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I’m not sure how many of you were at the Offshore Technology Conference at the beginning of this month, but I was blown away at not only the number of attendees but also the number of exhibitors. According to OTC, the final attendance number was more than 75,000 (see full release here).

The high attendence is certainly not surprising; the oil and gas industry is all over television, web and print. Without question, the industry is doing great; oil and gas-linked cities like Houston (the annual location of OTC) are definitely profitting.

On the flip side, oil and gas sources are increasingly difficult to access, so the costs for the industry are increasing at an amazing rate. The industry is also experiencing a shortage of talent, as I mentioned in my first post.

How do people in the industry feel? Are the profits outweighing the multiplying challenges? What is the general feeling about the next few years? Everyone is worried about the price of gasoline (will it ultimately be $7/gallon? $12/gallon?), but what should we really expect?

The evidence on drives shows that they can save users big money and energy in the long run. While the price tag for drives may be high initially, the payoff over time can be considerable. However, there is still some negative drive talk out there. . . I was at a lunch at a conference recently, and a plant manager told me not to believe everything I read about drives. He’s seen drives blow up, and it’s not a pretty sight. At a session at the same conference, a utility executive said that in searching for ways to make their plants more energy efficient they rejected VFDs because the initial price was too expensive. . .

What about your experience out there in the field? We’d love to hear positive or negative stories about your experience with drives. Also make sure to check back here within the next couple of weeks for articles from our June issue, where we will be looking at Advances in Drive Technology.

The weekend is right around the corner, so take a break and laugh at this engineering video!

We hope you’ll take some time to explore our redesigned site for new features and old favorites. We want to hear from you! So be sure and let us know what you like about the new site and what you think can be improved.

We have already heard from many of you looking for the PumpChat archives. They are still here for your reference, but to post new comments and begin new conversations, go to the new PumpChat platform and re-register.

Also new to the site, we are excited about presenting our first ever Webinar on June 12 and invite you to register today! Let us know what topics would interest you for the next installment of our Pumps & Systems Live Webinar Series!

Meanwhile . . . have fun exploring the new site and let us hear from you!

At an automation fair this week, I learned that 60 percent of oil and gas engineers are set to retire in 2010 (according to the U.S. Oil and Gas Journal). It’s a frightening statistic–especially considering the oil and gas industry’s currently prominent role.

The huge percentage of engineers retiring is not limited to oil and gas, of course. As many executives reported in our January issue, there’s a shortage of talent in industries across the board.

Companies are scrambling to recruit engineering talent and encourage students to pursue engineering as a career path. Will it work? It will be interesting to follow the numbers coming out of engineering departments over the next year or two to see if there’s a significant increase of engineering graduates. Some students tend to gravitate where the money is, and there is certainly money in engineering at the moment…

Of course, beyond the numbers issue, there is also the loss of knowledge when engineers retire. We can seemingly replace the retiring workforce with new recruits, but they won’t have the knowledge or experience of the current workers.

What do you think? How can industry cope with this employee dilemma?