One common piece of advice when faced with a possible oil employment scam is to go with your gut: “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is”. This may be valid if you are an oil industry veteran, but pretty useless if you are new to the oil employment field. Just one or two years ago, there was a big flame war in a major job board regarding the correct payscale for a major oil company. Some oil rig veterans claimed a certain figure, while another group of veterans claimed a figure half of that. Unfortunately, both sides produced strong evidence to support their claims.

However, using the following 10-point checklist gives you a better guide for your decision:

1. Did you attend a face-to-face interview for this job?

In most cases, employers will not hire you based on just a phone interview. The exception is when your friend who is already working in that company recommends you to his boss. But then you don’t need to read this, do you?

2. Did you apply for this job?

No oil rig companies are going to email you an unsolicited job offer.

3. Is this job offer an overseas posting?

Most scams involve overseas postings which are difficult for you to check. A conman is not going to email you a job offer within easy traveling distance.

4. Is this a job in Nigeria? Or is the recruiter based in Nigeria?

While this may be unfair to legitimate Nigerian companies, a disproportionate number of scams come from Nigeria. Unless you have a trustworthy contact who can check things out for you, it is safer to reject Nigerian job offers.

5. Are you being asked for money (directly or indirectly)?

A real job offer will pay you, not the other way around! A scam will ask you to pay various fees, e.g. paperwork fees, admin fees, visa fees, air ticket, bribes, etc.

6. Look for the company name and/or job title in google.

What do other people say? If many people (in forums, job boards, etc.) say the job is a scam, then it probably is (a scam).

7. Check the Better Business Bureau for Canadian and US oil rig companies.

Search BBB’s website for the company offering you the job. Also check the recruiting firm which sent you the email. While not all legitimate companies are listed in BBB’s database, it will give you some useful information to work with.

8. Check the company’s website.

Not all real companies have websites. But if the job offer email lists the website, you should pay it a visit.

• Is the website working?
• Is the website only one page or many pages? A real company website normally has many pages.

9. Check the company email.

You want to look at the “Reply-To” field of the emailed job offer. Ask your email provider how to do this - Yahoo Mail settings are different from MSN Mail settings which are different from Google Mail settings, etc. A real company will not use a free email address. If the “Reply-To” field says “xyz@gmail.com”, or “abc@yahoo.com”, it is certainly a scam.

You will also want to compare the “Reply-To” field with the “From” field. Both of them should show the same email host (Look at the part after the @ sign). For example, “From: HR-Director@XYZ.com” and “Reply-To: HR-Flunky@XYZ.com” might be legitimate, since both of them are from “XYZ.com”. In some companies, it is their policy to set the “From” field to the same address, while the “Reply-To” field shows the individual employee. However, “From: Managing-Director@XYZ.com” and “Reply-To: Secretary@ABC.com” is probably a scam. Note the different email hosts - XYZ.com vs ABC.com.

If the company website is listed in the job offer email, compare the website address against the email host address. They should be similar, e.g. the website is www.XYZ-OilCompany.com while the “Reply-To” field says “hr@XYZ-OilCompany.com”.

10. Are you being asked for sensitive information?

There is no reason for anyone to ask you for sensitive information like your credit card number by email. Other sensitive data include your bank account number, social security, driving license, even your birth date. These are information commonly used for identity theft.

So, should you or should you not reply to the job offer? Following the checklist will help you to make a good decision.

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The fact is, the drilling rig jobs are there. In June 2008, Transocean, one of the world’s largest offshore drilling companies, was awarded a 5-year contract for their drillship Deepwater Pathfinder worth over $1 billion. This comes out to $652,000 per day. Because Deepwater Pathfinder is already under contract today, the new contract will not start until March 2010. The fact is, Transocean has at least 4 new rigs which will be drilling until 2016. With this kind of money being spent, you bet there are offshore drilling rig jobs. You just have to know how to find them.

