Petroleum Professionals Blue Ribbon Task Force Report
Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission 2002 Midyear Meeting
Traverse City, Michigan
June 10, 2002
Thank you. Thank you. I know it's lunchtime so I will be brief.
First, I want to say to Patricia Morrison, I've had opportunity to work with Secretary Gail Norton and she has been very helpful on land and water issues for the State of North Dakota. She brings a common sense, practical problem?solving approach that we appreciate very much. And we look forward to continued good working relationship with the Department.
Also, I want to say I had not met John Miller before this morning but that was a powerful presentation on many levels. I was extremely impressed with what you had to say.
I come out of the private sector. I'd not run for elective office before. I'd been in office about a year and a half and there is an amazing difference between the way the public sector works and the way the private sector works. And it is mindboggling to think in 1973, under President Jimmy Carter we had an oil embargo and we were importing about 35% of our oil from the Mid East; and here we are in 2002 and after 9?11, once again that came back on our screen and we're importing about, what, 56% of our oil from the Middle East. We do have to remain focused on these challenges and I think you put it in the right terms from the standpoint of common sense and really evaluating what we're about and the things that made this country great, like individual initiative and freedom.
I'm here to give a brief update on the Petroleum Professionals Blue Ribbon Task Force. In its report, Human Resources - the missing piece of the energy puzzle - the IOGCC last year identified looming labor problems for the domestic natural gas and oil industry which sited that the states should be involved in the solution. Without the needed workforce, these domestic resources will not be developed. So we established the Petroleum Professionals Blue Ribbon Task Force late last year and we held our first meeting at the IOGCC conference in Santa Fe this Winter.
I want to take just a minute to recognize the people that have worked on the commission. I'm going to name them:
- Dr. Bruce Bell, Chief Executive Officer with Post Oak Oil Company.
- Mr. Grant Black, Director of the Oil and Gas Commission in Arkansas.
- Dr. John B. Curtis, Director and Professor at the Potential Gas Agency, Colorado School of Mines.
- Dr. William Fisher, Professor of Geology, University of Texas at Austin.
- Dr. Priscilla Grew, Professor, University of Nebraska.
- Mr. Lynn Helms, Director of the Oil and Gas Division, State of North Dakota.
- Mr. Ronald L. Hinn, Oxy Permian in Houston, Texas.
- Dr. Alan Hoffman, Manager of Seismic Imagining Technology Center, for Conoco Oil Company.
- Dr. Charles Mankin, Director of State Geologists at the University of Oklahoma, Sarkeys Energy Center.
- Dr. Donald Oltz, Oil and Gas Supervisor, in Alabama.
- Mr. William Sydow, Director, Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in Sydney, Nebraska.
The scope of the problem is one that you all know. We've lost about half a million jobs in the industry and over 50% of our folks in the industry, our oil and gas professionals are targeted to be retiring in the next 7 to 10 years. We also face a continuing decline in both undergraduate and graduate school enrollment for the oil and gas profession.
The context and the causes of these findings are in our draft report and we have that draft report ready for you. You should be able to pick it up at the back of the room. These include the decline and shift in oil and gas investment, reduced research and development, changes in employment demographics, and reduced hiring and recruitment. And of course the cycle in this industry - and we're all very used to that cycle - makes it incredibly difficult, not only in terms of planning and investment but in terms of training and tracking the professionals that we need to move forward.
The task force has identified several ambitious action items and our IOGCC staff's already started working on those initiatives. This report and the work of the task force will be aimed at action not at just having another report. It's not written just to be added to your pile of papers but to be something useful and useable in helping us move forward.
The task force has recommended establishment of an electronic career resource center to assist students interested in the geo?sciences and related careers and to guide school counselors in aiding their students. The electronic Resource Center has already been constructed at the IOGCC web site and I think they're going to flash that on the screen for you to take a look at.
Links to scholarships and fellowships, to professional societies and institutions of higher learning are being installed on this site daily. I urge all of you to visit the new resource and take a look at this site, make recommendations for additional links and I think you'd all have ideas in that regard. We will begin marketing the Electronic Resource Center to high school counselors and to undergraduate advisors later this Summer.
Also, we plan to host a conference this fall of key exploration, production and service company individuals, along with leaders of trade organizations, to ask their coordinated help in addressing the problem. We need to understand their perception of the upcoming labor shortage and learn what they are doing as individual entities to address it.
We'll also continue to work for adequate research funding for domestic oil and gas exploration and production. Not only does research spending support the petroleum professionals, it also continues to bring down the cost of exploration and production while producing more gas and oil.
Finally, the task force will continue to be active. As we learn from the conference and from our other meetings and get input from all of you the task force will develop a focused picture of all current and planned activities. Using that information, the task force will make final recommendations next year to strengthen and coordinate efforts while pushing for new initiatives in areas where voids exist right now.
We're targeting to have this project wrapped up no later than this time next Summer.
I'd like to thank the members of the task force for their hard work and I truly believe that working together we can make a real difference in this area.
Thank you very much.
