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Both onshore and offshore rigs create well-paying
jobs. In the Bakken oil field in North Dakota, rig
workers and engineers are pulling down six-figure
salaries. Even water truck drivers are being
offered up to $60,000 a year for their services.
“Our undergraduates with degrees in Petroleum
Engineering o en command starting salaries
above $100,000,” says Dean Yannis C. Yortsos of
the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University
of Southern California. “Students who complete
master’s degrees in Petroleum Engineering o en
take home much more than that. So there are
tremendous career opportunities.
“The energy sector is going to be a booming
sector for quite a while,” he adds. “I think the fun-
damental reason for that is the world population
is increasing, and everybody wants to live at the
same standards as the United States. And the
standards that we have here are very energy-
demanding. Unless significant changes happen
in energy efficiency, the demand for energy
worldwide is going to increase dramatically.
“As a result, there will be more job opportuni-
ties in these fields,” he continues. “And that’s
why — until very credible renewable energy
resources come into play in a significant way —
I think the traditional energy sources will be the
main driver of this.”
TECHNOLOGY IS THE KEY
While the Athabasca oil sands in Canada and the
Bakken oil field in North Dakota are creating new
sources of oil for North America, the advent of
technologies such as horizontal drilling for the
development of newly discovered shale natural
gas deposits is also freeing up oil resources once
thought to be inaccessible. “Those same kinds of
technologies used so successfully in the develop-
Invest in the U.S.
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Energy
S P E C I A L A D V E R T I S I N G F E A T U R E
FLYINGHIGHWITH SAFETY STANDARDS
Brian Brurud, one of our nation’s most highly
decorated fighter pilots, used his previous experience
as a geologist and discipline as a fighter pilot to
create Check-6, a company that teaches best safety
practices to the oil and gas industry.