6/5/23, 22:13 Why Starting or Continuing a Career in Upstream Oil and Gas Is Still a Good Idea

HUMAN RESOURCES

Why Starting or Continuing a Career in Upstream Oil and

Gas Is Still a Good Idea
As the world continues to grapple with the post-pandemic new
normal and unfamiliar global uncertainty, the case to begin and
commit to a career in the upstream subsurface industry may be
harder to see, but it’s still rewarding and with longevity.
December 1, 2022 By Liz Sturman
Journal of Petroleum Technology

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Mars B Olympus tension leg platform (TLP), a deep-water oil field in the Gulf of Mexico. Photographic Services, Shell
International Limited. All rights reserved.

It has been almost 30 years since I decided to join the oil industry. In the 1990s, it wasn’t an obvious
decision for a young woman with a general mathematics degree, studying in London but originally
from rural Derbyshire with two teacher parents. And in a time when Shell’s decision to dispose of
Brent Spar was a hot topic, and Brent price had subsided to around $20/bbl after an infamous boom
in the 1980s.

An international oil and gas career was not what I had thought about when I imagined cycling to work
along the Thames. But the oil industry still had a long future ahead of it, and the idea of combining
technical problem-solving in an international setting had great appeal. I didn’t join Shell with the
definite intention of staying with the company, or even in the oil industry, for all of my career. But the
initial opportunities to learn and develop, while working on worthwhile and challenging problems
with talented colleagues, were clear.

And when I reflect on it, regardless of the noise, particularly in Western media, the same value
proposition is there. Joining the upstream subsurface community means starting a career full of
creative opportunities and a chance to contribute to solving the world’s energy problems. The energy
landscape as we know it is shifting. Forecasts indicate that the energy mix is going to change at
varying rates and degrees of complexity across the globe in the coming years. Alongside a rapid
growth of renewable sources like wind, solar, and low-emission fuels, there will be a continued and
long-term global demand for oil and gas. Working in upstream doesn’t necessarily mean staying in
upstream, and many of the challenges faced in developing oil and gas are very similar to those faced
in developing nonfossil-fuel energy sources, which allows for exciting opportunities to develop
transferable skills that would be an asset to many new energies’ projects.

What sort of similar challenges are we talking about? Well, the most obvious are those in carbon
capture and storage, or CCS. In oil and gas development, we study reservoirs to analyze where to drill,
to determine what will be recovered, and to decide whether we should inject water or gas to increase
production rates. We drill wells to produce oil or gas, we monitor production and decide whether to
optimize production through higher or lower rates, we decide whether to open or close zones, we
decide whether to drill infill wells, we decide when to cease production from individual wells or from
an entire field, and we decide how to safely abandon the reservoirs and wells. For CCS, we do a subset
of this; we work out where we can safely store CO2, we decide how many wells to drill, we determine
how to monitor to ensure the CO2 is being safely sequestered, and we decide how to we will
eventually safely abandon the storage, leaving the CO2 trapped eternally in the subsurface. Many of
our traditional subsurface skills are immediately translated for these types of projects—and equally
all of the integration skills that subsurface engineers develop in their oil and gas production roles are
immediately translatable for CCS projects.

The same is true for other subsurface “new energies” projects such as geothermal, electrification on
demand, and other energy storage projects. They all require a good understanding of the subsurface,

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what can be injected and recovered, the efficiencies of these physical processes, and of course the
integration between the academics of subsurface, the practicalities of surface engineering, and the
practicalities of a commercial solution. The solution space of these three being exactly where
upstream subsurface engineers thrive!

And those are just the technical engineering aspects of what we learn and develop.

The other aspect that has come deeply into play in the past few years is cost efficiency—competitively
scoping developments to ensure that they have low unit-development costs and top-quartile energy
efficiency. These two concepts may at face value seem to be at odds: Wouldn’t a “low-cost”
development be more wasteful in terms of CO2 efficiency?

Not in the minds of responsible subsurface engineers, who are motivated to achieve both, and have
the creativity and expertise to move a long way down the road in both aspects.

