The University of Guyana (UG) started offering programs in Petroleum Engineering in the 2017/2018 academic year, and have since seen flourishing demand for its graduates. This comes in stark contrast to a decline in enrollments to similar programs at U.S. universities.
The launch of the Associate of Science and Bachelor of Science Degrees at UG was a strategic move to prepare Guyanese nationals for opportunities in the country’s emerging oil and gas sector. ExxonMobil’s first discovery of oil in Guyana in 2015 marked the beginning of a series of successful finds. With projections indicating that Guyana’s oil sector will remain robust for several decades, the demand for skilled petroleum engineers is booming.
Vice Chancellor of UG, Dr. Paloma Mohamed shared earlier this year that graduates are being absorbed by companies even before they graduate. “We have trebled the number of engineers that we were producing since 2020 but that still is not enough,” Mohamed had said.
Conversely, U.S. universities are witnessing a steep decline in petroleum engineering enrollments. According to a 2023 report by the Wall Street Journal, enrollment in these programs has plummeted by approximately 75% since 2014. The University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University, both renowned for their petroleum engineering programs, have experienced declines of 42% and 63.3% respectively from their peak enrollments in 2015. Other institutions, such as the Colorado School of Mines and Louisiana State University, have seen similar drops of 87.7% and 89%.
The decline in the U.S. is driven by several factors. The global shift towards sustainable energy sources has cast uncertainty over the long-term viability of careers in the oil and gas industry. The competitive job market and the emergence of climate-tech startups and alternative energy sectors also divert interest away from traditional oil and gas careers. Barbara Burger from the Wall Street Journal said new climate-tech startups are increasingly attractive to college graduates and current professionals in the oil and gas industry, offering more stable and promising career prospects.
S&P Global’s International Upstream Vice President, Michael Wynn, discussed the matter on the EnergyCents podcast in early July. “Certainly in the U.S., in Europe, petroleum geoscience courses are finished. They are no more, and young people don’t necessarily want to work in what they see as a dirty, highly-criticized industry.”
He said it is very difficult to recharge the skillbase in this industry, though this is not the case everywhere.”
“In Africa today, they’ve got a petroleum university that exists across, I believe, three countries, each one giving graduate expertise in different settings. So, they’re quite keen to create local content in, say, Africa. So, maybe there’s a solution there,” Wynn said.
This is the case in Guyana too. The government legislated local content at the end of 2021, but the movement for Guyanese talent to have a bigger role in the industry has been around much longer. The legislation requires companies operating in the sector to hire Guyanese talent. In addition to scouting at the local universities, the companies have resorted to granting scholarships to Guyanese to pursue study overseas. Each scholar has a job upon their return.
Guyana’s oil sector is still in its infancy, with ExxonMobil making discoveries every year, and other operators less frequently. New acreage awards to bidders from the first auction are expected to catalyze further growth in the sector.
