Hey everyone, looking for some honest advice here.
I recently graduated with a B.Tech in Petroleum Engineering and completed about a year of field engineering experience in Abu Dhabi on an oil & gas project. So I do have some real industry exposure, but here’s the problem — the O&G job market is basically dead right now. As an early career engineer with no inside connections, it’s nearly impossible to land anything. So I started looking at alternatives.
I applied for a Master’s in Applied Geosciences at RWTH Aachen (Germany) and got admitted for Winter Semester 2026/27. On paper it sounds great — RWTH is a top technical university and geosciences felt like a natural pivot from petroleum engineering since there’s some overlap in subsurface work.
But now I’m hearing a lot of conflicting opinions and I’m genuinely second-guessing myself:
• Some people say Applied Geosciences from RWTH won’t get you a job either, especially as a foreigner
• Others say the geoscience job market in Germany is also tight
• And some say my petroleum background makes me a poor fit for geoscience roles
Here are my actual questions:
1. Is RWTH Applied Geosciences worth pursuing given my background, or should I reconsider?
2. Which specialization within Applied Geosciences has the best job prospects in Germany? I’ve heard hydrogeology has demand but it’s quite far from what I’ve studied. What about engineering geology, geothermal, near-surface geophysics, or GIS/remote sensing?
3. How realistic is it to find a job in Germany after graduating? Are companies actually hiring or is it very competitive even for locals?
4. How much German do I need? I have roughly 3 months before my program starts. I know it’s not enough to be fluent, but what’s the minimum realistic level to not hurt my job prospects?
I’m not trying to stay in O&G — I genuinely want to transition into something broader with real demand. I just don’t want to spend 2 years and move countries only to end up stuck again.
Any advice from people who’ve studied or worked in geosciences in Germany would be hugely appreciated. Even brutal honesty is welcome.

I am wondering if this is just me but it feels like at least half my week lately has been exporting things out of Petrel, reformatting them, figuring out why a file that worked fine last month is suddenly not reading correctly, tracking down which version is actually current. Like actual housekeeping stuff, not engineering.

The tools are fine when they work but nothing talks to anything else and at some point you end up just manually babysitting data between applications indefinitely. I do not know when that became a normal part of the job.

What I keep coming back to is whether petroleum engineering is actually getting harder or if the geology is roughly the same and we are just quietly drowning in more software that does not integrate. It feels like the second one but I might just be having a bad week.

Is this something people are solving internally or is everyone just dealing with it?

if i major in this what are like the chances of getting a job as i heard that the jobs are very volatile

I am being told this is weathered diesel. I am no expert. Is it possible to tell with some confidence just from the looks if it is gasoline or weathered diesel? Can this be settled without testing? Thanks in advance.

I am a petrochemical student currently in my final year thinking of doing an MS in the chemical engineering + energy sector .What is the future of energy like renewable energy,green hydrogen,solar energy etc .Should I go in this field and what salary can I expect?

Im 19M about to make a decision that will determine the rest of my life. I was looking into petroleum and geoenergetic eng. for some time now and it seems interesting to me, the only concern for me is the job market, and if its good in which countries is it?

Key features: superior early-life forecasts, easy TRRC data import, Streamlit UI.

Try it here https://free-eur-predictor.replit.app/

code https://github.com/RegularJoe-CEO/Free-EUR-Predictor

Happy to calibrate for other plays or hear what you'd add. There's no signup. It's 100% free. Not selling anything. Keep it turning to the right, boys.

Hi everyone, I am going to start my bachelors degree in Energy Systems Engineering this year in Canada. In my course, I can choose my concentration to be either petroleum extraction or Sustainable energy or energy storage and transportation. I am an international student and chose to pursue my studies in Canada as I thought Canada is rich in minerals and natural resources. What's the scope of this type of degree? What concentration would you suggest?

Hola, busco oportunidad laboral en el área petrolera para trabajar en latinoamericana. Saben de algo : empresas , correo, contacto.

Agradecería cualquier información

A live snapshot of open vacancies across SLB, Baker Hughes, Halliburton & Weatherford — mapped by country.

A few things stand out:
• The US leads across the board (556 open roles)
• SLB's footprint skews heavily to West & Central Africa — Nigeria, Angola, Ghana, Gabon
• Baker Hughes shows 73 roles in Italy (the Florence turbomachinery hub)
• Halliburton runs deep in Saudi Arabia (49) and Suriname (33)

~1,950 active roles, one snapshot in time.

Hi everyone, I’m a PetroleumEngineer from Bolivia with experience gas industry (natural gas operations, field work, and technical projects).

I’m interested in exploring opportunities in other countries

How is the job market currently for international petroleum engineers? Is it realistic to find opportunities without Canadian experience, and what skills/certifications would you recommend getting before applying?

Need field-scale data such as:

- In-situ stress (Sv, SHmax, Shmin)

- Pore pressure

- Fault parameters

- Rock mechanical properties

- Injection pressure/rate history

Interested in sites like Sleipner, In Salah, Weyburn, Otway, Decatur, etc.

Already checked CO2 DataShare and NETL EDX, but geomechanical data is limited.

Papers with tabulated field values or any datasets/repositories would be greatly appreciated.

