Reinstated UW Petroleum Engineering Program to Graduate First Students

Just two years after the University of Wyoming reinstated an undergraduate degree program in petroleum engineering, 12 students will receive bachelor of science degrees in the discipline. Commencement is scheduled May 10.

“That (reinstating the B.S. degree) was a good decision,” says H. Gordon Harris, who heads the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering in the College of Engineering and Applied Science. “All of the graduating students have been offered positions in the oil and gas industry.”
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“We (UW students) have opportunities to learn about all phases of drilling and production,” he says, adding that he really appreciated learning from Jack Evers, a UW professor who came out of retirement to teach in the program. Brinkerhoff has accepted a position with EOG Resources in Vernal, Utah, and will start work for the company later this month.

Brian Towler, who was the department head when the degree was reinstated, says about 10 students in the petroleum engineering program are from the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, where they earned two-year associates degrees and then came to UW to complete their four-year degrees. He says the university has had a long history recruiting Canadian students to finish their degrees at UW.

The demand is enormous’ in energy and mining

In Alberta, provincial forecasts suggest there will be a shortage of 6,000 energy industry engineers within 10 years, says Elizabeth Cannon, dean of the Schulich School of Engineering at the University of Calgary.

The mining industry will need 92,000 more workers by 2017 and a significant chunk will be engineers and engineering technologists, says Ryan Montpellier, executive director of the Mining Industry Human Resources Council in Ottawa.

The fact is, universities alone can not cope with the huge surge in demand, says Anis Farah, director of the school of engineering at Laurentian University in Sudbury. His school will graduate just 15 to 17 mining, chemical and mechanical engineers this year, although Laurentian is now gearing up to significantly increase its class sizes.

Currently only nine universities offer mining engineering, Dr. Farah says. And those nine graduate only between 120 and 150 new mining engineers a year, says Mr. Montpellier.

“Three years ago, our first-year class for all engineering courses was just 20, last year it was 80 and this fall we will have 110 students,” Dr. Farah says.

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