Stand Tall and Speak Up: Improving Our Image—SPE and You (October 2005)
Authors: Sprunt Eve S. 
Published: February 2015

Since moving to northern California from Texas in early 2000, I have gotten a lot of practice defending our industry. After 21 years working in upstream research and business development for Mobil, my first assignment after joining Chevron in 2000 was managing global climate change policy. I’m currently directing research in advanced energy alternatives. These assignments have given me ample opportunities to interact with people whose passion is protecting the environment. The more I engaged people in discussions on the environmental merits of the petroleum industry, the prouder I became of my chosen profession.

Prior to shifting from conventional E&P assignments, I knew the standard defenses, which include describing the great care that we as an industry take to protect the environment, from the first stages of seismic exploration through development, production, and transportation. I could also describe the benefits of using natural gas instead of coal to generate electricity. However, I didn’t have practice defending the use of oil, which with concern over global warming has become a major issue.

It wasn’t until I began working with downstream folks on advanced energy research and looking at full life-cycle analyses, comparing use of petroleum fuel with alternatives, that I realized what I was missing. Oil with its high energy density and ease of handling at room temperature and pressure presents formidable competition to alternatives, especially as a transportation fuel. Those of us in the upstream portion of the oil industry aren’t well versed in promoting oil’s advantages, because it is such a superb fuel. Shortly after the tragic Indian Ocean tsunami last December, I saw a photograph on the front page of the New York Times that summed the situation up for me. Like the one in Fig. 1, the photograph I saw showed tsunami survivors holding jerry cans queued up for petrol—the ultimate easily transported source of energy. These were people who may have lost everything, and yet they were spending their time waiting for our product.

Modern society, with its densely populated cities, depends on affordable transportation of goods and people. In disasters like the Indian Ocean tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, money alone is not the answer. We need to be able to rapidly deploy relief workers and supplies. Transportation and emergency power generation depend on petroleum products in such disasters. Disruption of supply adds to the trauma suffered. Those of us in the oil industry provide vital support to our society. We should be proud of our profession.

Despite society’s dependence on hydrocarbons, our industry’s image is under constant attack. You might ask, why should we care as long as our product is in demand and oil prices are high? The public’s perception of our industry can negatively impact us in many ways. A fundamental concern is freedom to operate—the ability to gain access to new acreage for drilling and to obtain permission to develop sites for LNG terminals and processing facilities. Another concern is that with our aging workforce, we want to encourage young people to consider careers in our industry, which they will not if they perceive it to be a dirty and/or sunset business. The jabs of our detractors even subtly impact how we see ourselves.