Most petroleum engineers work at head offices where oil and gas drilling or exploration is happening. In Canada, most petroleum engineers work in Alberta. However, opportunities also exist in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia. International job opportunities are also common.
Petroleum engineers may specialize in specific areas of operations and production processes. These can include drilling, reservoir management, completions, petrophysics, gas processing, secondary and tertiary recovery methods, and pipelines, as well as carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS).
Petroleum engineers may work for:
- Major oil companies
- Smaller, independent oil exploration, production, and service companies
- Engineering consulting firms
- Government agencies
Many petroleum engineers have their own consulting businesses. Some work in financial institutions that finance oil and gas properties.
Newly graduated petroleum engineers often take field positions where they are supervised by an experienced engineer. The practical experience and training can help them move up to positions of greater responsibility. For example, they may assume field or reservoir engineering assignments.
In company operations divisions, petroleum engineers can work their way up from field to district, division, and operations management positions.
Industry Concentration
This section shows the industries where the majority of people in this occupation work. The data is based on the 2016 Census.
In Alberta, this occupation is part of 1 or more 2016 National Occupational Classification (NOC) groups.
In the 2145: Petroleum engineers occupational group, 81.2% of people work in:
Employment Outlook
Employment outlook is influenced by a wide variety of factors including:
- Time of year (for seasonal jobs)
- Location in Alberta
- Employment turnover (when people leave existing positions)
- Occupational growth (when new positions are created)
- Size of the occupation
- Trends and events that affect overall employment, especially in the industry or industries from the previous list
In Alberta, the 2145: Petroleum engineers occupational group is expected to have a below-average annual growth of 2.3% from 2021 to 2025. In addition to job openings created by employment turnover, 269 new positions are forecasted to be created within this occupational group each year.