What most people do not tell you is that job hunting is a numbers game. As long as you have reasonable expectations, it is just a matter of time and perseverance before you get hired. Depending on your background and the state of the economy, you may get an offer with as few as 100 job applications, or you may need to apply as many as 1000 times.

As with all things, knowing the right person can give you a shortcut into oil rig companies. More than a few persons have reported getting their drilling rig jobs after a recommendation by a friend or relative. The only other things they needed to do were to submit a short, no-nonsense CV and attend a quick interview. Sometimes, the interview was over the phone only, not even face-to-face.

Of course, this is only true if you have inside help. For most new hires, this is not possible. For locals in Aberdeen, Scotland, the fastest way to get offshore drilling rig jobs is to create a good CV then go knocking on doors. All the offshore drilling companies are listed in the phone book. Texans have reported great success by just driving around the state, looking for oil rigs and talking to the oil rig supervisors. Californians often report in with their local (un)employment offices to get day jobs with oil rig companies.

Ultimately, getting your first job with oil rig companies is the hardest. After one or two gigs, you will have some experience to sell. Eventually, it will snowball and getting oil drilling jobs becomes easier.

RigWorker.com has been helping people get oil rig jobs since 1998.

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Sure, the newspapers report that worldwide economic growth is slowing. But it’s all relative. In recent years, China’s economy has been one of the drivers behind high demand for oil. While China’s 3rd quarter growth has indeed slowed down from it formerly blistering double-digit pace, it is still a pretty hot 9%. In fact, the International Energy Agency predicts that China and India will need 300% more crude oil for their economies by 2030.

In recent years, China’s government has been lambasting Americans for rampant consumerism, living beyond their means and causing instability in the world economy. And yet, IEA analysts say that China will replace the U.S. as the world’s largest energy user by 2020. In fact, they predict a 600% increase in the number of cars in China by 2030. Ironic, isn’t it?

Whatever you may personally think of India and China, these numbers are a very strong reason for oil rig companies to continue investing in oil exploration and new oil rigs. And given that so many drilling rig jobs are being filled by graying workers hired in the 1970s who will be reaching retirement age in the coming few years, your prospects of getting oil drilling jobs remains strong.

As you can see, these are the two major reasons why oil rig companies are still hiring for drilling rig jobs: 1) demand for oil from China and India replaces the slack from the America; 2) workers hired in the 1970s retiring soon.

RigWorker.com has been helping people get oil rig jobs since 1998.

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Obviously, a job posted on Shell’s web-site is not a scam. Unfortunately, most jobs posted on oil company web-sites tend to be high level executive positions, for example country managers. Most entry level jobs in the oil field are found with oil contractors and oil services companies, who post their jobs through job agencies and third party job web-sites.

You may think that going to a reputable site like Monster will guarantee that the job is real. However, experienced job seekers can tell you that quite a few disreputable job agencies also trawl these large job boards to pick up desperate job seekers. While these are not outright scams, an unwary job seeker could find himself giving up half of his first month’s salary as a fee to some dishonest job agencies.

Here are some rig employment salary statistics from Canada, reported in 2006. This means the data was gathered around 2003-2005:

• Toolpusher (who leads the management crew on the oil rig) earns $110,000
• Managers (in the head office) earn up to $170,000
• Entry level roustabouts earn $55,000
• Painters earn $58,000
• Mud engineers earn in excess of $70,000
• Ditto medics - $70,000
• Radio operators - $60,000
• Derickman - $65,000
• Driller - $85,000
• Assistant driller - $70,000
• Cooks and bakers - $60,000

So, is $100,000 per year for drilling rig jobs too good to be true? That depends on the position. In February 2008, the Wall Street Journal reported that fresh petroleum engineering graduates can easily earn in excess of $100,000 not including perks and signing bonuses. Compare this to 2003, when the starting salary was $55,000. The same goes for geology graduates, reported the American Association of Petroleum Geologists in April 2008.

