- [Narrator] Pinned to the skyline
by a forest of oil derricks,
Oklahoma's distant horizons.
Each derrick representing a well,
drilled deep into the earth,
seeking that black gold.
The illusive petroleum.
340 oil fields in Oklahoma,
each field a source of wealth
such as Midas dreamed not of.
Petroleum, the magic source of power
without which our modern
civilization must fail.
The source of light, of
heat, of boundless energy.
When Charles Gould,
the founder of the
Oklahoma Geological Survey
and the OU School of Geosciences,
penned his poem, he
saw Oklahoma's destiny.
A future we had only begun to dream of.
He knew that between the black gold
and red dirt was evidence of eons,
waiting to be uncovered.
Waiting to be understood.
Waiting to turn this land into a force
that would, some day, power the world.
Welcome to A Century of Unlimited Energy.
(birds chirping)
(somber piano music)
- This is my alma mater, this is my love.
I'm not sure why you love
your undergraduate degree
more than you do your
graduates and doctorate degrees
but this is clearly what
I consider to be home.
I'm a Sooner and I love this university,
so coming back on campus is
enthusiastic and exciting
and, you know, whether it be
watching the football team
or participating in the
college of engineering
or petroleum engineering
kind of activities,
it's a special feeling.
When you walk on this campus, you feel it.
It's a great place to work.
- I've been fortunate to
work for Curtis Mewbourne
for over 35 years now.
He offered me an opportunity in 1983
when there weren't many out there.
When he started the company in 1965,
he wanted to build a successful,
respected oil and gas company.
And even today, we want to be the best
in the areas we operate.
- When you look at the leaders
in the oil and gas industry,
you will find a large percentage
that have the OU branding,
you know, associated with their name.
When you look at all the fronts,
from research to grooming
and preparing the individual
to get into the industry for success,
I would rank OU right up
there with any university.
- I'm glad I graduated a long time ago
because these kids are
off the charts smart.
- University of Oklahoma
is really well positioned
to be a leader in unconventional space.
Using this combination of technologies,
hydraulic fracturing, horizontal drilling,
seismic imaging, nanotechnology,
all of these things
kinda come together here
and we know the science.
We practice it.
If you go downstairs, you'll
see some of the best labs
in the world.
We can break rocks, we
can create the environment
of the subsurface with pressure,
we can basically recreate
what mother earth has 10000 feet below
and we can try it in the lab.
Look around you, we're
in the center of this.
If you wanna come to the
University of Oklahoma
to study completions
and you wanna see a completion is like,
we can get in a car and
be there in 30 minutes.
Few schools have the access to the kind
of industry development that
we have, just around us.
- When I attended OU in 1979,
anybody that was interested
in the oil and gas
business was getting a job
and had multiple job offers.
The industry was in the middle
of a tremendous up-cycle.
It was truly booming.
And then in about 1982,
the oil business started to down-cycle.
(tense music)
I'll never forget,
I walked into my first
class, my senior year
at OU, studying petroleum engineering,
the professor recommended that
I consider changing my major.
That's how difficult
things were at the time.
- The big news of the 80s,
although your very early 80s,
natural gas sold for 10 dollars
or more than 10 dollars per billion BTUs
and it dropped it down
to one or two dollars.
When your product doesn't
sell for very much,
nobody's interested in
making capital investments.
Demand for engineers, they diminished.
Hiring plummeted from several
thousand a year entering
the industry to well under a thousand.
We've had two booms and
two busts since then.
It became an oil boom the next time.
The last was partly price-driven
but, also, very much
technologically driven.
When you start drilling and
completing wells horizontally,
you don't need as many wells as you did
when I first came here and
they were all vertical.
- In 2003, I was the chairman
of the supply committee
for the National Petroleum Council.
In that report, we said
that the US oil and gas business was done.
We don't know where we're gonna
find fossil fuels anymore.
We don't know if we can make
any additional recoveries.
We need to go external to the country
and bring in other sources, like LNG.
I believed that so much
that I changed my career.
I went to the Middle East to develop one
of those LNG projects,
so that we could keep the lights on here.
The challenge became, what do we do
when our kids are not getting employed?
That's their primary purpose
for getting this degree.
- Everything is dynamic.
If you're static, you're gone!
The faculty and the researchers
have to get involved
in that change.
- And I think we have learned
at Mewbourne Oil Company,
being a smaller company, that actually,
that risk, that volatility,
that uncertainty can be our friend.
In many instances, that uncertainty,
that volatility creates opportunity.
- Most of the oil and gas production was
from conventional reservoirs.
Which means they have high porosity,
high permeability.