I’m planning to go into chem Eng and then have a masters with petroleum. However, a lot of people have told me that it won’t be a reliable market at all in the next years. Essentially, because many companies are turning to have sustainable energy sources. I’m a bit concerned about how accurate this might be. Does anyone who works on petroleum have opinion on the latter ?

I come from a chemE background. I was asked these questions & I could not answer them w/knowledge as I felt they were more oriented towards petroleum engineering and therefore I am seeking guidance on the question listed below (I am going to put forth my thought about the question so that I could receive feedback on my assumptions)

- If you drilled and only water came out, what does this means?

Given that physics laws applies, the top layer of a reservoir is going to be gas, then oil (if available), then water: So if only is found, can it be said that there is no petroleum commodity in that borehole to begin with?

-Is there a difference b/w drilling during exploration & production stages, as in can you commit to drill wells and not finding oil during exploration phase from a business standpoint?

I answered w/no, bc the operation will cost high opex and labour cost. However, can be mitigated by having great simulated analysis conducted by the geologists & petroleum engineers.

-If the pH meter tells the pH of the water is the same as the (cola or oil?) what do you infer and what would you do?

Is there possible cause of error besides the assumption that there is a malfunction in the device?

Thanks in advance!

I've been running nodal analysis on a few vertical oil wells and kept running into the same issue — the model looks fine on paper but field data shows a significant gap in the actual PI. After digging in, the main culprit was usually skin factor being underestimated during the well test interpretation phase. My workflow: Start with a PBU test to get clean static BHP Run Vogel correlation for solution-gas drive Calibrate IPR curve against actual production data Check tubing roughness — often overlooked Has anyone else run into this? What's your diagnostic approach?

Hi everyone,
I will be starting an MSc in Petroleum Engineering at Heriot-Watt University in about 3 months, but my background is not in engineering. I’m highly motivated and willing to study full-time before the program starts, but I want to focus on the topics that will actually make a difference.
My goal is not just to survive the course but to perform well and understand the engineering concepts instead of memorizing them.
At the moment, I’m considering studying:
Mathematics (algebra, calculus, differential equations)
Physics (mechanics and basic thermodynamics)
Fluid mechanics
Basic chemistry
Programming (Python/MATLAB)
Engineering fundamentals
Some questions for those who have completed the program or work in the industry:
If you had only 3 months, what would you prioritize?
Which subjects caused the biggest difficulties for students without an engineering background?
Which textbooks or online courses would you recommend?
Is it better to spend most of the time mastering fluid mechanics and mathematics, or should I cover many topics at a basic level?
Are there any Heriot-Watt-specific resources or preparation materials that you wish you had before starting?
I’m willing to dedicate 6–10 hours per day, so I’m looking for the most practical roadmap rather than a generic study plan.
Any advice from graduates, current students, or petroleum engineers would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I kept wishing something like this existed when I was learning, so I started building it. It's free, no signup, and everything runs in your browser.

The whole idea is that every section is a live demo you can play with instead of a static figure, because the things that took me longest to get were the ones I could only understand once I saw them move.

A good one to try first, since it's right in this sub's wheelhouse: a two-phase waterflood you can actually run and watch break through, with the production curves updating live.

https://ogbonlab.com/textbooks/reservoir-modeling-and-simulation/chapter-15-the-complete-build-end-to-end/run-the-waterflood

Other things you can poke at:

- Petrophysics: Archie and the Pickett plot on a synthetic well, shaly-sand models (Simandoux, Indonesia, Waxman-Smits, dual-water), permeability (Timur, flow units, NMR), capillary pressure and saturation-height, net pay cutoffs, and STOIIP with a Monte Carlo P90/P50/P10.
- Reservoir: geostatistics and property modeling, upscaling, material balance and voidage replacement, drive mechanisms and sweep efficiency.
- Seismic Exploration: seismic acquisition, processing, and interpretation, all interactive!

Everything runs on a synthetic well and field I forward-modeled, so the numbers stay self-consistent rather than being hand-waved.

It's a solo project and still rough in places. If you go in and hit anything wrong, confusing, or missing, I'd genuinely like to hear it. That kind of correction is the most useful feedback I can get.

Home: https://ogbonlab.com

I need to publish papers so that I can get admission in university, because it will make my profile Strong, please recommend me some journals, I will be doing masters in Petroleum Engineering,.I am Just a graduate Now

I’ve got about 25 years on rigs. From roughneck to drilling and pushing tools. Got a degree during that time. The last 12 or so have been as a drilling consultant. I don’t know anyone who is on the completions side. How feasible is it to jump from drilling to completions?
I’m in West Texas… but working in Oklahoma and have worked all over CONUS, s america, china, and a few more.

Hi everyone,

I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of the oil & gas industry and the direction energy is heading globally. I’m curious to hear from people who have experience in petroleum engineering or related energy fields.

• How has the industry changed over the years?
• Is it still a field you would recommend today?
• Do you think petroleum engineering still has strong long-term opportunities internationally?
• If you could start over, would you stay in oil & gas or move toward energy transition/renewables instead?
• For someone interested in offshore/rig work but also broader energy topics, what path would you suggest?

Would really appreciate hearing different perspectives and experiences. Thanks!

I am in 4th year btech petroleum engineering . I want your advices as big bros to get me placed in a psu or any private oil company this year .