It is difficult to predict the future.
That’s what Dave Mount, president of Louisiana-based OneSource Professional Search, told Rigzone when asked what new industry jobs will exist down the line. Mount noted, however, that OneSource sees a greater evolution of jobs in the oil and gas labor market as technology advances and is implemented in more engineering and operations spaces.
“For example, data analytics that have already been applied in recent shale booms to production engineering and reservoir engineering will evolve into broader operations coverage with intelligence artificial intelligence (AI) that will occupy an increasing part of both field production engineering and reservoir performance evaluation, including more real-time analysis and application of analysis against past performance,” Mount said.
“We believe it plays with a large data set of drilled wells and, upon completion, will apply AI more easily compared to newer and more geologically challenging regions,” he added.
In addition, Mount emphasized that robotics and intelligent controls will become more common in all phases of the energy supply chain, projecting that robotics and sensors will be deployed “more aggressively” in more dangerous operations or costly “making field workers safer or automating tasks that are repetitive and can be replaced by AI.”
“This evolution of integrating AI and robotics into operations and engineering will require workers to use their existing knowledge and skills to be more analytical to observe what actions AI is taking and, if necessary, use that experience to step in as needed along with learning. more robotic controls,” Mount said.
“Some examples may include ground robots to detect hazardous chemicals/inspect potentially hazardous work areas, spills and emissions, using drones to monitor and inspect tanks and stacks/flares, and further saturation of sensors and controls in operations related operations of production”. added.
When asked what new oil and gas jobs will exist in the future, Gladney B. Darroh, founder and president of Piper-Morgan Search, highlighted “new jobs” and “hybrid jobs.”
“The new jobs will be around AI technology and will touch every work and process area in hydrocarbon development and production, both in professional and non-professional roles,” Darroh told Rigzone.
“You’ll find engineers and geoscientists looking and acting more like technology scientists and programmers. New energy jobs will also focus on ‘all things renewable,'” he added.
“Engineering and geoscience disciplines will become hybrid roles that incorporate traditional job functions as we have always known them, but will include a much greater emphasis on environmental stewardship and methods to reduce the environmental impact associated with production and fossil fuel use,” Darroh continued.
To contact the author, please send an email andreas.exarcheas@rigzone.com