- And by contrast with that,
the shale, if we were to
make a section of that,
a very thin section and examine
it either under a projector
or a microscope, we would find
that the holes and pores were so small,
that fluid couldn't go through it.
- That's right.
- And for that reason,
we call this kind of
a rock, "impermeable."
- And then all of a sudden,
people in the industry
found out that the shales,
which were considered a
nuisance few years back,
could be a source of additional gas
and hydrocarbon production.
- Source rock is usually
flat, like a pancake, right?
So we drill vertical holes,
so it's very difficult, right?
To access a lot of the rock.
Well, then came horizontal drilling.
So now we're able to
drill, turn the drill bit,
run parallel in the source rock,
then couple that with
the previous technology
of hydraulic fracturing,
now we can bring abundance of oil and gas
in this impermeable rock to the wellbore.
This is what we call the Shale Revolution.
So when you think about this technology,
innovation that's taken
place over this 100 years,
it's always fascinating to me to see where
that creativity comes from.
And that creativity has
not necessarily come
from the majors.
It was the independents in
the oil and gas business,
here in North America, that experimented.
They tried.
They tried the impossible
and they overcame.
And they figured out things
that we didn't think were possible.
Those independents are our alumni.
- The work going on in our department
in the area of shale gas is
recognized throughout the world.
The cutting edge research
is going on over here.
- If you come from a
culture, from a value system,
where getting down simply
means you get to get up
and once you get up, you take
things to the next level,
then you can make a huge difference.
You take these kinds of people
and put 'em in difficult situations,
they find creative solutions.
The state of Oklahoma breeds
tough, very resilient,
very capable people.
- [Narrator] As long as there
have been people in Oklahoma,
there have been stories about oil.
It seeped from the ground, into homes,
up through cattle fields,
a mysterious and messy nuisance.
With a state abundant
in natural resources,
you would think that a school
of petroleum engineering
at the University of Oklahoma was
nothing short of inevitable,
but the story of this
program is an unlikely one.
In the year 1919, the
largest war the world had
ever known was marching
to its bloody conclusion.
The Spanish Influenza pandemic
had barely released its grip
on the globe.
Neither tragedy left OU unscathed.
The 1919 Sooner Yearbook holds
evidence of the scars left
on the university.
The first 73 pages of the 1919 yearbook,
memorialize students, faculty and staff
who died or served in World War I
and who died from the Spanish Flu.
That was the year Leon
Everette English walked
across the stage to receive his degree
in engineering geology.
It would be years
before the term "petroleum
engineer" existed.
The program's founding faculty,
HC George and Fred W.
Paget, were risk-takers.
Developing a degree that had
not been tested in industry,
leaning on knowledge and instinct,
fueled by grit,
they took the risk.
- It's a time when, at
least in the United States,
the whole world just changes.
(somber music)
The First World War was one
of the most shaping events
to our country.
Lots of young men went away.
Not all of them came back.
Before World War I, there were maybe five
or six giant oil fields in Oklahoma.
We're in the throes of discovering
really huge reservoirs,
and most of those were
discovered between the wars.
- The whole thing has changed.
100 years ago, you wouldn't
recognize a oil field.
We were only drilling, 100
years ago, vertical well.
You didn't go more than
maybe few hundred feet.
If you don't have the oil,
you walk someplace else.
- We didn't have seismic understanding.
That was a 1920s kind of a phenomenon
where we're trying to
understand how to read
what's under the ground and get imaging.
- The other great societal shock
was the oncoming depression
and for us in Oklahoma,
we also had the Dust Bowl.
My mother tells me that
you would dust the house
in the morning.
If you didn't dust it at noon,
it was still dirty at night.
- Digged out, blown out and broke.
- We survive that because
there's a lot going
on in the oil industry.
- [Narrator] This decade
boomed with discovery
and adventure.
New oil fields were frequently discovered.
The invention of the catalytic
cracker in 1937 brought
new advances in refining.
Now higher quality fuels could meet
the specific requirements
of new automotive engines.
Soon after, however, the
US declared war on Japan
and entered World War II.
With the war came a renewed
demand for petroleum.
The impact of the oil industry
on an Allied victory was profound.
From fuel to synthetic rubber,
the oilmen of Oklahoma
supplied the frontlines
with the energy needed for victory.
It was during this time that
students left universities
in droves to join the fight.
Many of the nation's petroleum
engineering programs closed
their doors, but at the
University of Oklahoma,
the petroleum program grew substantially.
- One of the great things
that came out of World War II,
socially, was the GI Bill play.
- The GI Bill of Rights is not a reward
or a handout, or a gravy train,
but rather an American
way to make it easier
for each man to take
his place, once again,
in the community and
get some of those things
for which he went to war.
