Koch plans to unite its petroleum engineers with Purina's scientists to come up with high- quality, lower-cost blends.

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Although they are only 29% of actuaries and only 5% of petroleum engineers , both landed on the top-10 list.

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Next, geologists and petroleum engineers huddle in a "hive, " a 3-D imaging room, to identify promising geological formations and plan the trajectory of the well.

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Petroleum engineers don't have the best reputation at the moment, thanks to all that oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico from BP's April 20 rig explosion.

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For the past 18 months engineers have been testing coal, petroleum coke (a refining by-product) and other fuels in the plant, tinkering with the catalyst and gathering data.

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Given the extent to which sand, tar or murderous thugs get in the way of petroleum production, it's no surprise that Shell's engineers see salvation in natural gas.

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