Within Shell we see the opportunities for our existing and new subsurface engineers to be able to
work on either oil and gas or new energies projects and have launched initiatives to harness this
energy centered around our “My Future” campaign and our refreshed competence development
framework. These two efforts focus on skills that are complementary to both traditional oil and gas
development and to renewable energy solutions—ensuring that staff can develop transferrable skills
that will work for them and for our company in both energy provisions. Our competence framework
includes the results of a well-attended staff workshop that assessed that around 65% of the
traditional oil and gas skill set, including business and integration skills, can be immediately used for
the energy transition, and another 30% are applicable with some adaptation. Only 5% were deemed
nontransferrable. And within our company we are seeing that staff who have worked for years or
decades in developing oil and gas are successfully able to move to roles within our energy transition
projects, bringing their expertise and creativity immediately to bear in these new areas.

I have only mentioned our Shell initiatives specifically, but other companies have similar initiatives
and projects in progress. I conclude that this is certainly no less exciting than other times to be in the
upstream segment of the oil and gas industry. The challenge facing society is real, and upstream is a
unique place to tackle it responsibly and head-on, with talented people delivering results for the
future.

The last aspect I want to mention in the story of why to join the upstream subsurface industry, is the
people who work in it. As part of a multinational such as Shell, I am privileged to work with amazing
colleagues who are not only motivated to put their talents and expertise to work on solving the
engineering problems of our company and contributing to responsible energy supply to the world,
but who are also passionate about developing the next generation of engineers who will carry on their
legacy. From my 30 years of global work experience in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America, and
despite what people might read or imply from media articles and news reports, none of my colleagues
come daily to work to “destroy the planet” or “cause global warming” or “greenwash their activities;”

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rather, they are people striving to provide responsible and cost‑competitive energy to a global
population.

And they all, whether just starting out or as principal technical experts, have time and energy to coach
others to follow in their footsteps. We recruit people like me with bachelor’s degrees, through folks
with master’s to academics with PhDs, and all are assisted to either grow the engineering expertise
they need to carry out their work, or to tailor the results of their academic achievements to business
results.

From the wellsite drilling engineering and senior reservoir engineers who coached me almost 30 years
ago, to the principal technical experts and technical general managers who work for me now, I am
inspired and grateful daily for the coaching and technical insights that upstream subsurface
professionals give. Together, ensuring that just like for me as a mathematics graduate almost 30 years
ago, the people who work in our industry have an exciting and rewarding future.

Liz Sturman is Shell’s vice president of development and subsurface excellence and chief petroleum
engineer. She has worked for Shell since 1995 in a variety of hydrocarbon development, subsurface,
planning, economics, and technology roles in the Netherlands, Angola, Nigeria, Brunei, and US. She
holds a BSc in mathematics from Imperial College, London, and an MBA.

TOPICS HU MAN R ESOU R CES ENER GY TR ANSITION

TAGS career advice , energy education , training , Shell

R E L A T E D C ON T E N T

ENERGY TRANSITION
Tracking the Energy Transition: EPA Details $2.7B Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund
April 24, 2023 • Megan Couch • HSE Now

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6/5/23, 22:13 Why Starting or Continuing a Career in Upstream Oil and Gas Is Still a Good Idea

ENERGY TRANSITION
Shell Splits Renewables Business in CEO Efficiency Drive
April 11, 2023 • Reuters • HSE Now

ENERGY TRANSITION
Role of SPE Members and the Industry in the Energy Transition
April 1, 2023 • Medhat M. Kamal • Journal of Petroleum Technology

SPE NEWS
Uptick in Capital Expenditures Highlights the Continued Need for Petroleum
Engineering Skills
February 1, 2023 • Medhat M. Kamal • Journal of Petroleum Technology

SPE NEWS
Listening to Our Members
December 1, 2022 • Medhat M. Kamal • Journal of Petroleum Technology

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The Journal of Petroleum Technology, the Society of Petroleum Engineers’ flagship magazine, presents
authoritative briefs and features on technology advancements in exploration and production, oil and
gas industry issues, and news about SPE and its members.

ISSN: 1944-978X (Online)

ISSN: 0149-2136 (Print)

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