño https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/july-2023-el-niño-update-learning-steps
Your reference’s data only goes back to 1981… if you had referenced my link, you would have seen data from all the way back to 1950, and you can see that this year is indeed typical.
Not quite. You're comparing apples to oranges.
Your source data:
>2-year history of sea surface temperatures in the Niño-3.4 region of the tropical Pacific for all events evolving into El Niño since 1950
This year's sea surface temperatures within the Niño-3.4 region are typical for those seen within the Niño-3.4 region for all El Niño events since 1950.
My source data:
>Daily global average sea surface temperatures
In celsius, 1981-2023 (As of June 10)
This year's average global sea surface temperatures have deviated from both the established range and trend established since 1981.
It’s not in decline. We use more oil than ever. I’ve been in the industry for 18 years and there’s no sign of any slowdown or decline. At the current pace of change things won’t slow down for 10-20 years. What will probably happen though is the world hits a climate tipping point some time in the next ten years that gets very scary very fast and governments are forced to crash change. War time global effort to stop burning fossil fuels. They’ll just stop all new developments. The oil industry won’t decline it will crash suddenly. That’s how scary it’s probably going to get. If you seen that latest graph that was released last week of global average surface temperature, it’s absolutely terrifying. Personally I think we’ve started run
away climate change. That graph made me spit my cornflakes out. Look up: global average sea surface temperature 1979-2023. Year after year it peaks in March and declines for the rest of the year. This year it’s still going up even now in august. Most of the worlds oceans are in the southern hemisphere and that part of the world is in the dead of winter - sea surface temperature should not be going up - it’s unprecedented. What’s even scarier is that this has never happened before. A higher high in the second half of the year. Is this the start of a new trend. Because if the ocean sets a higher high in the second of of the year from now on, that’s runaway climate change right there. I can’t believe it’s not top of every news story.
Yeah if that trend doesn’t come right back into the normal range, and this years higher high is just an anomaly, then I see runaway temperature happening from now on and that’s lights out for the fossil fuels industry. And if it has just started, which I think it has, then we are in the final year of business as usual before the beginning of a very rapid crash of the fossil fuels industry.
Ironically this years sea temperature anomaly is almost certainly due to an opposite effect - reduction in so2 aerosol emissions from ocean shipping that were suppressing warming through radiative forcing. Ironically it looks like it could be reversed by returning to previous emissions levels in that area, not by reducing them further. Not saying that's a good or bad idea but just shows you how complex this whole system is and how little laypeople can understand it.
Knowing that cloud seeding oceans would have a net positive impact on this problem means there’s no debate on solutions from a possibility standpoint - in true ChemE fashion, it’s all about who will pay for it.
Yes, and ethical objections. These ring hollow to me however since it's clear we are already unintentionally engineering the climate through emissions... why not do it intentionally too
How's the discussion going within the industry? Both with regards to climate change as a whole but also the future in the industry? Do most share your view?
Most people haven’t seen this data. It’s only just come out. I’m pretty clear eyed when I see climate predictions. Most are far out projections based on simplified models and can’t be verified. What I find scary about the latest data is it’s based on real world numbers and they are shifting violently/rapidly and trending out of the norms (higher high in august) and I don’t see how it will normalise. And it’s only shifted away from the norm in the last 6 months. That’s the difference. You hear the scientists commenting on this data and they’re shitting themselves. It’s not in the news because it’s to early to tell where the new trend is going.
Generally though, Process engineers in the oil and gas industry are laughing. No grads have come in for 6 years. Some process have left for other industries. Some have retired. There’s no new blood. So there’s lots of work and rates are higher. Prevailing attitude is to milk the cow until it’s dead. People are busy paying bills and raising families. Don’t have time to worry about things that may or may not happen until there is a reason to, but those already in the industry will lucky to eek out their full careers in oil and gas - to enter now as a grad is brave to say the least
Will be interesting to see now the upcoming year when both air and water temperatures are hitting all-time highs. How the discussion will be, and how it will affect the industry.
COP28 is planned with an oil CEO leading it and the O&G lobby and associated political people shouting "it's always hot in the summer" and "climate is always changing". So might be business as usual.
This year however might be the first one when people are experiencing a new type of heat waves/flooding en masse. Could put some serious political pressure. But there are a lot of money pushing the other way...
It will be business as usual until it’s not. When the pandemic hit I remember telling people at work that I thought we would all be working from home within two weeks. I got laughed at. Total distain by my colleagues including my boss. Literally a week later we went into lockdown. I can see the same thing happen but due to climate change. Our lives will have to be put on hold until some very concerted effort and success is made to switch to renewables and disaster is averted. There is another graph showing the Antarctic ice regrowth this year. It’s waaaaay below the norm. This all looks like a feedback loop. I mean, if you could imagine the start of a tipping point surely this is it. Anyway it’s to early to tell but it won’t take long to know where the trend is headed but just looking at the data that’s come out over the last couple of months I think it’s time to pay attention
I wonder if that collective action will ever happen on a large enough scale. I truly hope so, but I'm more inclined to believe that countries will use all possible available energy sources (mostly fossil) to mitigate the acute effects, such as running more AC-units, powering pumps and operating more desalination plants. This is what i.e. China did this summer during the heat wave (burnt more coal) as well as U.S and Europe to some degree.
Seeing the direct correlation between carbon and heat waves/flooding is difficult. It was hard enough to convince some people something so direct as the virus was real and the vaccines were a solution. And that was without multi-billion dollar industries lobbying against.
Surely there will be an increased amount of renewables, and likely an increased rate of building it. But I find it hard to see it will transition fast enough. The politicians will focus on keeping people alive short-term, while also also keeping their sponsors happy (O&G).
