Good morning, here's what the Oilman has for you today:

• Harold Hamm Tackles Oil Industry’s Talent Shortage

• U.S. Oil Output Growth Set for Major Slowdown: EOG

• Upcoming Oil and Gas Events

• Tweet of the Day

Harold Hamm Tackles Oil Industry’s Talent Shortage

Shale legend Harold Hamm is tackling a deepening talent crisis in oil and gas.

Fewer and fewer students are enrolling in oil-related degrees.

So he’s set up an institute to encourage more of them to do it.

Transition or not, oil’s here to stay

The transition push is one big reason for falling interest in petroleum engineering and similar careers.

Gen Z is being told that oil’s bad and that we don’t really need it.

They’re being told there will be no demand for oil-related jobs in a couple of decades.

Activists are loud.

And they’re in power.

So, universities are dropping industry-related degrees in favor of green energy.

But in real life, oil demand is rising globally.

And there are fewer people to get the oil out of the ground to satisfy this demand.

“We are going to be using oil for the next 50 years and ‘clean burning’ natural gas probably for the next 100 or 150 years,” says Hamm.

A huge challenge for oil and gas

Dispelling the transition myths is tough.

They are pervasive, with the media on board with the activists.

Yet the oil and gas industry will need people for the future.

So they’re trying, as Hamm is, to promote careers in the space.

Sure, there is no guarantee for lifetime employment in oil and gas.

But there’s no guarantee for lifetime employment anywhere.

Except maybe in climate activism.

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U.S. Oil Output Growth Set for Major Slowdown: EOG

Crude oil production growth this year will slow down substantially.

That’s what the EOG president says, as he expects lower drilling activity in the shale patch.

The more you pump, the more you need to drill

“Bringing on a lot of production last year, you’ve got a steeper decline to offset this next year,” Billy Helms said.

“That tells you that US production is not going to be able to continue to grow at the pace that it did last year.”

Nobody expected last year’s growth, even the drillers themselves.

They drilled less but more efficiently.

The question this year is if they can maintain this rate of efficiency gains.

Which, sadly, is unlikely.

This year, we’ll need more drilling to keep output growing strongly.

But if prices stay where they are, profit margins will thin.

That’s not something an oil driller likes. Or the driller’s shareholders.

No expansion plans

Shale producers are not eager to drill more.

The last few Dallas Fed surveys showed as much.

And they’re not eager to anger their shareholders, either.

So, EOG’s Helms may well be right.

Then again, last year, everyone said U.S. output will only grow modestly.

But look what happened.

It could happen again, given the right price environment.

Upcoming Oil & Gas Events

• January 16: TIPRO/IPAA Leaders in Industry Luncheon, Petroleum Club of Houston, Houston, TX

• January 17: IPAA Private Capital Conference, The Post Oak at Uptown Houston, Houston, TX

• January 17: Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma, Wildcatters Wednesday Luncheon, Oklahoma City, OK

• January 17-18: GO-WV Winter Meeting, Marriott Town Center Hotel, Charleston, WV

• January 18: Kansas Oil and Gas Day Legislative Reception, Kansas State Capital, Topeka, KS

• January 23-25: POWERGEN International, Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, New Orleans

• January 30- February 1: Onshore Wellsite Automation Congress, Houston, TX

Around the Global Patch

🇮🇳 India celebrates a milestone: deepwater project success.
🇨🇳 China secures Iraq's oil dominance shift.
🇫🇷 Nuclear pivot: France shifts focus from renewables in energy strategy.

Tweet of the Day

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