Oil rigs, also called nodding donkeys because of their rhythmical up-down motion, are spread across states like Texas and Oklahoma. They extract some of the world's most valuable fuel: oil.
People drill for oil in many different locations, including in the frozen north, in tar pits and under the ocean floor. Wherever the drilling is taking place, you can bet that a whole team of engineers is involved in the extraction process.
To get a well up and running, many people are needed to find the exploration site, determine the amount of production, figure out what facilities will be needed and decide where to place the drill.
"The drilling engineer is the person who has to drill the well," explains Marcel Polikar. He is a petroleum engineering professor. "Once it's been decided where the well will be placed and how many there will be, it's the drilling engineer's job to put it there. As they say, it's their job to land the well."
In the past, petroleum engineers may have worked on their own. But more and more, they are part of a group effort. "More and more decision making is done in teams," he says. "There isn't one person who makes all the major decisions."
In such a complex industry, an individual strategy just wouldn't make sense. "There are so many questions to ask," says Polikar. "You need to decide if it will be a vertical well. What will be the size of the well?"
Once solutions have been found to these many questions, the drilling engineer gets the well in the ground.
Afterwards, other people address many more concerns. "Someone else will work on facilities planning to build a structure that works together. Production engineers will eventually take over the well production."
Texas, Oklahoma, California, Colorado and Louisiana are the main oil-producing regions in the U.S.
The world consumes more than 75 million barrels of oil per day. This figure is expected to increase over the next two decades before it begins to decline. That's according to the Energy Information Administration in the U.S.
Crude oil production has been falling since its peak production in the 1970s. However, California and the Gulf of Mexico are two places where crude oil production might increase substantially over the next several years.
Jennifer Wilding is a petroleum engineer working in Louisiana. As a part of her job, she works on developing new wells and increasing the production on existing sites. She's interested in increasing the amount of oil that can be extracted using one well. "The oil may be deposited in several different sands," she explains. Different methods are needed to extract the oil from each level.
In the past, it may have taken more than one well to reach these sites. She's interested in changing that. "If you can use one well to reach all three sands, you've made the project a lot more cost-effective," she says.
Extracting oil from the ground is an expensive venture. Being cost-effective is one of the most important aspects of the business. "You can decrease the amount of money by using new technologies," says Wilding.
If you can use the same rig to extract more oil, then you are making huge savings. "Every time you need a new rig, it costs a lot of money."
Just how does Wilding figure out the best method for extracting oils? She says the answer is different in each situation. "This is very demanding, challenging work," she says. "What I really enjoy about it is that you learn something new every day.
"I'm not given a set way to do things, and I'm not doing the same activity day after day," she says. "This is real problem solving and I'm able to put forth and use my talents."
In the past, working on the oil rigs wasn't a typical job for women. But Wilding says that's all changing. "As far as the gender issue goes, it's an advantage right now because many companies are looking to diversify," she says. "It's not difficult for a woman to find a job. We have the same problems others do when looking for work, but the demand is there.
"It's an enjoyable job," she says.