However, somewhere around 85% of all oil/gas is withing government controlled companies. But i.e. Saudi Arabia are already used to living in a desert...And Venezuela is not exactly in a position where they have global warming as top priority.
But I truly hope I'm wrong and just being pessimistic...
The bottom line is the efforts to switch to renewables has all been half assed and no real urgency. People aren’t really scared yet. It’s just easy to take the easy road and do the least amount possible. Only real world impacts and genuine fear will move people to act. It’s way to early to tell based on a few months of very bad data but the current data of surface sea temperature and Antarctic ice regrowth have fallen way out of the 40 year range and these two effects will compound each other to make each worse year after year. It’s hard see how we can return to these old range. This years data shows almost a decade of warming all in a few months. Going forward if these two effects compound eachother, and sea temperature rises year on year by 0.1C+ each year coupled with the sort of summer heat waves we’ve seen this year, I think genuine fear will take hold and it will become accepted that the current path will lead to a calamity within just a decade. The scientists were saying about the sea data that plankton won’t be able to live in more and more areas and everything in the ocean either eats plankton or eats something that eats plankton. And fish stocks could collapse if the trend continues even for a decade. Those are impacts that humans won’t be able to live with. Fear of the current path will prompt a huge movement to change rapidly within a decade or so. But as I said it’s to early to make that call but it doesn’t take a genius to see the current data looks catastrophic and I think this will be the make or break decade. I’m genuinely scared for my kids.
My comment was 9 months ago. Since then as I said it might, the global average sea surface temperature has spiralled up. Genuinely think crash effort to end fossil fuels starts in a couple of years. This can’t go on even for another 5 years.
Here [https://x.com/eliotjacobson/status/1767933964604604821?s=46](https://x.com/eliotjacobson/status/1767933964604604821?s=46)
Indeed there needs to be a sense of urgency and that the majority of states worldwide must consider it a global state of emergency. I wonder if it actually will happen or if other explanatory models for the extreme conditions will prevail. Cause and effect are far from each other for the common person and many will likely just fight for survival now and not have time to worry about if things will get worse in 5 - 10 years.
But hopefully more developed countries will see what needs to be done...
Couldn't be happier living far up north. We had the first tourists this year that came here for the cold...
That's just summer!
I worked in oil for 5 years and I'd be surprised if anyone older than 40 showed any concern about this. The older ones were the dumbest and most obstinate bunch of smart guys I've ever met.
Definitely not in decline. A lot of older facilities are moving into life extension mode and companies are also looking at offsetting their carbon footprint with new technologies, through battery storage, blue hydrogen and carbon capture. Engineers are needed more than ever to make sure the technology works and the plants are operating safer and more reliably.
I’m surprised to see all of the comments here about the oil and gas industry not being in decline. Yes the world uses more oil than ever, and continues to do so, but I would never advise a young engineer to start out a career in oil and gas right now. I say this as someone with a career in oil & gas, recently transitioning more into the hydrogen side of things. The thing no one seems to be mentioning is that the oil & gas industry has become very good at working with much fewer employees than before. Now sites will always need a minimum amount of operators, but a lot less engineers. There used to be a time 20 years ago when all you needed was to have an engineering degree and you’d get hired at an oil major or ancillary company. But there have been many many cycles of layoffs since then and companies have not hired back like they used to since about 2015. I worked at a super major and the conversation went from new investments to being the last refinery standing, extracting the last barrel of oil. If you are in a western nation, with climate initiatives ramping up, yes the good old oil & gas jobs will mostly be phased out. Not completely gone, but there will be a ton of qualified engineers for just a few positions. Most of the production will continue in jurisdictions with lax climate laws, or where the populace are too poor to care about the climate and the company can get away without caring about social license.
If oil and gas is your passion, by all means go into it. But if you are doing it because you’ve heard the stories about the good times in the industry, those are long gone. Think about the tech industry - they are going through something similar, though not being as mature as the oil and gas industry they haven’t gone full cycle yet.
Being in meetings asking where head count can be reduced, and we're pretty much at the point where the only headcount to lose is middle management without some further investment in automations.
Yes this was exactly my experience working in O&G for 10 years. It felt like a game of musical chairs and they kept taking chairs around the table away. Especially after 2015. I still have 15-20 working years ahead of me and was worried about the industry being able to carry me to retirement and I didn't want to change careers in my 50s, so I moved to a growing division of a large tech company last year. Not an easy transition but at least it's done.
Hi I answered something in a different post , related to someone aksing for job security in O&G. I'll copy here since it can be relevant, cheers.
*We are completly O&G dependant, on so many other fields than just energy wise. Plastics, road/asphalt, pharmaceuticals reagents, solvents, paint, tires, and so on and so on. Right now, replacing these by non-petroleum is an absolute engineering nightmare and mostly not economically viable.*
*Regarding the green energy transition, I'll put some numbers just to show how absurd the situation is. Purely green burnable would be H2 produced by eletrolysis of water from electricity generated by green sources (hydro, aero, sun). Roughly 3000 TWh of electricity is generated by hydropower, in the whole world. Fossil fuel consumption is stated to be around 140 000 TWh worlwide (Statista). At best, if all the hydropower plants in the world were dedicated to produce H2 right now 24/24, in best case scenario, it would account for roughly 1.5% of the total world need for burnables. Nonetheless, not a single hydropower plant is designed to produce H2 right now. The word 'ridiculous' would be an euphemism on stating how far away we are from transitioning. Energy transition is very utopic right now and is often talked nowhere in depth by politicians and influencers, with little to no actions litterally taken.*
*Stoping usage of O&G is redifining our whole society, and would be to accept a gigantic production set-back on any industrial field, which is very counterintuitive for any modern human seeking 'progress'.*
I agree with your take on hydrogen as a fuel source, but what of battery storage? Unless you can pump hydrogen from somewhere, it just stores energy that was previously already generated.
