First oil

“Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.” — Ernest Hemingway’s derivation of the original text from poet John Donne’s “Devotions upon emergent occasions.”

In the course of human history, technology development has transitioned to different parts of the world with the rise and fall of civilizations. A few signs are emerging for a possible transition from its present epicenter in North America to the Eastern Hemisphere.

To go back to the beginning, 2.5 million years ago, during the Neolothic Age in East Africa’s Rift Valley, homo sapiens learned how to hunt and gather food with stone tools. Subsequently, the cradle of civilization emerged in the fertile crescent of Mesopotamia in 12,000 BC, where mankind first learned farming, and communication through language, and writing. This was also the time when the wheel was developed to revolutionize transportation.

With the transition from prehistoric to the historic era, new civilizations emerged in Egypt, China and India. The ancient Chinese empire developed four great inventions: compass, gunpowder, papermaking and printing. Ancient India is credited with the first creation of carbon black and crucible steel, and initial developments in mathematics and medicine. The Egyptians advanced civil engineering through the building of the great pyramids and were among the pioneers of navigation and shipbuilding.

Western civilization, as we know it today, has its origin in the Greek and Roman empires from 800 BC. The Greeks developed the gear, screw and rotary mill, and the scientific method. The Roman empire was built through the invention of deadly siege engines, roadways and bridges for rapid troop deployment, and aqueducts to channel water to cities.

The Ottoman Empire, which originated in Turkey in 1,300 AD and controlled central Asia and reached as far away as Spain, is credited with several technologies, including the first development of the steam turbine and the sextant for navigation.

The modern scientific renaissance, which began in Italy in 1,400 AD, eventually led to the Industrial Age that peaked in 19th-century England. Subsequently, the United States took the lead in using steam engines for transportation, invented the telegraph and telephone for communication, and instituted mechanized farming and assembly-line manufacturing.

While there is no doubt that the epicenter of modern computing and the digital Information Age through the Internet is in the West, there are signs of diminishing interest in scientific and engineering education in the Western culture. Lately, the largest academic department at Stanford University is economics. While Bill Gates is the modern Andrew Carnegie, would a bright young man or woman today look as engagingly toward a career as a software developer in Silicon Valley, or as a hedge fund speculator?

In our own oilfield industry, the technology advantage has remained firmly in the West, with relatively local shifts of influence. About 100 years ago, the industry developed around Tulsa after the discovery of the Glen Pool field in 1905. A second surge of oil discoveries between 1915 and 1930 established Tulsa as the “oil capital of the world.” Now, the epicenter of the oil field is Houston, with the growth of the offshore industry in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil and gas companies have built major headquarters in West Houston’s “Energy Corridor.” Nearby, The Woodlands has new campuses built by Anadarko and Exxon Mobil.

Could the bell be tolling already for Houston? “I know many do not like to hear me saying this,” cautioned Andrew Gould, Chairman of BG Group and former CEO of Schlumberger. “When we recruit at U.S. and European universities, students think of oil and gas as a fossil fuel industry that is dying. On the other hand, graduates in the Middle East and Asia are enthusiastic about working in the oil field.” So, Houston mammas, don’t let your babies grow up to be Wall Street financiers. Let them be oilfield engineers.