As you can see, in just 5 years the salaries for some positions have nearly doubled. Why? Part of the answer lies in the rise of the Indian and Chinese economies, where 2.5 billion people are finally growing in prosperity and need more oil. Another part of the answer lies in too many years of under-investment in oil rigs and workers. Too many of today’s experienced oil rig workers were hired in the 1970s, and will be starting to retire in a few more years, just when many new oil rigs are becoming operational. For example, Noble Corporation is bringing 5 new oil rigs to production in the next 2 years, and will need 1500 vacancies filled.

A medium sized agency specializing in oil employment could have up to 1000 job postings in their database, with maybe 20 new drilling rig jobs offered everyday. Despite salaries which are higher than what you can normally earn in jobs outside the oil field, there is high turnover rate of workers. Life on the oil rigs and oil fields is tough, and many new workers just cannot handle it. This is especially the case for married workers, who find the 2 weeks on and 2 weeks off schedule very difficult on their marriages.

For the next decade, salaries for drilling rig jobs will remain high. In the past century, experience has shown that commodities operate on a 15 to 20 year cycle, so rig employment is unlikely to drop until 2020. This is a good time for new hires to get their foot in the door of the lucrative oil industry.

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1. Rig employment in some locations is seasonal. For example, oil drilling jobs in northern Canada only exist in the winter months of November to March when the ground is frozen. They pay their workers hourly.There are no jobs the rest of the year. Ditto offshore oil jobs in certain parts of the North Sea, which is also seasonal.

2. Are you a foreigner? In many places with an extended oil boom, there is a serious shortage of housing. Even if you can find a place to stay, the rent is very expensive. For example, renting a one bedroom apartment in Calgary (Canada) can cost you $1500 and up per month. Not every oil company or drilling contractor offers staff accommodation, especially for families. If you don’t have a place to stay, don’t expect to get a job. It can be a good idea to find a place to stay before you start looking for a job.

3. Are you directly chasing the oil companies like Shell? You may have better luck with the drilling contractors. Nowadays, most oil companies do not operate their oil rigs themselves. Instead, they outsource these oil drilling jobs to smaller offshore drilling companies and oil service contractors. In the US, job seekers who drive around the oil rigs talking to the foremen (toolpushers/drillers) have found great success getting jobs.

4. Do you have the right background? Oil drilling jobs are very physically demanding. If you do not have any direct experience in the oil field, then the oil drilling companies prefer people who are proven to be tough and self-sufficient. More than a few ex-soldiers have successfully found rig employment once they left the army. Are you trying to get offshore oil jobs when you do not have any experience? Try to get oil rig jobs on land before you try to go offshore.

5. Do you have the right expectations? You may have to work night shifts. Many rigs have a two weeks on, two weeks off rotation. But some can be as extreme as 6 weeks on, 6 weeks off. You will have to work under extreme weather conditions. If you can’t convince your interviewers that you can handle these difficulties, you will not get your job.

The price of oil remains high, and new oil drilling jobs appear every day. Be persistent, work smart and you will get your rig employment.

RigWorker.com has been helping people get oil drilling jobs since 1998.

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A mudlogger:

• connect various sensors to the drilling apparatus and install specialized equipment


• collects geological samples of rock cuttings from the oil well (as part of the oil drilling process)


• monitor gases coming up out of the wellbore as an indicator of hydrocarbons


• prepares and analyses them geologically


• writes a report on them


• enters the information into the database.

Mudloggers work 12-hour shifts, and there are always 2 of them on an oil rig to ensure 24-hour coverage. The job is strenuous and challenging, especially when you have to install equipment and collect samples while drilling is actively going on. You have to be diligent, because part of your duties includes monitoring the level of dangerous gas which can cause a well blowout.

