Introduction Available

I wish someone else had written this book and I could have read it when I became a petroleum economist nearly twenty years ago.

My background then was relevant enough that both my employer and I were optimistic that, with some training, I would succeed in my new role. So I read a few books and went on some courses to help. And help they did. But only up to a point and not completely. In fact, they reminded me of Mrs. Fotheringham.

Mrs. Fotheringham was one of my math teachers at school, who taught by providing instructions: if the question asks this, you do this; if it asks that, you do that; which worked inasmuch as I passed tests. But I didn’t always understand why I was doing what I was doing.