—
If you’ve ever groaned after watching gas prices climb or wondered why energy prices seem so unpredictable, you’re not alone. Most Americans experience the effects of the energy industry every day, even if they never think about how that energy gets produced. Long before fuel reaches a gas station or electricity reaches a home, thousands of engineering decisions have already shaped what families will eventually pay and how reliable that supply will be.
That is where Varune Maharaj comes in. As an energy engineering and offshore operations expert, he works on some of the most technically demanding offshore energy projects in the world. His involves helping companies make better engineering decisions, reduce operational risks, and keep projects running safely and efficiently. While those decisions happen hundreds of miles offshore, they eventually affect the energy systems millions of Americans rely on every day.
Most people associate energy prices with world events, politics, or decisions made by oil-producing countries. And while those factors certainly matter, Maharaj says many of the biggest influences on affordability begin much earlier, during the planning, engineering, and operation of an energy project. “They are more direct than most people realize,” he said. “Most people will never see a casing design, a completion program, or a drilling performance review, but those choices quietly show up months or years later on their bills.”
When projects are designed well, equipment operates more reliably, wells produce more consistently, and costly delays become less common. Over time, those improvements help create a steadier energy supply. While engineering decisions alone cannot prevent every increase in fuel prices, they can reduce unnecessary costs and make the system more resilient when global markets become unstable.
Many Americans remember the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010 because of the environmental damage that followed. Eleven workers lost their lives, millions of barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, and communities across the Gulf Coast spent years dealing with the aftermath. For Maharaj, that tragedy also illustrates how major failures rarely begin with one dramatic mistake. “What happened, in my opinion, was a chain of bad practices and bad decisions,” he said.
The public often sees the final catastrophe. What they do not see are the countless technical decisions that came beforehand. Sometimes changing just one of those decisions is enough to prevent a disaster altogether. Those behind-the-scenes choices do not only affect safety. They influence jobs, local economies, and the stability of industries that support millions of workers across the country.
Something else surprised me while speaking with Maharaj. We often think of offshore energy as an engineering challenge, but much of his work comes down to recognizing problems before they become emergencies.
Early in his career, he noticed something that did not feel right while a drilling crew was assembling equipment on a rig. He stopped the operation and directed workers to move away from the area. Seconds later, a heavy metal component fell more than 120 feet, landing exactly where several workers had been standing moments earlier. “It can literally be the difference between life and death,” he said.
That experience shaped how he approaches every decision today. Technical knowledge matters, but so does having the confidence to slow down or stop an operation when something feels wrong.
Maharaj also believes the United States has made important progress by expanding domestic energy production and improving engineering practices over the past two decades. At the same time, he says there is still room to improve how energy projects move from planning to completion. Permitting delays, aging infrastructure, and slow transmission expansion can all make it harder to deliver reliable energy efficiently, even when the technology already exists.
For families, those issues show up as higher costs, delayed projects, or uncertainty about what comes next. Most Americans will never see the engineering reviews, risk assessments, or operational planning sessions that happen before energy reaches their homes, yet they experience the results every day. Safer operations, more reliable planning can help strengthen energy security and make the system more dependable over time.
The work itself may happen far offshore, but it reaches the people filling up their cars before work, businesses trying to manage rising operating costs, and families hoping the next energy bill will be a little easier to afford. Maharaj’s work focuses on improving the systems that help keep energy projects safe and reliable, even before that energy reaches consumers. As the industry continues to adopt better engineering practices and stronger operational standards, the benefits could create a more resilient energy system for the communities, businesses, and families that rely on it every day.
—
