HOUSTON – Sabrina Burns, a senior at the University of Texas at Austin, thought she would start a lucrative career in the oil and gas industry when she graduated in a few months.
But the collapse in demand for oil and gas during the coronavirus pandemic disrupted her well-laid plans and forced her to consider a new path.
“We got a slap in the face, a completely unforeseen situation that shook our whole mindset,” she said. Burns, who studies petroleum engineering, said. ‘I applied for every oil and gas job I saw, like all my classmates, and nothing really showed up. I’m discouraged. ”
With fewer people commuting and traveling, the oil and gas industry has taken a beating. Oil companies laid off more than 100,000 employees. Many businesses closed refineries, and others sought bankruptcy protection.
The industry has attracted thousands of young people over the past few years with the promise of safe careers as shale drilling began and made the United States the largest producer of oil. But many students and recent graduates say they are no longer sure that there is a place for them in the industry. Even after the pandemic ended, some of them feared that growing concerns about climate change would lead to the inevitable decline in oil and gas.
These students are looking for elite positions in an oil and gas industry that employs about two million people. Even after recent layoffs, petroleum companies are still employing more people than the fast-growing wind and solar companies, which, according to trading groups, have a combined workforce of at least 370,000.
Burns, 22, said her choices have significantly diminished over the past nine months. With opportunities in oil and gas limited, she recently accepted an internship at an engineering consulting firm specializing in energy conservation, and she could eventually apply for a graduate school in environmental science. She is also considering moving in with her sister after her studies to save money.
“I feel that companies would be pretty careful about getting out of here and taking in new hires,” she said.
Me. Burns was seduced into an oil and gas career by stories her father, a helicopter pilot, told her about the successful female engineers he met in the Gulf of Mexico to operate foreign craft. But while her professors have envisioned the future for oil and gas companies, she is worried.
Burns said she had doubts about her chosen industry before the pandemic. Other students and even an Uber driver who transported her and others to a banquet in the petroleum industry in 2018 have raised questions about the future of oil and gas and why renewable energy could be a better bet.
“Have you ever heard of a solar panel?” she remembers how the Uber driver asked her and her friends.
“The silent judgment and the judgment of commentary gave me a lot of weight,” she added. Her parents persuaded her to stick to her program, and me. Burns said she is committed to the industry and is working to improve the environment’s performance.
“I hope I can finally apply all my skills and knowledge,” she said.
“The question is going to come back.”
Stephen Zagurski, a graduate student in geology at Rice University, said the timing of his graduation ceremony in the coming weeks is “not perfect, far from it.”
“There is a shortage of available positions and a large pool of talent and an abundance of graduates coming out of the school,” he added. “It’s going to provide opportunities to get into the industry so much harder.”
But Mr. Zagurski, 23, said the oil and gas industry would bounce back, just as it has done many times over the past century, despite general beliefs that the pandemic will permanently reduce energy consumption. “The question is going to come back,” he said. “Let’s be honest here, how many things in our daily lives contain a kind of petroleum product.”
Mr. Zagurski took an internship at Roxanna Oil, a small business with executives who are his second cousins, and he gradually took on greater responsibility.
He can probably join Roxanna full time, and he is confident that the market for young geoscientists and engineers will eventually increase. If the oil industry does not recover, he is also considering working in geothermal energy or environmental science or pursuing a doctorate. “Everyone offers their time to see what’s going to happen,” he said.
Some have changed industries.
Myles Hampton Arvie, a senior at the University of Houston who studies finance and accounting, wanted to follow his father in the oil and gas industry.
“Energy and gas are something I’m passionate about,” he said. “Oil and gas are not going anywhere for the next 20 or 30 years, so do not be a part of it as we make the transition to cleaner energy.”
His father was a project manager in foreign fields in the Gulf of Mexico. Mr. Arvie is interested in office work and has interned twice at EY, also known as Ernst & Young. He performs financial modeling, auditing and balancing for several U.S. and Canadian oil companies. He becomes the vice chairman of the Energy Coalition, a student group that provides students with educational and job opportunities.
Mr. Arvie drew enough attention to land interviews with various oil and gas companies, but a job offer was elusive. “It’s very competitive,” he said, and the downturn only made it harder to land a position.
Mr. Arvie, 22, who was due to study in May, switched his career and accepted a position at JPMorgan Chase, where he expects to become involved in derivatives and marketing in the technology industry. But one day he might find a place in the energy industry, he said.
“I’m a little disappointed,” he said. “But you have to keep it going.”
“Just a bad timing.”
Clayton Brown, a graduate student at the University of Houston who studies petroleum geology, recalls finding an article online four years ago claiming that the future could not look better for geologists exploring underground oil and gas reserves.
“I saw the salary that petroleum geologists earn, and I was immediately interested,” he said. Brown said.
From Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington, NC, Mr. Brown Geology at Western Colorado University. He was fascinated by the science behind seismic tests and rock and sand formations.
Confident in his career choice, he borrowed tens of thousands of dollars to continue his education.
Mr. Brown is now 23 years old and has $ 55,000 in student debt. By next fall, he will owe about $ 70,000. To make matters worse, the small oil company where he was stopping recently paid because it cut the cost of managing the downturn.
He moved back to North Carolina to live with his parents while attending online and sending out resumes. “Covid was quite a curve,” he said. “No one expects a virus to destroy the oil industry.”
Still, he said he was not sorry and called the downturn “just a bad timing.”
A job for now but worried about the future.
Tosa Nehikhuere, the son of Nigerian immigrants, was relatively happy. Shortly after graduating from the University of Texas at Austin in 2018, he joined a major European oil company and worked several internships and jobs in the field and on the trading floor.
But it was such a volatile ride that he already has doubts about the direction he was following at university.
Mr. Nehikhuere’s parents were poor in Nigeria. They moved to New York, where Mr Nehikhuere’s taxi driver. Eventually, they moved to Houston, where life was cheaper and his parents pursued careers in nursing.
They embraced the oil industry, which dominates Texas and their homeland, and encouraged their son to pursue petroleum engineering. This is a common way of first- and second-generation immigrants and Americans in Texas.
In the middle of the first year of mr. Nehikhuere, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, led by Saudi Arabia, flooded the world market with oil to try to subdue the booming US shale oil drilling industry, which caused prices to tumble.
“It was quite nerve-wracking,” he recalls. ‘I’ve seen seniors with three internships at the same company freeze; juniors, sophomores struggling to get internships. It was pretty bad right around the job prospects. ”
Mr. Nehikhuere thought about switching from majoring, but he felt that oil prices would recover as they have done so many times, and it did for most of 2018 and 2019.
But the coronavirus pandemic took hold just when Mr. Nehikhuere’s career was getting busy, and now he’s worried again.
Mr. Nehikhuere, 24, did not want to identify his employer, but said it was laying off workers and debating how aggressively it should turn from oil and gas to renewable energy.
If the business is moving fast towards cleaner energy, he says, he is not sure if there will be a place for him. “How much is going to transfer my skills?”
“There is going to be a significant amount of layoffs, change and outsourcing,” he added. ‘To be honest, I do not know if it’s going to affect me. It’s really in the air. ”
Mr. Nehikhuere is already considering a change, perhaps looking for work at a consulting firm or a company that supplies technology to oil and gas companies.
“As I reflect more and more on my career, the volatility of an oil and gas company can be very upsetting,” he said. “I prefer to have something more stable.”