Skills
Petroleum Engineer Skills & Tools
The technical skills, people skills and tools employers look for in petroleum engineers, and how to build and show them.
What skills do petroleum engineers need?
Petroleum Engineers need technical skills such as reservoir engineering, drilling engineering, and completions, plus people skills like problem-solving and teamwork. They also use tools such as Petrel and Eclipse or CMG.
Technical (hard) skills
- Reservoir engineering
- Drilling engineering
- Completions
- Production engineering
- Reservoir simulation
- Economics
People (soft) skills
- Problem-solving
- Teamwork
- Decision-making
- Communication
Tools, equipment and technology
- Petrel
- Eclipse or CMG
- Python
- Excel
- Drilling software
- Production databases
Skills in action: common tasks
These step-by-step guides show how petroleum engineers put their skills to work:
How to show these skills on a resume
- Lead your skills section with the technical skills from the job posting, for example, “Reservoir engineering” and “Drilling engineering.”
- Prove soft skills with results: instead of listing “problem-solving,” describe a situation where you used it.
- List credentials such as PE license near the top, with the issuing organization and date.
- Use the employer’s vocabulary. Our petroleum engineer glossary covers the terms hiring managers expect.
How to build these skills
Formal training, supervised practice and certification are the most direct routes. Our Petroleum Engineer training introduces each of these skills with plain-language lessons, procedures and a final knowledge check: a strong foundation before hands-on training or your first day.