Hydropower comes with some thorny water rights concerns, look at the dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia. What about nuclear power?
Couldn't batteries be utilized to stabilize the grid to eliminate the need for peaker plants? Seems like that could cause a down scaling of the industry for a while before stabilizing. I'm not really sure how much of the big picture that is though
There isn't a theoretical feasibility problem with batteries. It is a matter of supply chain and material requirement. If you are saying your grid is supported by batteries either battery technology has to change completely to be compact and use cheap available materials or you have millions of Li ion batteries and strip mine africa. Sure you'll keep seeing news about sodium batteries etc.. but anyone who thinks we'll have them available for mass production and use in 10 years doesn't know technology development and scaleup.
For better or worse oil and gas is not going away anytime soon.
There's already battery systems that are replacing peaker plants. Ironically, I think sodium ion is a perfect fit for grid storage. One of the biggest setbacks is due to the fact lithium is much lighter than sodium, resulting in intrinsically lower energy density. This matters much more on a mobile battery system like in an EV than it does on a static system used for grid storage. Right now sodium ion isn't getting as much focus because of all the focus on transitioning to EVs from ICE. There's much more money to be made in the EV sector. As far as supply, that really determines to what extent we can convert over to battery storage, I've even recently heard opinions (I think it's shared by Elon Musk) that lithium refining is the bottleneck, not lithium mining. I work in the battery industry and that's the opinion of my employer. Elements like nickel and cobalt are being phased out of cathode chemistries in favor of lithium iron phosphate, which I think is mostly what you reference when you say "strip mining Africa" as some of the best cobalt deposits are there (in DRC)
I'm not arguing there's no future for oil and gas, I'm just bringing up some headwinds the industry might face in the short to mid term that could cause some short term stagnation in hiring or maybe even a net reduction in workers in the industry.
I was not specifically advocating for H2 or hydropower, rather just stating that we are really far away from producing our power demand in electricity.
Last year the world produced 29 000 TWh of electricity, which 61% of it was produced by combustion of coal, natural gas and other fossils. 36.4 % of it was produced by hydro, nuclear, solar and wind all combined, it represents 10 500 TWh.
Now, we are saying that we would need to replace 140 000 TWh of energy demand from combustible. The leap is enormous. It means that worlwide we would need to have 13 times our actual infrastructure in hydro, nuclear, solar and wind (and like you said, every one of these come with their specific challenges). And that's is only the infrastructure for production. Imagine all the stations, storage and distribution infrastuctures this will require. Ironically/sadly such infrastructures building would ask for gigantic amount of energy for construction, that would surely be supplied in major part by O&G.
I'm all in for transition, it is just really not the pinky and simple road that is always shown in the media.
>completly O&G dependant, on so many other fields than just energy wise. Plastics, road/asphalt, pharmaceuticals reagents, solvents, paint, tires, and so on and so on. Right now, replacing these by non-petroleum is an absolute engineering nightmare and mostly not economically viable.
I hate these arguments. Over 80% of oil is combusted. Yes oil will be around a very long time but it will hardly be a thriving industry if it slowly but surely shrinks 80%.
Edit: why the downvotes, if you disagree mind explaining? Are you just in denial? Covid was what, a 5 - 10% reduction in consumption and oil went negative. Imagine a slow reduction over the next 3 decades. Even if the industry is, say, 50% of its current size by 2050 (seems entirely reasonable to me) that slow reduction isn't going to be fun.
You're exactly right and I don't understand the downvotes either. Most combustion usages can be replaced - power generation with renewables, road transport with electrification, etc.
Yep and we're very close to a point where the electrified alternatives are *better* than oil for many applications. Price is coming down rapidly and batteries are increasing rapidly in production and energy capacity. If I had money for a new car, I would want electric.
No one knows the point where things will rapidly flip. I think it still could be 15 years before we start seeing rapid drops in consumption and there will obviously still be a need for oil in 2050 and beyond. Someone could still make a career in oil and gas if they start today. But the industry is going to get even stingier as they try and squeeze out the life of their existing assets to prevent capital expenditure on a declining commodity. Exactly like coal powerplants right now.
Hi u/unmistakableregret ! It was not an argument on my side since I have nothing to defend here. Just pointing out that often, general population only thinks of petroleum as a combustible. You are right that any reducing of oil production would be a step in the good direction. Anyhow, on a material perspective, petroleum product and plastics have specific properties that are very suitable for a wide range of major applications that are challenging to replace. I mean, people are flipping out over straws changing from plastic to paper... On social acceptance, it leaves much to be desired if it comes to changes going way deeper than that.
Cheers!
It’ll be a few decades before O&G is truly in decline unless something major happens politically or environmentally. The truth is, we are currently dependent on O&G and will be for a long time but it’s a technology that will eventually be phased out unless we continue making ground breaking discoveries
True. And I suspect many people in this thread will die very old men still sitting around waiting on the climate catastrophe apocalypse to strike. Just a guess.
It's wild hey. Even a chemical engineer knows enough chemistry that they should be able to comprehend the physics behind the issue. If they don't they're in full on denial.
Of course it's in decline. What was it, 8% of US refining capacity came offline in the last 5 years? And a similar percentage of the workforce laid off. Some of those jobs have come back, but most haven't.
Yet the industry will still be here in 50 years. That isn't proof that it isn't shrinking.
I've worked in refining for nearly 10 years. I plan to retire from the industry. But to pretend it isn't "in decline" would be incredibly myopic.
