Just stop oil?

I will shortly be celebrating twenty years in recruitment within the Oil and Gas industry. A career that has offered fantastic opportunities and the ability to witness first-hand the technical advancements and progression the industry has made during my time. I've met inspirational people, worked across the globe and also had the opportunity to live and work in Monaco where I married my wife. I've worked through several industry down turns, been made redundant and seen the challenges that the industry has faced - but I still love it!

COP27 is now upon us so I'm sure the industry will be under further scrutiny as it was during COP26. Oil and Gas is a finite resource, and everyone realises that a transition has to take place from our reliance on hydrocarbons to alternative energy sources.

Transition - "one state or activity to another means to move gradually from one to the other" (Collins dictionary)

To make this transition, it must be done in a sensible manner. To continue progressing and "challenging the norm" we need to encourage young people into the industry. The energy transition will require a huge effort and investment and we need our brightest minds to look at options such as repurposing current infrastructure, using the skills and expertise from decades of oil and gas exploration to transition across to future energy sources and sensibly wean ourselves off of hydrocarbons as we seek alternatives.

One of my recent posts had over 100,000 engagements which reviewed the article in the Guardian on BirkBeck, University of London's decision to ban recruiters from Oil and Gas companies recruiting their students. (Read it HERE)

The article highlighted, what I perceived, as some extremely emotive language:

“The fossil fuel industry is clearly at war with the planet at this point and recruiting more troops to help them with their work is not in anyone’s best interest, including those students they might try to entice into a dead-end and deadly career.” - Bill McKibben (350.org)        

The university "Ethical Careers Policy" linked in the article also seems a little contradictory.

"Birkbeck Futures will not hold relationships of any kind with oil, gas or mining companies"

However, in the very next bullet point "Birkbeck students are able to receive impartial one-to-one careers guidance on any industry of their choosing..." Setting out that you are excluding an entire industry doesn't scream impartiality to me... Do these education institutions really feel that their students cannot make informed decisions on which industry they wish to work in? I feel this could be a dangerous path to follow and I was also disappointed to hear from my nine year old daughter recently, that the industry is also being demonised in her primary school!

As we face an existential crisis in energy, we need our higher education AND schools to work closely with the energy sector.? Engagement between industry and education is paramount to develop the skills required to secure our energy future.? Sending the message to undergraduates that as an institution we are not willing to include certain companies, because the media agenda of the day makes it popular, will only prolong the energy transition. With an ever-increasing global population, energy demand will rise in tandem, so we need to hasten the transition in a sensible timely manner and encourage young people to work with the experienced and skilled hands from the Oil and Gas sector.

We need to allow the energy workers of the future to make informed and educated decisions. The Oil and Gas sector has suffered in the PR stakes of late, but it should also be recognised for the huge strides it has made through technological advancement from the early days. We should be promoting the Energy Industry as a place of innovation, frontier challenges, and multi-disciplinary collective inclusion. Optimising the sector with the assistance of technology will power the future in a smart and reliable way.

It is not difficult to understand why Oil and Gas is so important in our lives. The use of Oil and Gas is not just limited to transport, heating and electricity. It is also widely used in pharmaceuticals, fertilisers, solvents and plastics.? The world’s economy as well as its survival are totally dependent on the production and consumption of these two commodities.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has predicted that oil and gas will continue to play a pivotal role in meeting world’s primary energy demands for at least the next twenty-five years. In spite of increased focus on alternate sources like Nuclear Energy, Wind and Solar Energy, it will be very difficult to replace Oil and Gas in the short term.

We have certainly moved on from the days when I was hosting events with the Aberdeen Young Professionals network back in 2014 including the Energy Minister, to discuss how we "Attract, Train and Retain" talent into the sector. We now find that the sector suffers the reverse problem where many graduates and school/college leavers won't even consider joining the sector.

This is a great industry; we have huge expertise that's been built up over decades and this needs to be passed on to the next generation to use as a foundation to continue the energy transition in a sensible and timely manner. Working together, using each other's knowledge and exploiting it to secure our energy future. Let's not vilify the industry through ignorance, the industry needs our best young minds to join them - make a difference from the inside.

The industry needs the next generation, and the next generation needs this industry. Education (and industry) should be inspiring young people to make the difference, not imposing agendas - trust them to make their own mind up and together speed up that transition!

"Education should not be about filling a bucket, it should be about lighting a fire" William Butler Yates