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Industry in decline?
Oil, gas students thrive Employers offer jobs despite industry downfall MIKE BRESTOVANSKY Assistant News Editor @BrestovanskyM
The oil and gas industry may be struggling now, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at OU’s petroleum engineering students. Although the industry is experiencing a downswing, around 70 percent of OU’s petroleum engineer ing students will graduate this year with job offers already in place, said Chandra Rai, director of the Mewbourne School of Petroleum and Geological Engineering. While this is a marked decrease from last year, which saw 90 percent of students graduate with job offers, 70 percent is still a respectable number, Rai said.
“The vast majority [of my classmates] do have jobs,” said petroleum engineering senior Kirke Suter, petroleum engineering senior. Suter, who has a fulltime job offer as a production engineer at Anadarko Petroleum, said that he received the offer at a career fair last September, before the downturn, but he knows several seniors who did not. “In past years, most people who graduated with a petroleum engineering degree do get a job,” said petroleum engineering senior Faye Reiley, who received an offer for a full-time position as a reservoir engineer at QEP Resources. Although OU has a close relationship with natural gas producer Devon Energy Corporation, the high employability of OU’s petroleum engineering students has nothing to do with that relationship, Rai said.
“Devon makes business decisions,” Rai said. “[Who they hire] has nothing to do with friendship.” There is no dominant employer for recent graduates in the industry, but as a rule, graduates can make anywhere from $80,000 to $100,000 for their starting salaries, Rai said. Many companies have altered their internship opportunities, shortening the length of time of the internships, Reiley said. The causes of the current downswing have to do with the shifting commodity values of petroleum, Rai said. “What we have is a depressed commodity,” Rai said. “And, like all commodities, it is determined by the laws of supply and demand.” All branches of engineering have to downsize when the market for a commodity decreases, Rai said. Recently, the management
information systems field was hit, Rai said. “Everyone is very interested in watching how the oil price is changing now,” Suter said. The students graduating this year started at OU when the industry was strong and healthy, Rai said. “No one can predict what will happen four years from now,” Rai said. Reiley and Suter both have younger brothers who are petroleum engineering freshmen, Reiley said. While the brothers are somewhat concerned about their future prospects, Reiley is not. “As long as you’re doing well in your classes and staying involved, you shouldn’t have a problem,” Reiley said. Mike Brestovansky mcbrestov@gmail.com
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Stadium receives reduced facelift Only 44 percent of the original plans will be executed BRADY VARDEMAN
Assistant Sports Editor @BradyVardeman
When plans to renovate Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium were released last summer, the improvements to the structure were to cost $360 million. The original plan included renovations to the westside deck and press box as well as improvements to stadium infrastructure. Oklahoma also planned to add a continuous concourse that wrapped around the entire stadium.
H o w e v e r, a f t e r t h e Oklahoma oil crisis, the school scaled back plans. As it stands, Oklahoma is set to go through with $160 million-worth of the proposed renovations, or just 44 percent. Oklahoma President David Boren cited falling oil prices as the reason behind the scaled-back stadium plans. “In one week, half of the net worth of our major donors was wiped out by the falling oil prices,” Boren said. “You’re sitting there, somebody’s worth however-many millions dollars … three days later, they’re worth half that. That’s exactly what happened.”
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OU alumnus has doubts in oil industry Graduate of ‘83 spent years in desert drilling base EMILY SHARP
Life and Arts Editor @esharp13
Though OU alumnus David Robinson currently runs his own packaging and trucking company that he started with his father, he is still reminded almost daily of his past booming business: the oil industry. David used to manage dr illing bases overseas in places like Brazil and Algeria. Although the oil and gas industry is currently under intense scrutiny for some of its practices, for David, oil and gas was a way of life.
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David grew up overseas in places like Venezuela with his father, who also worked in the oil industry. When he graduated from OU with a degree in management, he got a job with Schlumberger Limited and traveled around the world, he said. “I was basically living out of a suitcase,” David said. “I actually got to live in Brazil [for five years] and that was nice. But I really was just living out of a suitcase most of the time.” David then worked in Hassi Messaoud, Algeria, where he headed a drilling base base for years. The base was surrounded by desert and hours could pass before he saw a single vehicle, he said. “One time I got disoriented, got lost and spent five
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days in the desert,” David said. “I walked about 50 miles and was running out of food and water. Eventually I made it back to the base safe, but they didn’t even know I was gone until the third day.” In 1994, Muslim extremists attacked a drilling location and beheaded two Christians for their religion, David said. After this, David decided he needed some time to go back to the U.S. and spend time with his family, who remained stateside for their own safety. Many experts believe that the recent downswing of the industry is part of a cycle and will reverse itself soon, but David and his family aren’t so optimistic. “People are saying ‘Oh, it’s going to come back around in the next few months,’ but
I don’t think it will,” David said. “We don’t have an energy system in place in this country that would help us by converting our vehicles to compressed natural gas.” “My friend in Ada converted all his trucks to run off of compressed natural gas,” David said. “It cost him about $175,000 out of his own pocket, but he earned that up in about 16 months in regards to compressed natural gas versus the price of diesel ... We have so much natural gas in America that we should be using it.” David’s son Joseph is now following in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps and is enrolled as a petroleum engineering senior at OU.
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Class of ‘83 Grad David Robinson worked overseas before leaving to start his own trucking and packaging company now located in McAlester, Ok.
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