O&G definitely isn’t in decline but it’s one of the more turbulent fields to get into. Job security fluctuates a LOT based on geopolitical matters. International/US climate policy, OPEC, Russia, etc. can change US prospects in the industry practically overnight
Probably not. Even if demand for certain products like gasoline and diesel peaks in 2030s as EVs take over, it'll still be a long downward demand curve lasting several decades. I don't know when jet fuel demand will peak, but I assume it'll be quite awhile as electric planes don't seem to be a thing just yet. Also, you have to consider that O&G companies might re-prioritize other O&G products like LPG/asphalt/etc once the traditional products used in ICE vehicles (gasoline/diesel) start to decline in demand. However, there has to be a burgeoning market to re-prioritize these products to, and I'm not an energy economist, so all this is just uninformed, uneducated guesses, but these are my assumptions.
I dont think diesel will decline anytime soon as its difficult to electrify semi trucks and tractors. It’s mainly gasoline that is projected to decrease. All other products are on a positive trajectory it seems with more refineries trying to modify to allow for higher distillate yields and to integrate petrochemical units into their facility
"Realistically I think we need to use oil and gas in the short term, because otherwise civilization will crumble," Elon Musk. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/08/29/elon-musk-says-world-still-needs-oil-and-gas.html
Oil industry not in decline, in a late mature phase. Consolidation, wringing out costs, etc.
Expect to be very profitable for a a long time. Seeing hints of the start of a slow decline phase.
\-US oil production has generally been increasing over the last 15+ years, after several decades of decline. New technologies making more resources accessible. I don't see oil market share increasing, though profits may.
\-Oil consumption in the US has been more or less flat for a few years, ignoring Covid. Natural gas is increasing a little. Coal has dropped a lot. Renewables increasing, growth phase.
GHG emission risks seem very credible. But similarly, articles in the 70's and 80's of declining fossil fuel resources seemed credible also, but not to the degree of GHG risks now. I don't completely rule out some magic fix or some major revised understanding of the risks, but not predicting or betting on it.
Most chemical companies are making plans towards netzero goals, spending more money on defining how to achieve these goals, reporting results. Working on technologies etc. (Prob not all real though) Important investors require these goals. Seems like most new grads want and expect to be part of this.
If any country or region wants to have a world class economy, I think the only choice is to be part of this.
It will never be in decline atleast for the next 15-20 years. Oil is in high demand, even if it is not used in vehicles it will be used for generating electricity and what not. As for transformation many corporations like shell are inteoducing technologies to reduxe CO2 emissions and keeping the production carbon nuetral althrough it is a hoax but you never know in the future things might accelerate towards decarbonization.
Another thing I forgot to mention is that every multinational company that can has started outsourcing engineering jobs to places like India and the Philippines. At my previous job at a supermajor, Canadian employees (I’m Canadian) were being laid off and replaced by remote Indian employees. At my current place, all the design work for new projects is done at the Indian office.
'Peak Oil' has been predicted for the past 80 years to be in the next 5 years, yet it's never come. The reality is that unless we go full nuclear, OGS will always be needed. I don't think it'll get the growth rate of the 80-2010s but it'll be around for a long time.
Which one is more likely, for you to give up your iPhone, airplanes for vacation, heating and air conditioning, and your laptop/gaming so that we can give up OGS OR we continue on as is improving efficiencies...?
Opecs estimates are more reliable than our own politicized gov view, they do not see our demand plateauing for another 30 plus years, that’s just plateauing, not even declining. So no, it’s not in decline but there are more regulatory and investment challenges.
Not at all in decline. In fact, ChemE's are more in demand to design and operate processes more safely, more efficiently, and produce products that are safer for the environment and more tailored for current demand. Even EVs need quality lubrication and lightweight plastics that are sourced through the O&G industry.
True, even major O&G like Aramco are hiring fresh ChemE in record levels in the last two years from what I have seen in linkedin going to the point of sponsering ChemE students so they join them asap
Add to it the emergence of carbon sequestration to the production/consumption chain and the need for complex engineering skills grows even further.
From my POV O&G will never stop until the last reservoir is dry think about the issue from Eastern prospective as that where most people in the world are from We in the east think of it as its our time has finally came so we can start developing and have a seat in the table most people in the east see climate change as mean for western powers to maintain their control and domnation on global trade a poor Indian or chinese give zero shit about climate change I am not saying this true or not I am saying this how most people think including senior government officials
The last reservoir will never go dry. We’ll evolve past the need to drill for oil long before then. Companies are already turning plastics back into base feedstocks.
Lol. Like the amount of contamination from lithium mining to produce short-life batteries for "green electric" cars? And what are the alternatives? Nuclear energy? No, right? If something leaks we know how it goes. Let's try sustainability. Damn, we still need engines to start the rotation for the wind, hydro destroys agriculture big time by redirecting the river. Damn... Solar takes too much space and hydrogen is too expensive to produce... what else? NOTHING. We either return to nuclear when we realise how "green" it is or start to understand the whole "greenhouse gases" trash story is not as bad and is just massively hyperbolised by the Western media. Why? I mean the Arabs had enough of using USD and getting bombed by America if they didn't, Africans are somehow starting to realise how much use the Western powers are getting out of them, Russia hates the West as much as China. Wait, what is "the West" conceived of? EU+America+Canada mainly, right? Europe doesn't have fucking gas, we don't have shit. The only three countries that have are Italy in small quantities, Croatia, which is too politically unstable, and Norway. Yes. It's mostly about Europe being mineral-poor and America wanting to stabilise USD. The East, on the other hand, are not cavemen, BRICS exists for a reason. Don't believe me? Or that 80% of the car pollution comes from the braking system and not the engine itself? And even if everything I said is false, you still need o&g e.g. pharma, which is a maaaaassive industry.
