Employment Petroleum engineers held over 14,000 jobs in 1992, mostly in the petroleum industry and closely allied fields. Employers include major oil companies and hundreds of smaller, independent oil exploration, production, and service companies. Engineering consulting firms, government agencies, oil field services, and equipment suppliers also employ petroleum engineers. Others work as independent consultants. Because petroleum engineers specialize in the discovery and production of oil and gas, relatively few are employed in the refining, transportation, and retail sectors of the oil and gas industry.
Most petroleum engineers work where oil and gas are found.
Large numbers are employed in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and California, including offshore sites. Also, many American petroleum engineers work overseas in oil-producing countries. The price of oil has a major effect on the level of employment opportunities for petroleum engineers in the United States. A high price of oil and gas makes it profitable for oil exploration firms to seek oil and gas reservoirs, and they will hire petroleum engineers to do so. Employment of petroleum engineers is expected to decline through the year 2005 unless oil and gas prices unexpectedly increase enough to encourage increased exploration for oil in this country.