There is high turnover in this oilfield job. Most mudloggers work for oil services companies - not directly for the major companies like Shell or BP. Larger service companies require you to have a geology degree, and expect you to move up the career ladder quickly. Most mudloggers are young, in their early twenties and single. It is rare to see a middle-aged mudlogger. After 6 months to two years of work, you would ideally gain promotion to data engineer, with more responsibilities. As a data engineer, you will also troubleshoot problems which arise, and maintain and repair sensors as needed. For many mudloggers, the eventual aim is to become the wellsite geologist.

Although a mudlogger is an entry level oilfield job, you will earn at least $50,000 annually. Recent information from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists’ April 2008 meeting showed that graduate students with Masters and PhD degrees were receiving salaries of $80,000 to $110,000. Compare this to $55,000 in 2003.

Another perk of your job is travel. Many oil services companies have operations all over the world. For example, Geoservices has service contracts throughout oil rigs on the North Sea. Their employees get the opportunity to travel throughout northern Europe - Norway, Denmark and Holland - when they are off-duty. Working 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off means that you have plenty of time to explore the countries where you are based.

Some new hires hope to use a mudlogger oilfield job to get hired for bigger things by a major oil company like Exxon. This strategy has mixed success. In the United States, many oil wells are owned by wildcatters, who sell their oil to the oil companies. In the North Sea, too, many subcontractors and service companies are used to operate offshore oil rigs. Typically, companies like Shell have only a token presence on board these offshore oil rigs - the company man. Everyone else works for the contractor.

Right now, geology graduates with advanced degrees are being headhunted even before they graduate. But not everyone can go to graduate school, and not every geology student can score straight A’s to attract a company like Halliburton. If your results are only average, your best chance to get an oilfield job is to use proven oil rig employment placement services.

RigWorker.com has been helping people get oilfield jobs since 1998.

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Filling the jobs in these offshore oil fields is proving to be a major challenge. Despite sky-high salaries in the range of $50,000 to $80,000 even for new hires, there are not many takers for these offshore jobs. There are several reasons for this reluctance:

• Not many people are willing to live in the middle of the ocean on an oil rig
• Extremes of temperature, either extremely cold (most deep ocean oil rigs) or extremely hot (Africa), and sometimes both (the deserts of Saudi Arabia)
• The demanding work schedule - 12 hours on, 12 hours off, 7 days a week for 2-4 weeks straight
• Political volatility and armed violence, for example rebels and insurgents in Nigeria and other African nations, potential terrorists in Saudi Arabia
• Physical danger from storms like the recent Gustav and Hurricane Katrina in 2005
• Dangerous accidents like the 1988 Piper Alpha drilling rig in the North Sea - 167 of the 226 men on board died when the oil rig caught fire

Predictably, the highest salaries drawn in oil companies are the executives with titles starting with “C”, like CEO, CFO, etc. Then you have the VPs and top salesmen. But what about jobs and salaries for new hires? Well, in February, The Wall Street Journal reported that new petroleum engineering graduates received starting salaries of $80,000 to $110,000, not including various perks and signing bonuses. This demand is in no danger of peaking anytime soon. Oil companies are hiring petroleum engineering freshman students as summer interns, paying as much as $32.50 an hour. Texas Tech reports its 2008 graduating seniors will receive an average salary of $110,000.

Geologists, too, are in great demand. The American Geologic Institute reports that the average starting salary for a geologist fresh out of school is $81,300, up from $55,000 in 2003. At their April meeting, the American Association of Petroleum Geologists reported that graduate students (Masters and PhD) were receiving salaries of $80,000 to $110,000. The good news for job seekers is that the demand for geologists for is unlikely to be filled anytime soon. The American Geological Institute reports that out of 20,000 geology undergraduates, only 2,800 attain their BSc after 4 years of study. In addition, many of today’s oil industry geologists started work in the 1970s, and will be retiring in the next few years. Taken together, these facts mean that more and more geology vacancies are going to open up in oil companies in the coming decade, with salaries likely to increase further. It seems that, even today, taking up a Bachelor’s Degree in Geology or Geologic Engineering is well worth it. Beefing this up with a Master’s in Sedimentology, Stratigraphy, Structural Geology or Geophysics will almost certainly net you an extra $20,000 or $30,000.