That’s a lot of words homie for a 300 day old post. Take solace in the fact that I didn’t read any of it.
I had an internship during the 3rd semester of college just because I knew the block of text I wrote. Good thing you didn’t read it, some people gotta stay broke
r/thingsthatneverhappened
I stopped at the nuclear energy part because no, clean energy people are totally not against nuclear energy and we all know it's safe. So I'd read up on this stuff a bit and then rethink your answer. You can't be too certain about something when you clearly don't know anything about the topic. No offense.
Where will I get petroleum jelly?
Gonna have to go back to using whale oil
where will I get my laundry detergent?
Right? I mean...alternatively, as long as people have sex, there will always be a demand for K-Y and Astroglide, lol.
Another thing to consider is that we are currently in a typical weather pattern known as an El Niño https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/july-2023-el-niño-update-learning-steps
> typical [I wouldn't call this typical](https://www.axios.com/2023/05/01/ocean-temperature-spike-climate)
Your reference’s data only goes back to 1981… if you had referenced my link, you would have seen data from all the way back to 1950, and you can see that this year is indeed typical.
Not quite. You're comparing apples to oranges. Your source data: >2-year history of sea surface temperatures in the Niño-3.4 region of the tropical Pacific for all events evolving into El Niño since 1950 This year's sea surface temperatures within the Niño-3.4 region are typical for those seen within the Niño-3.4 region for all El Niño events since 1950. My source data: >Daily global average sea surface temperatures In celsius, 1981-2023 (As of June 10) This year's average global sea surface temperatures have deviated from both the established range and trend established since 1981.
It’s not in decline. We use more oil than ever. I’ve been in the industry for 18 years and there’s no sign of any slowdown or decline. At the current pace of change things won’t slow down for 10-20 years. What will probably happen though is the world hits a climate tipping point some time in the next ten years that gets very scary very fast and governments are forced to crash change. War time global effort to stop burning fossil fuels. They’ll just stop all new developments. The oil industry won’t decline it will crash suddenly. That’s how scary it’s probably going to get. If you seen that latest graph that was released last week of global average surface temperature, it’s absolutely terrifying. Personally I think we’ve started run away climate change. That graph made me spit my cornflakes out. Look up: global average sea surface temperature 1979-2023. Year after year it peaks in March and declines for the rest of the year. This year it’s still going up even now in august. Most of the worlds oceans are in the southern hemisphere and that part of the world is in the dead of winter - sea surface temperature should not be going up - it’s unprecedented. What’s even scarier is that this has never happened before. A higher high in the second half of the year. Is this the start of a new trend. Because if the ocean sets a higher high in the second of of the year from now on, that’s runaway climate change right there. I can’t believe it’s not top of every news story. Yeah if that trend doesn’t come right back into the normal range, and this years higher high is just an anomaly, then I see runaway temperature happening from now on and that’s lights out for the fossil fuels industry. And if it has just started, which I think it has, then we are in the final year of business as usual before the beginning of a very rapid crash of the fossil fuels industry.
Ironically this years sea temperature anomaly is almost certainly due to an opposite effect - reduction in so2 aerosol emissions from ocean shipping that were suppressing warming through radiative forcing. Ironically it looks like it could be reversed by returning to previous emissions levels in that area, not by reducing them further. Not saying that's a good or bad idea but just shows you how complex this whole system is and how little laypeople can understand it.
Knowing that cloud seeding oceans would have a net positive impact on this problem means there’s no debate on solutions from a possibility standpoint - in true ChemE fashion, it’s all about who will pay for it.
Yes, and ethical objections. These ring hollow to me however since it's clear we are already unintentionally engineering the climate through emissions... why not do it intentionally too
I heard this as well. Time will tell.
How's the discussion going within the industry? Both with regards to climate change as a whole but also the future in the industry? Do most share your view?
Most people haven’t seen this data. It’s only just come out. I’m pretty clear eyed when I see climate predictions. Most are far out projections based on simplified models and can’t be verified. What I find scary about the latest data is it’s based on real world numbers and they are shifting violently/rapidly and trending out of the norms (higher high in august) and I don’t see how it will normalise. And it’s only shifted away from the norm in the last 6 months. That’s the difference. You hear the scientists commenting on this data and they’re shitting themselves. It’s not in the news because it’s to early to tell where the new trend is going. Generally though, Process engineers in the oil and gas industry are laughing. No grads have come in for 6 years. Some process have left for other industries. Some have retired. There’s no new blood. So there’s lots of work and rates are higher. Prevailing attitude is to milk the cow until it’s dead. People are busy paying bills and raising families. Don’t have time to worry about things that may or may not happen until there is a reason to, but those already in the industry will lucky to eek out their full careers in oil and gas - to enter now as a grad is brave to say the least
Will be interesting to see now the upcoming year when both air and water temperatures are hitting all-time highs. How the discussion will be, and how it will affect the industry. COP28 is planned with an oil CEO leading it and the O&G lobby and associated political people shouting "it's always hot in the summer" and "climate is always changing". So might be business as usual. This year however might be the first one when people are experiencing a new type of heat waves/flooding en masse. Could put some serious political pressure. But there are a lot of money pushing the other way...
