The oil-and-gas extraction of the USA is threatened with serious deficiency of qualified personnel
The oil-extracting companies are in serious demand of qualified personnel for realization of new power projects, Associated Press (September, 3) informs.
The consulting company Oliver Wyman informs, that 8 of 10 global power companies working in the sphere of oil and gas extraction predict the engineering staff shortage at the least up to 2011. According to the American Petroleum Institute, API, American power companies will need about 5 thousand engineering workers up to the end of the current decade. Many companies already have difficulties with realization of new projects because the industry goes through the cycle characterized by the lack of young human resources and by significant number of workers retiring.
Evidently, fossil fuels will remain the basic energy source for a long time, even despite the development of alternative sources. Deposits search and development work increases and becomes more complicated and that demands more and more qualified personnel.
In expert’s opinion, the present situation is partially accounted for by the dynamics of the industry development. Today people who were born after the Second World War and who worked in this sphere 25-30 years retire. The peak of employment in oil extracting branch was in 1982 when 860 thousand people worked in this sphere in the USA. Then companies dismissed more than 500 thousand workers in 18 years because of the prices for oil decrease.
Thus, the industry is considered, according to API, an unreliable job by many young experts. However, the situation is gradually changing as oil prices are high, and forecasts predict their further rise. At educational institutions the groups of preparation of oil extracting branch experts are expanded, but they still do not keep up with the demands of the market. Thus, at University of Texas the number of oil extraction engineering students grew from 191 in 2001 up to 507 in autumn of 2006.Though the oil school of university had even better times when 1422 students studied at it in 1982.