CRITICAL ISSUES IN DRILLING & COMPLETIONS
IADC has focused a lot in recent years
on engaging with the next-generation
workforce through our Student Chap-
ter program, including a chapter at
Perth’s Curtin University, and our Young
Professionals Committee. What would
you like to see the industry do in Aus-
tralia to develop tomorrow’s talent?
I think the Student Chapter program
is a fantastic program, and it’s certainly
important to engage with people early in
their careers. With this younger genera-
tion, we need to communicate that there
are exciting career opportunities available
in the oil and gas sector.

The key challenge is that we don’t have
this understanding of the long-term role
of oil and gas in the energy mix, and par-
ticularly the importance of our sector in
the net-zero transformation. It’s going to
be important to communicate that young
people can do a huge amount of good
working in this industry. It’s not just about
energy security and the economic contri-
bution that the industry brings, but also
supporting that transformation.

Additionally, these are highly skilled,
well-paying jobs, and in many cases they
are opportunities for having a global career.

It’s important that we really communicate
that opportunity for young people to build
an exciting career.

You’ve said previously that the indus-
try’s role in the community is misun-
derstood and that it’s important the
industry doesn’t just “talk among our-
selves” about the value of oil and gas.

What can the industry do to better
educate the public about what it
does? How can we “win them over,” so
to speak?
It’s certainly a challenge, but we have
an excellent story to tell as an indus-
try. Here in Australia, we’ve committed
to net zero, and we see ourselves as being
key enablers of that net-zero pathway, but
many people don’t appreciate the current
role of gas today. People associate it with
their home heating, but it powers about
40% of our manufacturing sector and plays
a broader role with the electricity we gen-
erate. Communicating those benefits to the
broader community is a great benefit.

34 Also, within our industry, we’re focused
on working with other industries to sup-
port not just energy security and the eco-
nomic benefits of our industry but also
decarbonization efforts. We’re working
with the Commonwealth Scientific and
Industrial Research Organization to look at
how we can support regional decarboniza-
tion, support opportunities for CCS, low-
carbon hydrogen, renewables and natural
gas. This is a way that our industry can be
working with other sectors on the decar-
bonization pathway.

A 2022 report – jointly commissioned
by the Australian Energy Producers,
the National Offshore Petroleum Safety
and Environmental
Management Authority, and the Offshore Alliance –
focused on the mental health of off-
shore workers in Australia. Have the
findings led to any initiatives to
address those challenges?
This was a survey of workers that we
undertook in 2021, well in the thick of
the COVID-related impacts. We wanted
to understand the general wellbeing and
mental health of the workforce. We think
this has been a really important initiative
because it’s supporting a baseline for us
to do future surveys and reports. We’ve
been able to take the learnings from that
survey and share them with the industry
in workshops and events hosted by us and
by the regulator.

We need to ensure that our workers are
supported, that they feel like they are a
part of a community, and that they have
access to the services that they need to
ensure that their wellbeing is looked after
in the workplace.

Australia is one of the world’s largest
LNG exporters, yet the country has only
seen one LNG project reach FID in the
last decade – Woodside’s Scarbor-
ough project. What role do you see
LNG playing in the country’s energy
mix moving forward, and how will that
affect drilling contractor s?
Australia is a huge exporter of LNG.

Our LNG exports in 2022 were around
$92 billion, so it’s really important to our
economy. LNG is also playing that role
in our region for energy security and
emissions reduction, so there’s a grow-
ing need.

When we look at countries like The
Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia and
potentially even New Zealand import-
ing LNG, there’s a huge market and a
huge opportunity. But again, Australia has
had some challenges in terms of being
able to attract that investment. There’s
still investment occurring, of course, for
ensuring that we can keep the existing
LNG trains operating in full so we can
continue to meet that demand in the
region. From an Australian perspective, we’d
like to see another investment wave in
LNG. The demand is there in our region.

We’re close to these demand centers, and
as countries shift away from coal, that
reliance on LNG will increase. Australia is
well positioned to play an important role.

It’s inescapable that we have a strong
demand for gas. Domestically, that requires
new investment, and that means new
drilling. Also, in our region there’s a huge
demand growth. It’s a real pathway for
drillers to see substantial demand, more
investment and more activity. DC
» Click to
watch DC’s video
interview with
Samantha McCulloch.

bit.ly/3Sq6fi2 JAN UARY/FEB RUARY 2024 • D R I LLI N G CO N T R ACTO R




WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT
Next-gen petroleum engineering
students: Flexibility, growth and
culture among key motivators
Students share personal perspectives of how
they chose their majors and what’s influencing
their choice to start an oilfield career
STAFF REPORT
One of the biggest challenges the oil and
gas industry faces today is attracting and
retaining younger talent. Even though
hydrocarbons are expected to remain part
of the energy mix for decades to come, it
has become increasingly difficult to get
younger voices to buy in.