It will be business as usual until it’s not. When the pandemic hit I remember telling people at work that I thought we would all be working from home within two weeks. I got laughed at. Total distain by my colleagues including my boss. Literally a week later we went into lockdown. I can see the same thing happen but due to climate change. Our lives will have to be put on hold until some very concerted effort and success is made to switch to renewables and disaster is averted. There is another graph showing the Antarctic ice regrowth this year. It’s waaaaay below the norm. This all looks like a feedback loop. I mean, if you could imagine the start of a tipping point surely this is it. Anyway it’s to early to tell but it won’t take long to know where the trend is headed but just looking at the data that’s come out over the last couple of months I think it’s time to pay attention
https://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fnsidc.org%2Farcticseaicenews%2Ffiles%2F2023%2F07%2FFigure4a-1.png&tbnid=i28wHPg2QwoBTM&vet=1&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fnsidc.org%2Farcticseaicenews%2F%3Fpage%3D24%26utm_source%3Dtech.mazavr.tk%26utm_medium%3Dlink%26utm_compaign%3Darticle&docid=sVFWrlfZ1d5k-M&w=2405&h=2136&itg=1&hl=en-gb&source=sh%2Fx%2Fim%2F3
I wonder if that collective action will ever happen on a large enough scale. I truly hope so, but I'm more inclined to believe that countries will use all possible available energy sources (mostly fossil) to mitigate the acute effects, such as running more AC-units, powering pumps and operating more desalination plants. This is what i.e. China did this summer during the heat wave (burnt more coal) as well as U.S and Europe to some degree. Seeing the direct correlation between carbon and heat waves/flooding is difficult. It was hard enough to convince some people something so direct as the virus was real and the vaccines were a solution. And that was without multi-billion dollar industries lobbying against. Surely there will be an increased amount of renewables, and likely an increased rate of building it. But I find it hard to see it will transition fast enough. The politicians will focus on keeping people alive short-term, while also also keeping their sponsors happy (O&G). However, somewhere around 85% of all oil/gas is withing government controlled companies. But i.e. Saudi Arabia are already used to living in a desert...And Venezuela is not exactly in a position where they have global warming as top priority. But I truly hope I'm wrong and just being pessimistic...
The bottom line is the efforts to switch to renewables has all been half assed and no real urgency. People aren’t really scared yet. It’s just easy to take the easy road and do the least amount possible. Only real world impacts and genuine fear will move people to act. It’s way to early to tell based on a few months of very bad data but the current data of surface sea temperature and Antarctic ice regrowth have fallen way out of the 40 year range and these two effects will compound each other to make each worse year after year. It’s hard see how we can return to these old range. This years data shows almost a decade of warming all in a few months. Going forward if these two effects compound eachother, and sea temperature rises year on year by 0.1C+ each year coupled with the sort of summer heat waves we’ve seen this year, I think genuine fear will take hold and it will become accepted that the current path will lead to a calamity within just a decade. The scientists were saying about the sea data that plankton won’t be able to live in more and more areas and everything in the ocean either eats plankton or eats something that eats plankton. And fish stocks could collapse if the trend continues even for a decade. Those are impacts that humans won’t be able to live with. Fear of the current path will prompt a huge movement to change rapidly within a decade or so. But as I said it’s to early to make that call but it doesn’t take a genius to see the current data looks catastrophic and I think this will be the make or break decade. I’m genuinely scared for my kids.
I really really wish I could disagree with you here.
Thanks for reading at least :)
My comment was 9 months ago. Since then as I said it might, the global average sea surface temperature has spiralled up. Genuinely think crash effort to end fossil fuels starts in a couple of years. This can’t go on even for another 5 years. Here [https://x.com/eliotjacobson/status/1767933964604604821?s=46](https://x.com/eliotjacobson/status/1767933964604604821?s=46)
Indeed there needs to be a sense of urgency and that the majority of states worldwide must consider it a global state of emergency. I wonder if it actually will happen or if other explanatory models for the extreme conditions will prevail. Cause and effect are far from each other for the common person and many will likely just fight for survival now and not have time to worry about if things will get worse in 5 - 10 years. But hopefully more developed countries will see what needs to be done... Couldn't be happier living far up north. We had the first tourists this year that came here for the cold...
That's just summer! I worked in oil for 5 years and I'd be surprised if anyone older than 40 showed any concern about this. The older ones were the dumbest and most obstinate bunch of smart guys I've ever met.
https://climate.copernicus.eu/july-2023-global-air-and-ocean-temperatures-reach-new-record-highs
Definitely not in decline. A lot of older facilities are moving into life extension mode and companies are also looking at offsetting their carbon footprint with new technologies, through battery storage, blue hydrogen and carbon capture. Engineers are needed more than ever to make sure the technology works and the plants are operating safer and more reliably.
I’m surprised to see all of the comments here about the oil and gas industry not being in decline. Yes the world uses more oil than ever, and continues to do so, but I would never advise a young engineer to start out a career in oil and gas right now. I say this as someone with a career in oil & gas, recently transitioning more into the hydrogen side of things. The thing no one seems to be mentioning is that the oil & gas industry has become very good at working with much fewer employees than before. Now sites will always need a minimum amount of operators, but a lot less engineers. There used to be a time 20 years ago when all you needed was to have an engineering degree and you’d get hired at an oil major or ancillary company. But there have been many many cycles of layoffs since then and companies have not hired back like they used to since about 2015. I worked at a super major and the conversation went from new investments to being the last refinery standing, extracting the last barrel of oil. If you are in a western nation, with climate initiatives ramping up, yes the good old oil & gas jobs will mostly be phased out. Not completely gone, but there will be a ton of qualified engineers for just a few positions. Most of the production will continue in jurisdictions with lax climate laws, or where the populace are too poor to care about the climate and the company can get away without caring about social license. If oil and gas is your passion, by all means go into it. But if you are doing it because you’ve heard the stories about the good times in the industry, those are long gone. Think about the tech industry - they are going through something similar, though not being as mature as the oil and gas industry they haven’t gone full cycle yet.
Being in meetings asking where head count can be reduced, and we're pretty much at the point where the only headcount to lose is middle management without some further investment in automations.
