What about Oil, Gas and Chemical?

Although renewable energy sources are gaining in importance, oil and gas remain crucial to keeping our country running smoothly, with gas still supplying 40% of the UK’s energy needs.

The origins of oil and gas can be traced back 300 million years, in the lush, tropical rain forests that grew in the Carboniferous Period. Dead plant material accumulated in swamps, fossilising over time to form oil and gas reserves around the globe.

This means that gas and oil are in limited supply and finding new deposits is a fundamental part of the industry today. In the UK, oil and gas reserves still exist in the North Sea and UK engineers have become experts at efficiently extracting oil from deep water reserves. The petroleum industry, closely linked to the oil industry, is responsible for refining crude oil into products such as transport fuel.

The chemical industry uses oil and gas to produce many of its products, including plastics and polymers. Sales of UK manufactured chemicals are worth £34 billion, making the chemical industry one of the biggest manufacturing industries in the UK, growing at a faster rate than any other. Research and development drive industry growth, providing a constant stream of new products. Accordingly, the industry invests around £4 billion each year into research and development.

Typical Activities

Drilling for oil is an extremely expensive business and has to be approached scientifically:

• Designing new plants and products, perhaps developing them using computer models;
• Controlling the drilling equipment and monitoring operations;
• Designing, installing and maintaining systems to facilitate oil and gas extraction.

Chemical industry jobs can include:

• Designing and operating machinery to controls the timing, temperature, pressure, and flow of materials;
• Developing new processing methods and equipment;
• Researching new synthetic products.

Getting in

As technology advances, the lifetime of oil and gas fields extends as more of the reserves can be extracted economically. At today's estimates it will need personnel for decades to come - personnel with the relevant skills and qualifications, but who are also motivated, adaptable individuals with good communication and IT skills, and ready to become part of a team.

Relevant degree subjects for these industries include chemical, mechanical and mining engineering, geochemistry, physics. For more specialised research roles, an MSc or MEng is usually necessary.

Vocational qualifications can lead to jobs in offshore operations, maintenance, chemical manufacture and other technical roles. Many apprenticeships are available, particularly in the chemical industry, often allowing you to study towards and NVQ or SVQ while you work.

Typical Employers

There are roughly 6000 companies involved in the oil and gas industry in the UK. These can be split into three main types of company: Operators, Drilling Contractors and Contract Service Companies, including:

• British Gas
• BP
• Esso
• Haliburton
• Schlumberger

More reading

SEMTA (Science, Engineering and Manufacturing Technologies Alliance)Institution of Chemical Engineers

Cogent - the Sector Skills Council for Chemicals, Nuclear, Oil and Gas, Petroleum and Polymers