A job, a business, an education, a home.
- War, generally, makes opportunity
so you have an opportunity
to expand manufacturing.
You have a need for the things to keep
that economic and industrial expansion.
- That generation did
so much for all of us
that I think, sometimes, we
underestimate the benefits.
I mean, even the freedoms
that we enjoy today came
as a result of the sacrifices
of that great generation.
After the World War II
generation and the post,
we ended up with an entrepreneurial spirit
that I'm not sure we'll ever create again.
- If you think of it,
this has been a birthplace
for the oil industry a number of ways.
These pioneers have changed the economy,
they have changed everything
in the oil industry.
- Coal and water power are important,
but by far, the biggest job of
providing our energy belongs
to petroleum.
- [Narrator] For the next two decades,
the industry was
completely revolutionized.
With the introduction
of hydraulic fracturing
and the global spread of
Oklahoma's energy prowess,
the 60s and 70s saw
advancement after advancement.
From 3-D imaging to fueling
the Apollo 11 rocket.
Only a few years later, the development
of the deep Anadarko
Basin triggered oilmen
from around the world to rush to Oklahoma
to find black gold.
- Really, our resiliency comes
from the down-cycles, right?
And so, to be able to survive
through the down-cycles,
it's equally important that the school
and the college have the staying
power in the down-cycles.
- As Oklahomans, being tied to oil and gas
and being tied to the weather,
we understand ups and downs.
And a lot of people say
Oklahomans have grit,
and we pull ourselves
up from our bootstraps.
And you see that evidence
through the university
and digging deep in the
fourth quarter in a game,
or, you know, really working
hard to excel in academics.
We have that grit and that
resolve to really be excellent
in all we do.
- [Narrator] By 1995, the
industry was getting back up
on its feet again.
4-D seismic imaging emerged.
For the first time,
petroleum engineers could see
fluid movement between wells.
A technological advancement
that impacted everything
from reservoir characterization
to the location of bypassed reserves.
Then, in 1997, the first application
of modern hydraulic
fracturing was successful,
leading to a boom in North
American oil and gas production.
- So looking back over the last 100 years,
I think there are so many "Aha" moments
that the one thing you take
away is the conventional wisdom
of the time, whenever
that is, is rarely right.
The conventional wisdom
is most often wrong.
So if you really want to
participate in the future,
the last thing you wanna
do is anchor your thinking
in the past.
What we have today,
over the last 100 years,
we can look back and we can
see step-changes in technology,
step-changes in thinking
that took us to a place
that we never thought possible.
I cannot begin to imagine what
the next 100 years brings.
(somber piano music)
- I love music.
I've played music ever
since I was seven years old
and I feel like that's
one thing that's stuck
with me all this while.
My mom, she was the one
who put us in music school
and she told us, "choose two instruments."
I chose the guitar and the keyboard.
Me and my brother, we're
really competitive.
He chose the drums, so he's amazing at it,
but every time I asked him,
like, can you teach me?
He's like, "nope."
So then I said, okay, I'll teach myself.
So I taught myself the drums.
Because I have music on the side,
it kinda helps me balance my education.
When I'm not studying, I'm
definitely making music.
And when I'm not playing
music, I'm, you know, studying.
Whenever I'm exposed to
new opportunity here at OU,
if I think back about a
person that would've gave me
such good advice on, you know,
whether to do it or
not, definitely my dad.
Just to see how well he's progressed
from where he was in
India to where he is now.
From a village to, like, a big city.
He's just a very hard worker
and that's someone that I also wanna be.
Mentorship plays a very important role
in my life here at university.
Our professors have had so much experience
within the industry.
They're so passionate about what they do
within the Mewbourne program.
- What inspires me is to find
young people who wanna learn
and have an ambition, have a curiosity.
- And if they're listening then
they can benefit instantaneously
from what may have taken years.
So the more they
understand and become aware
of what's already happened,
then their minds can be used
to accelerate the next solution.
- It is not gonna come from the brawn
of the past generations,
it's gonna come from the
innovation and the clever ideas.
It's this collaboration that we enjoy
with the industry as we
produce their future employees,
and then yet, we also
produce the future solutions
to the next biggest challenges.
- Most people underestimate
the impact that affordable
and abundant energy has
on people's development
of their economy
and of their own personal
enjoyment of life.
Every country that's gonna
enjoy the development,
that we've enjoyed, are gonna confront
these kinds of issues.
We need the economic development.
You want the benefit of
everybody enjoying the things
that life brings,
but we have to do it in an
environmentally sustainable way.
- If you look in those countries,
the women are given the task
of collecting the biofuel
or preparing it for the evening,
which means it is taking
away from their education,
and then there is definitely a more chance
of catching disease or
involved in an accident.
