DALLAS - Oil is being disrupted in many ways – except one. CERAWeek, the world’s largest energy confab that took place this past week in Houston, Texas, showed that the U.S. energy industry is still years behind where it should be in hiring women. Just as they have been slow to accept climate change, the men who control black gold are failing to embrace the reality of their business’s upheaval.

The energy sector scores abysmal marks when it comes to gender diversity. Only around one-fifth of oil and gas employees are women, according to a study by the Boston Consulting Group, even though the U.S. workforce broadly is almost half female, according to the Department of Labor. A deeper dive unveils more discouraging statistics. Women make up just 17 percent of executives, far worse than even the poor record of the average S&P 500 company. They are less represented in technical roles than office and support. The industry’s maleness is second only to construction.

CERAWeek, headlined by host Daniel Yergin, reflected rather than addressed the problem. IHS Markit, the firm that hosts the five-day hullabaloo, doesn’t break out how many of the conference’s 4,300 attendees were women. But nearly 90 percent of those taking positions on the main stage were men, according to a Breakingviews analysis of the event agenda. A “Women in Energy” event gave airtime to Emma Cochrane, Exxon’s vice president of LNG, but only after addresses from several men including Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, who at one point noted the presence of mothers and grandmothers in the crowd.

This is more than just tone deafness. When oil rigs had to brave the elements of the deep sea, engineers could flex imperiously in the face of those who had brain but not brawn. But oil and gas jobs are moving into labs as the industry grapples with questions like how to reduce drilling costs and compete with cleaner sources of fuel. Technology has taken the forefront in discoveries.

That will necessitate employing more women – simply because that’s where such skills lie. According to the Canadian government, 92 percent of the country’s qualified mechanics aged 25 to 34 are men, but 57 percent of those with post-secondary qualifications in science and technology are women. The U.S. workforce is behind, but catching up – 51 percent of operations-research analysts are women, according to National Center for Women & Information Technology.

As oil becomes a technology business, excessive machismo becomes a hindrance. The only ones to lose in that equation are companies who don’t get that message.

CONTEXT NEWS

- CERAWeek, an annual U.S. conference of the oil and gas industry, took place March 5-9 in Houston, Texas. The event was hosted by IHS Markit, an energy-research firm. The conference’s headlined panels were primarily moderated by Daniel Yergin, the company’s vice chairman.

(Editing by John Foley and Martin Langfield)

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