With increasing demand for oil from China and India, as well as continuing demand from the US and Europe to drive the search for more oil, the job vacancies in oil fields and offshore drilling rigs will remain unfilled for some time to come. This is definitely the hot job of the next two decades.

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• Drilling - a hole (5 inches to 36 inches) is drilled into the earth. During this process, drilling fluid (also known as mud) is pumped in to help cool down the drill bit and remove the rock cuttings. After this, steel tubes are inserted into the hole to provide structural integrity. These pipes are 30 feet long, and also help to isolate potentially dangerous high pressure zones from each other and from the surface.


• Completion - this is just a fancy name for getting the oil rig ready to pump oil. The deepest sections of steel tubes are perforated so that oil can flow from the reservoir. An additional set of tubes is added to provide redundancy, allowing oil to flow from the reservoir to the surface for collection. In older oil fields, there may not be enough pressure underground to pipe the oil to the surface. In this case, additional pumps are installed. Using these pumps is called “secondary recovery”.


• Production - this is what you have been waiting for. The well is connected by the pipeline to the refinery, and the oil is finally allowed to flow. Sometimes, additional systems called “tertiary recovery” are installed to get more oil out of the ground. Maintenance is also performed on the oil well, including replacing the steel tubes and pumps where necessary.


• Abandonment - the rig no longer produces enough oil to make a profit. Cement is pumped into the hole, and then capped and buried.

When you are new and inexperienced, you will probably only be involved in the production phase. You are unlikely to be called on to work in the drilling and completion phases.

Most wells are dug to produce oil. However, many oil rigs also produce gas as a byproduct. In the past, this gas is usually just burned off. Nowadays, oil companies are more ingenious in dealing with this gas. In the US, this gas is often piped to end-users. If there is no market for natural gas near the oil rigs, the gas may be collected and converted to synthetic gasoline, diesel or jet fuel . This natural gas could also be injected back into the reservoir, to extend the life of the oil well.

Both onshore and offshore oil rigs share the same life cycle. The difference is that offshore rigs have to be more robust, and have to be built on water. This results in more complicated logistics and a higher cost. Many offshore oil rigs are still relatively near land, and rig crew are commonly transported by helicopter, e.g. oil rigs around the US Gulf coast. For oil rigs in the deep ocean, the rig crew have to be transported by ship. Ship journeys take longer, so workers on offshore oil rig rigs have to work for longer stretches, maybe 4 or 6 weeks instead of 2 weeks.

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With demand for oil remaining strong, every oil company is trying to gear up their production. Unfortunately, everyone is facing a critical worker shortage due to an aging workforce. Due to the oil busts in the 1980s and 1990s, oil employment was cut in half from nearly 600,000 workers in 1985 to just 300,000 workers in 2001. Most of the oil company jobs today are held by survivors of the last oil bust, around 40 to 50 years old. Considering the intense work schedule on most offshore drilling jobs - 12 hours a day for 14 days, followed by 14 days off - many of these workers are a bit too old to maintain the same punishing pace of work.

Thousands of offshore drilling jobs are in the Gulf Coast areas, the main oil producer in the US today. Oil employment requires very physically fit workers, independent, and able to handle being away from their families for extended periods. The work is physically demanding - workers in their 20s are preferred. If you have actual oil rig job experience, your chance of getting hired is virtually assured.

Due to the strong demand for workers in the oil and gas industry, oil rig job salaries are high and benefits are excellent. Accommodations on oil rigs are very good, with cable TV, gym facilities and free meals provided. However, the cabins can be cramped, with 4 persons sharing each cabin. While the jobs are undoubtedly exist, most oil companies still prefer to hire experienced workers. This means that competition for unskilled positions can be high. Even if you do not have relevant experience, you still need to show some familiarity with offshore drilling jobs in your cover letter and resume. In short, you need to do some reading up before you start looking for jobs. If possible, try to talk to workers already in the industry to get a feel for what life is really like on a an oil rig.

