The Fifth SPE Colloquium on Petroleum Engineering Education - An Industry Perspective

Abstract

The Fifth SPE Colloquium on Petroleum Engineering Education (CPEE),, held 23–28 July 2000, was a very successful gathering of educators, technical leaders, engineers, and scientists from academia, industry, and government. The purpose was to address the critical issue of industry-university-government partnership in education, technology development, and technology transfer. The ultimate goal was to identify ways to develop the engineers and technology that the industry will need for the future. This paper reports the consensus of the Colloquium pertaining to:the industry's current expectations for new petroleum engineering graduates (B.S., M.S., and Ph.D.) andthe future of research and development (R&D) activity in academia. Other subjects such as petroleum engineering education, curricula, technology transfer, and ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) issues are presented in a companion paper. In the context of this paper, academia refers to the U.S. petroleum engineering schools, and industry means the upstream segment of the U.S. petroleum industry. While this presentation has a U.S. framework, some findings may certainly apply globally elsewhere. Introduction According to Webster's dictionary, university is an institution of higher learning providing facilities for teaching and research. Teaching and research were the main subjects discussed at the CPEE. As for teaching, the academia (and specifically the petroleum engineering schools) has done an outstanding job of educating students in the technical subjects. The majority of students are technically well prepared to work in the industry. However, the fast-changing needs of the industry require that petroleum engineering students be prepared for current business issues, and be able to contribute to the corporate success and profitability from the start. As far as research is concerned, the academia have always been the cradle of fundamental research, but more and more, there is a great need for academic research to include solutions pertaining to the immediate needs of the industry. This issue is even more critical because of the vacuum created by the closing of several U.S. research and technology centers in the petroleum industry. From a historical perspective, both industry and government have funded research projects in the academia. In turn, academia has used the funds to support graduate students in conducting primarily reservoir management related basic research. Today, because of the pressure to cut costs, the slow pace at which research results are produced, and in many cases the non-relevance of research results to the industry's immediate needs, industry's sponsorship of academic research in the U.S. has diminished. Furthermore, according to a government publication, longer-term research has been curtailed, reflecting the inability of the companies to capture economic benefits of such investments. 1

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