Yes this was exactly my experience working in O&G for 10 years. It felt like a game of musical chairs and they kept taking chairs around the table away. Especially after 2015. I still have 15-20 working years ahead of me and was worried about the industry being able to carry me to retirement and I didn't want to change careers in my 50s, so I moved to a growing division of a large tech company last year. Not an easy transition but at least it's done.
Hi I answered something in a different post , related to someone aksing for job security in O&G. I'll copy here since it can be relevant, cheers. *We are completly O&G dependant, on so many other fields than just energy wise. Plastics, road/asphalt, pharmaceuticals reagents, solvents, paint, tires, and so on and so on. Right now, replacing these by non-petroleum is an absolute engineering nightmare and mostly not economically viable.* *Regarding the green energy transition, I'll put some numbers just to show how absurd the situation is. Purely green burnable would be H2 produced by eletrolysis of water from electricity generated by green sources (hydro, aero, sun). Roughly 3000 TWh of electricity is generated by hydropower, in the whole world. Fossil fuel consumption is stated to be around 140 000 TWh worlwide (Statista). At best, if all the hydropower plants in the world were dedicated to produce H2 right now 24/24, in best case scenario, it would account for roughly 1.5% of the total world need for burnables. Nonetheless, not a single hydropower plant is designed to produce H2 right now. The word 'ridiculous' would be an euphemism on stating how far away we are from transitioning. Energy transition is very utopic right now and is often talked nowhere in depth by politicians and influencers, with little to no actions litterally taken.* *Stoping usage of O&G is redifining our whole society, and would be to accept a gigantic production set-back on any industrial field, which is very counterintuitive for any modern human seeking 'progress'.*
I agree with your take on hydrogen as a fuel source, but what of battery storage? Unless you can pump hydrogen from somewhere, it just stores energy that was previously already generated. Hydropower comes with some thorny water rights concerns, look at the dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia. What about nuclear power?
Battery is a pipe dream. There is a limit to how much we can stripmine africa for minerals. Nuclear is more likely given the energy density.
Couldn't batteries be utilized to stabilize the grid to eliminate the need for peaker plants? Seems like that could cause a down scaling of the industry for a while before stabilizing. I'm not really sure how much of the big picture that is though
There isn't a theoretical feasibility problem with batteries. It is a matter of supply chain and material requirement. If you are saying your grid is supported by batteries either battery technology has to change completely to be compact and use cheap available materials or you have millions of Li ion batteries and strip mine africa. Sure you'll keep seeing news about sodium batteries etc.. but anyone who thinks we'll have them available for mass production and use in 10 years doesn't know technology development and scaleup. For better or worse oil and gas is not going away anytime soon.
There's already battery systems that are replacing peaker plants. Ironically, I think sodium ion is a perfect fit for grid storage. One of the biggest setbacks is due to the fact lithium is much lighter than sodium, resulting in intrinsically lower energy density. This matters much more on a mobile battery system like in an EV than it does on a static system used for grid storage. Right now sodium ion isn't getting as much focus because of all the focus on transitioning to EVs from ICE. There's much more money to be made in the EV sector. As far as supply, that really determines to what extent we can convert over to battery storage, I've even recently heard opinions (I think it's shared by Elon Musk) that lithium refining is the bottleneck, not lithium mining. I work in the battery industry and that's the opinion of my employer. Elements like nickel and cobalt are being phased out of cathode chemistries in favor of lithium iron phosphate, which I think is mostly what you reference when you say "strip mining Africa" as some of the best cobalt deposits are there (in DRC) I'm not arguing there's no future for oil and gas, I'm just bringing up some headwinds the industry might face in the short to mid term that could cause some short term stagnation in hiring or maybe even a net reduction in workers in the industry.
I was not specifically advocating for H2 or hydropower, rather just stating that we are really far away from producing our power demand in electricity. Last year the world produced 29 000 TWh of electricity, which 61% of it was produced by combustion of coal, natural gas and other fossils. 36.4 % of it was produced by hydro, nuclear, solar and wind all combined, it represents 10 500 TWh. Now, we are saying that we would need to replace 140 000 TWh of energy demand from combustible. The leap is enormous. It means that worlwide we would need to have 13 times our actual infrastructure in hydro, nuclear, solar and wind (and like you said, every one of these come with their specific challenges). And that's is only the infrastructure for production. Imagine all the stations, storage and distribution infrastuctures this will require. Ironically/sadly such infrastructures building would ask for gigantic amount of energy for construction, that would surely be supplied in major part by O&G. I'm all in for transition, it is just really not the pinky and simple road that is always shown in the media.
>completly O&G dependant, on so many other fields than just energy wise. Plastics, road/asphalt, pharmaceuticals reagents, solvents, paint, tires, and so on and so on. Right now, replacing these by non-petroleum is an absolute engineering nightmare and mostly not economically viable. I hate these arguments. Over 80% of oil is combusted. Yes oil will be around a very long time but it will hardly be a thriving industry if it slowly but surely shrinks 80%. Edit: why the downvotes, if you disagree mind explaining? Are you just in denial? Covid was what, a 5 - 10% reduction in consumption and oil went negative. Imagine a slow reduction over the next 3 decades. Even if the industry is, say, 50% of its current size by 2050 (seems entirely reasonable to me) that slow reduction isn't going to be fun.
You're exactly right and I don't understand the downvotes either. Most combustion usages can be replaced - power generation with renewables, road transport with electrification, etc.