US job applicants will get their best start by using proven oil rig employment placement services. In contrast, UK oil rig job applicants have a harder time than their US counterparts. Placement services for oil rig jobs are less sophisticated. Having the right contacts and being known by the right people is still the most important factor to getting offshore drilling jobs. UK residents are probably better off if they look for jobs in the US and Canada.

With the price of oil remaining high, this is the best time for inexperienced persons to gain a foothold in oil employment. Thousands of oil company jobs in the Gulf Coast areas, with thousands more once Alaska is (re)opened up for exploitation. Go north to Canada and you will find even more oil rig jobs.

RigWorker.com has been helping people get oil employment since 1998.

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Well, it is still too early to panic. Oil prices are still high, around $110 per barrel. Consider that oil cost $70 in 2006, and under $50 in the early 2000s, we are not likely to see any significant drop in oil prices soon. This means oil companies will keep on looking for more oil, as well as develop better technologies to get more oil out of existing oil fields.

How will better technology help? Currently, we get 20% initial recovery rate out of oil wells. Another 40% can be recovered using modern techniques like water flooding and carbon dioxide flooding. In other words, we still have 40% of the oil left behind in our supposedly dry oil fields - that is billions of barrels of oil. Given continued high oil prices, oilfield services companies will soon find new ways to recover this last 40% of oil left in the ground. Do you still think oil company jobs will disappear?

Here is another fact to consider - only a small percentage of the Earth’s surface has been explored for oil, mainly deserts and shallow seas. New technologies will make it possible to find and recover oil in deeper oceans. Offshore employment will definitely still exist. New offshore drilling jobs will continue to be created.

We should also not forget two alternative sources of oil: heavy oil and oil shale deposits. Heavy oil is much thicker than normal crude. It has the consistency of molasses, and is more difficult to pump out. With oil prices above $100, oil companies are now looking at the heavy oil fields in Alberta (Canada) and Orinoco (Venezuela). Undoubtedly, more heavy oil fields will be found and exploited. As the demand for more oil from China and India is unlikely to quiet down anytime soon, oil companies will continue to build new oil rigs to pump heavy oil. The equipment may change, but offshore employment will continue to grow.

Canada, USA, and Venezuela continue to sit on a considerable amount of oil from oil shale deposits - two trillion barrels of crude - more than all historical conventional crude and present reserves combined. The most famous of these oil shale deposits is the Green River Shale Formation encompassing the States of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. It remains untapped, as the available technology today is still too crude and expensive. But with improving technology and continued depletion of conventional crude oil fields, it is just a matter of time before these oil shale fields start contributing jobs.

So where will all these oil company jobs and offshore employment opportunities be? According to a 2006 UK report on the energy sector, using data gathered from over 200 companies and major trade associations, there are major shortages in managerial, professional and technical staff. The lack of technicians, riggers, scaffolders, floormen and subsea engineers was highlighted. The same report mentioned that:

• 31,500 persons directly work for oil and gas companies and major contractors
• 223,000 persons work in the oil and gas supply chain
• 85,000 work in jobs created by spending from oil company employees - shops, restaurants, doctors, etc.

Certainly not all of this information holds true for the US and Canada in 2008 and beyond, but it is still food for thought. Not everyone needs to work as a roustabout for Shell. A little brainstorming will find you other jobs you can do in the oil and gas industry, e.g. oil refinery jobs.

As you can see, “peak oil” will not affect your offshore employment prospects or your ability to find oil company jobs. Of course, the equipment used on oil rigs will change and evolve, but that has been true since the 1900s.

RigWorker.com has been helping people get offshore employment since 1998.

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