As an academic looking at industry, it appears that Chevron’s attendance of petrotech science meetings is way down the last few years. Does this reflect a shift in focus to other technologies (AI?), or just a declining investment in R&D and staff development?
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It’s just easier to buy into NOJVs, like Stabroek, and leave the science to others.
@r0: very true, just plumping once you get a detailed model of the “pipes” from the geoscientists, but even you must know the devil is in the details.
Petroleum Engineering is really just a slightly more difficult version of basic plumbing.
@k9 couldn't have said it better
Let's be real (revisted), unconventional Texas plays saved us the last decade, and, as we focused on these plays and our super-mature legacy international holdings, management has become increasingly confident that there is some sort of factory model approach to this industry that requires little more than optimization and cost cutting (all of which resonates with a CEO from the chemicals side). The sad truth is, however, that as unconventional opportunities decline over the next decade, we have lost a lot of our previous competence in conventional exploration and development. A factory filled with optimized agile id--ts preforms less well in settings with billion-dollar decision gates.
Let's be real, chevron produces oil. That's our product. There are so many positions that are doing science for the sake of science that are contributing absolutely nothing to the production of oil. These people think they're doing important work to the business because that's what their supervisors have lead them to believe. So... I'd think those roles are getting cut eventually because there's too many of them.
There's 2 petrotechs per 1000 employees , not a lot of spare time
@aa We leave behind 90% (I believe we leave much more than that, at least in oil areas) of the resource into which we’ve invested—and we don’t need scientists/technologists/experience/initiative ? Any board member, executive, manager or other pinhead that believes that should be fired.
@ca Noooo. The message you should take-away is that you should direct those students to Chevron who actually have only a passing interest in technology, etc. as they laser focus upon climbing the management ranks to the top.All other skills or experience acquisition is simply distraction. I’ve gotten so tired of trying to mentor such twits. Further housecleaning is needed, not only of these overblown egos, but of every single person involved in Chevron’s PE & ES hiring process and priorities.
Chevron started looking inward for technical training, technical mentorship and deemphasized industry influencing via conference participation ~15 years ago. I think it was a strategy to save money, but it also made us very insular. Looking back on my career, I probably learned more from other companies' people than internal Chevron. Whether you are a technical leader or fast follower, you need to keep up with the competition. Our insularity on the technical side prevents this.
The amount of science talent that has departed in the last decade is concerning, both boomers leaving with years of experience but almost more worrying also new hires who were becoming our future tech leaders. In my area of expertise this is becoming a crisis that will be hard to turn around to support future exploration and development. It can’t be fixed by a few external consultants, but requires a return to a focus on long-term staff competency development.
“Doing science” is usually accompanied by a sneer at Chevron.
Ok. Thanks. So the message I am hearing is that I should direct my d-mb students to Chevron and those hot to contribute to science to Shell.
Chevron has never valued technical expertise because the strategy is to be the follower. The leaders in any industry allow space for innovative, risk taking ideas.
It has not really changed, Chevron has always lagged competitors in external activities - we tend to focus internally. We are the least active and Shell is usually the most active. We tend to present very focused and practical stuff and not say too much about our assets.
AI/ML is not mutually exclusive to “science”.
But yes, our ELT has no patience for science for the sake of science.
You don't need scientists for repetitive factory work. It has been the plan since 2016 to move the company towards a mature business of choke management and repetition filled with low cost early career and overseas lower cost support. The days of the long careers with continuous learning and stimulation for technical people are over.