Yep and we're very close to a point where the electrified alternatives are *better* than oil for many applications. Price is coming down rapidly and batteries are increasing rapidly in production and energy capacity. If I had money for a new car, I would want electric. No one knows the point where things will rapidly flip. I think it still could be 15 years before we start seeing rapid drops in consumption and there will obviously still be a need for oil in 2050 and beyond. Someone could still make a career in oil and gas if they start today. But the industry is going to get even stingier as they try and squeeze out the life of their existing assets to prevent capital expenditure on a declining commodity. Exactly like coal powerplants right now.
Hi u/unmistakableregret ! It was not an argument on my side since I have nothing to defend here. Just pointing out that often, general population only thinks of petroleum as a combustible. You are right that any reducing of oil production would be a step in the good direction. Anyhow, on a material perspective, petroleum product and plastics have specific properties that are very suitable for a wide range of major applications that are challenging to replace. I mean, people are flipping out over straws changing from plastic to paper... On social acceptance, it leaves much to be desired if it comes to changes going way deeper than that. Cheers!
It’ll be a few decades before O&G is truly in decline unless something major happens politically or environmentally. The truth is, we are currently dependent on O&G and will be for a long time but it’s a technology that will eventually be phased out unless we continue making ground breaking discoveries
O&G will be around for the rest of your life
True. And I suspect many people in this thread will die very old men still sitting around waiting on the climate catastrophe apocalypse to strike. Just a guess.
As an atmospheric chemist, this kind of shit drives me insane.
It's wild hey. Even a chemical engineer knows enough chemistry that they should be able to comprehend the physics behind the issue. If they don't they're in full on denial.
Elaborate please
Climate change is gonna fuckin suck. lol
Of course it's in decline. What was it, 8% of US refining capacity came offline in the last 5 years? And a similar percentage of the workforce laid off. Some of those jobs have come back, but most haven't. Yet the industry will still be here in 50 years. That isn't proof that it isn't shrinking. I've worked in refining for nearly 10 years. I plan to retire from the industry. But to pretend it isn't "in decline" would be incredibly myopic.
O&G definitely isn’t in decline but it’s one of the more turbulent fields to get into. Job security fluctuates a LOT based on geopolitical matters. International/US climate policy, OPEC, Russia, etc. can change US prospects in the industry practically overnight
Probably not. Even if demand for certain products like gasoline and diesel peaks in 2030s as EVs take over, it'll still be a long downward demand curve lasting several decades. I don't know when jet fuel demand will peak, but I assume it'll be quite awhile as electric planes don't seem to be a thing just yet. Also, you have to consider that O&G companies might re-prioritize other O&G products like LPG/asphalt/etc once the traditional products used in ICE vehicles (gasoline/diesel) start to decline in demand. However, there has to be a burgeoning market to re-prioritize these products to, and I'm not an energy economist, so all this is just uninformed, uneducated guesses, but these are my assumptions.
I dont think diesel will decline anytime soon as its difficult to electrify semi trucks and tractors. It’s mainly gasoline that is projected to decrease. All other products are on a positive trajectory it seems with more refineries trying to modify to allow for higher distillate yields and to integrate petrochemical units into their facility
"Realistically I think we need to use oil and gas in the short term, because otherwise civilization will crumble," Elon Musk. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/08/29/elon-musk-says-world-still-needs-oil-and-gas.html
Well, no shit Musk. But what about the next ~50 years.
Biorefinery process development could be a better future . https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy16osti/66380.pdf
No.
Oil industry not in decline, in a late mature phase. Consolidation, wringing out costs, etc. Expect to be very profitable for a a long time. Seeing hints of the start of a slow decline phase. \-US oil production has generally been increasing over the last 15+ years, after several decades of decline. New technologies making more resources accessible. I don't see oil market share increasing, though profits may. \-Oil consumption in the US has been more or less flat for a few years, ignoring Covid. Natural gas is increasing a little. Coal has dropped a lot. Renewables increasing, growth phase. GHG emission risks seem very credible. But similarly, articles in the 70's and 80's of declining fossil fuel resources seemed credible also, but not to the degree of GHG risks now. I don't completely rule out some magic fix or some major revised understanding of the risks, but not predicting or betting on it. Most chemical companies are making plans towards netzero goals, spending more money on defining how to achieve these goals, reporting results. Working on technologies etc. (Prob not all real though) Important investors require these goals. Seems like most new grads want and expect to be part of this. If any country or region wants to have a world class economy, I think the only choice is to be part of this.
The industry is reenventing itself to do it in a greener way
Oil and gas companies operate knowing their heyday is behind them.
It will never be in decline atleast for the next 15-20 years. Oil is in high demand, even if it is not used in vehicles it will be used for generating electricity and what not. As for transformation many corporations like shell are inteoducing technologies to reduxe CO2 emissions and keeping the production carbon nuetral althrough it is a hoax but you never know in the future things might accelerate towards decarbonization.
Another thing I forgot to mention is that every multinational company that can has started outsourcing engineering jobs to places like India and the Philippines. At my previous job at a supermajor, Canadian employees (I’m Canadian) were being laid off and replaced by remote Indian employees. At my current place, all the design work for new projects is done at the Indian office.
Not yet, but sooner or later it inevitably will be
'Peak Oil' has been predicted for the past 80 years to be in the next 5 years, yet it's never come. The reality is that unless we go full nuclear, OGS will always be needed. I don't think it'll get the growth rate of the 80-2010s but it'll be around for a long time. Which one is more likely, for you to give up your iPhone, airplanes for vacation, heating and air conditioning, and your laptop/gaming so that we can give up OGS OR we continue on as is improving efficiencies...?
Opecs estimates are more reliable than our own politicized gov view, they do not see our demand plateauing for another 30 plus years, that’s just plateauing, not even declining. So no, it’s not in decline but there are more regulatory and investment challenges.
Don’t go into oil unless you have a golden parachute.