- We've got to change that.
We've got to educate people,
so as they go through this learning curve
from being a underdeveloped
country to a developed country,
we need to share the knowledge.
Think about the opportunities
that we can bring
to these emerging countries simply
by sharing the technologies.
But let's not share the technologies
that are not sustainable,
let's make them sustainable
and share those.
- It's an industry that
needs creative people,
creative thinking.
Definitely, men and women
together will make it even better.
- This is a transformational culture.
They're here for some broader purpose.
They wanna be a part of that growth
and they see the growing
demand of population
across the world
and then energy requirements
are gonna be there,
but they wanna make sure that
it's done in the right way.
I have every confidence in the world
that the next generation
of petroleum engineers are
gonna solve the problems
that we currently feel are unsolvable.
When I think about the energy industry,
not only has it played a key
role in advancing technology
and making energy affordable,
but it's played a key role in
bringing cultures together.
Because we've gone and
searched for this energy source
all over the world.
And in doing so, we had to interact
with people of different
backgrounds and different beliefs,
and when we did, we
brought globalization right
to the forefront.
- I'm originally from India
but my parents moved to
the UAE in the early 90s,
and I was born and raised in Abu Dhabi,
which is the capital.
I live in the heart of the city.
We live on Eid street.
I've been exposed to so many
different kinds of people
and backgrounds, and I
wanted to kind of experience
that in another country
and see what it's like.
My dad did play a bit of
a big role in my decision
to choose petroleum engineering,
and he said, "it's a
good field to get into
"and with that career, you
could travel the world."
There's so little I knew about
the industry prior to coming.
Once I decided that petroleum
engineering was what I wanted
to pursue, I just learnt so much, so fast.
And imagine all that you
learn, it'll just progress.
It'll just, like,
blossom once you graduate
and you can apply that to
so many different places
that you go to.
- The sun does not set on
petroleum engineering graduates
of the University of Oklahoma.
We have grads all over the globe.
- We have a great history
of hiring OU grads
and OU grads have done
really well at Halliburton
over the last 100 years.
And I think it's based in our values
around integrity, honesty,
innovation, competition.
All those values that are so
important to Halliburton are
also important at OU.
And I think that comes through
when they join our company
and become leaders.
- The alumni of the
Mewbourne School of Petroleum
and Geological Engineering end up
in a variety of different places.
Some choose academic pursuits
and in so doing, will
go on to graduate school
and, ultimately, become faculty
and become the future teachers.
Some decide to be hardcore researchers.
They have a research question
or a burning question
that needs to be resolved.
And then there are some that are gonna go
and do industry-related support,
and they'll go become entrepreneurs
because of the success they experienced
within the oil and gas business.
So when I think about
what our graduates bring,
they bring that resilience,
that persistence,
that Midwestern values
that you only get here
in the state of Oklahoma.
You get that underlying
commitment to excellence
and it's everything we do.
There's nothing here at
the University of Oklahoma
that we accept anything
less but than the best,
and so I believe our
graduates, as a result,
go out there and prove that everyday.
- They understand the
legacy of the program.
They understand that what
they are doing matters.
The things that you learn
today, technology-wise,
are going to change.
At the University of
Oklahoma, you learn how
to be a problem solver,
and don't be afraid to tackle
the problems that come along
'cause they're important.
And so, jump into that situation.
Go solve that problem.
Use your techniques and
understanding as an engineer
to go and change the world.
- This is an incredible place.
Constantly doing the impossible.
And the state of Oklahoma
has that kind of DNA.
This state pulls together
when it needs to.
This university does too.
If you come on this place and
can't feel the enthusiasm,
the excellence, the commitment
of virtually everybody
around here, then you're
just missing something.
To be a Sooner will tell you
everything you need to know
to be successful.
- [Narrator] The legacy
of Leon Everette English
and his fellow pioneering
students and faculty echo
through the hallways of
Sarkeys Energy Center.
Their are voices called to students,
reminding them that good
and lasting things can star
from the most trying of times,
urging them to take a risk.
Ride the booms, weather the busts
and improve the lives
of people everywhere.
Far behind us are the days
when petroleum engineer didn't
exist in our vocabulary.
Out of curiosity came discovery,
tenacity came victory
and the red dirt state
flooded with black gold.
There's still more to uncover,
invent and accomplish.
Communities to serve and
expectations to exceed.
A shift is coming.
Our philosophy is evolving
to emphasize environmental stewardship.
Our technology is outmatched
only by our curiosity.
We are educating students to
thoughtfully produce resources
to power the world.
Welcome to the Next Century
of Unlimited Energy.
(soft music)