At the IADC Annual General Meeting
in Austin, Texas, on 9 November, four
petroleum engineering students – from
the University of Louisiana at Lafayette
(ULL), University of Wyoming, Louisiana
State University (LSU) and Texas Tech
University – shared their perspectives on
how the industry can help address that
challenge, as well as their own stories
about how they are making their career
choices. All four students are currently
studying petroleum engineering and hold
leadership positions at IADC Student
Chapters at their respective schools.

For some of these students, even though
they knew they wanted to become engi-
neers, this industry was barely on their
radars at first – perhaps they grew up
far away from the oilfield, like Patrick
Stapleton from LSU and Clay Ostrander
from ULL. For both of them, it was through
talking with people who knew about the
industry and learning about opportunities
for travel and flexible work schedules that
brought them into oil and gas.

They were also attracted by the diversi-
ty in potential careers, even just within the
oil and gas sector, when selecting petro-
leum engineering as their major. “You’re
not siloed into one specific discipline. You
can go worldwide, you can do drilling, you
can do production, you can do reservoir.

It’s up to your personal decision of where
you want to go,” Mr Ostrander said.

Another student, Cody Zayonc with the
University of Wyoming, pointed to the
practice of petroleum engineering itself
as the thing that attracted him the most.

“I knew I wanted to be an engineer, but
when I started looking through all the
options, quite a few of them seemed pretty
boring,” he said. “When I came across
petroleum engineering and saw what they
do, just from an engineering standpoint, it
seemed to be the most exciting. It’s kind of
mind-blowing what petroleum engineers
can do.”
Sarah Qureshi with Texas Tech had a
similar perspective, pointing to innova-
tion and opportunity as what motivated
her to choose this industry. “I also appre-
ciate the chance to work with the most
hard-working individuals that you’ll prob-
ably ever meet,” she added. Ms Qureshi,
who has already had two internships with
ConocoPhillips, is slated to join the opera-
tor full time upon graduation.

Seeing the potential
While these next-gens are excited about
beginning their oilfield careers, they
acknowledge that it can be an uphill battle
explaining their choices to other people in
their generation. “The big thing I always
hear, especially from other engineering
majors, is that we’re pigeonholing our-
selves and that it’s too narrow of a field,”
Mr Stapleton said.

His personal experience tells him oth-
erwise, however. “At Chevron, if you go to
a different floor, it’s a completely different
world. You can be talking to production or
land management or drilling and comple-
tions. There are so many skills that can
become applicable in other fields that I
don’t think it’s nearly as narrow as people
tend to think it is.”
For Mr Zayonc, whenever he gets ques-
tioned by peers on his career choice, he
not only takes the opportunity to clear up
any misconceptions about oil and gas, but
he also flips the conversation and tries to
convince them to join.

“I know there’s more than enough jobs
because of all the people we need, so if I
can try and pull them in, that’s good for
me and them,” he said. “Even beyond the
technical engineers, there are also a lot
of people on the support staff side, and
everyone I’ve met has been very happy to
be in this industry and want to stay in it.

I always tell my peers, why don’t you give
it a shot?”
Personal connections and stories like
that have always played a key role in
oilfield recruitment, and will likely con-
tinue to, but the industry will also have
to expand its outreach in order to better
engage with the next generation.

This may include targeting people in
areas that are outside of the traditional
oil and gas states like Texas, Louisiana
and Oklahoma, Mr Ostrander said. People
who don’t live in those areas are much
less familiar with this industry and will
require more outreach and education in
order to understand what opportunities
are available.

“To get inside that bubble, you kind of
have to take a leap of faith,” he said. “I
grew up on a farm and I had many other
friends who grew up on a farm. They’re
hard workers, and they would thoroughly
enjoy the adventure of working in the oil
and gas industry. They just didn’t know
that’s a possibility.”
Looking to their own future careers,
all the students agreed that they put a
premium on positive leadership and cul-
ture when selecting their workplace. “For
me personally, culture was pretty much
everything,” Mr Stapleton said. “I went
off of more how they interacted with me
personally and not so much the technical
side of the interview. It’s more about, is this
a friendly person that I’ll want to come in
and work for everyday?” DC
D R I LLI N G CO N T R ACTO R • JAN UARY/FEB RUARY 2024
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