At the time, the corridors of the sprawling research complex and its huge education center were lined with the offices of Academy of Engineering members. I recall being as happy as a little clam and thinking, “Finally I have found the vocation and research challenges of my life.” I honestly thought that I would spend my entire professional life with Shell. I was wrong.

Let’s fast-forward to 1990, when I accepted a professorship at U.C.-Berkeley. In June of that year, I attended my last research conference at Shell. After a senior scientist gave a beautiful talk explaining the fundamentals of wettability in rock-fluid systems, a young manager stood up and asked, “So how many barrels of oil has Shell recovered using your theories?” As shivers went down my spine, I heard a roaring laughter. My peers were laughing off their own company and intellectual achievements. This manager should have asked instead, “How many barrels of oil will Shell never recover because we may no longer be able to ask the questions you have asked, nor understand your answers to these questions?”

Shell Development was no exception. Many U.S. oil company R&D centers and all but one research center have perished. If one counts members of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) and the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) employed by the U.S. petroleum companies, a rather dismal picture emerges (see the graphic). A multi-Hubbert peak analysis of the membership that 1) excludes the retired, students, and academics, mining, environmental, and other, and those older than 65; 2) assumes retirement at 65; and 3) excludes AAPG/SEG overlap, shows the following: Nothing has changed in the fundamental relationship between the resource production rate and the number of scientists who are employed. One can see a broad fundamental Hubbert peak, and a couple of smaller hiring sprees. I performed this analysis in 1997, but my prediction still agrees with the updated AAPG data. I had to add only the tiny peak centered at the year 2000.

Therefore, in the next 10 years, the AAPG/SEG membership will decline by over 10,000 professionals – mostly due to retirement – since most members are between 46 and 90 years old. At a time when the easy-to-recover oil is running out and the need for world-class scientists in the industry is at the highest, no such scientists will exist. Not to worry, some say, the industry will hire their replacements soon.

Unfortunately it is easier to destroy R&D than build it. The global oil industry has largely lost competition for the best and brightest with the new industries that have emerged over the past 25 years. By mining their own human resources, major oil companies are rapidly losing corporate memory and continuity, in addition to scientific and engineering knowledge. In California, there is only one undergraduate program in petroleum engineering (Cal Poly at San Luis Obispo). Across the nation, only a few world-class programs in petroleum engineering, geophysics, and sedimentary geology remain. So every oil company will be trying to hire from a shrinking pool of ever less-qualified candidates, while their experienced people retire en masse.