Category — Energy Jobs

“For many American families, struggling to make ends meet in the jobless recovery, energy development is an answer to a prayer. The fact that the oil and gas boom has been done without taxpayer subsidies—and despite reactionary public policies at the federal level and in some states (such as New York)—means that more economic opportunity is on tap.”

In this so-called “jobless” recovery, aka the Great Recession, an estimated 20 million American workers are unemployed or underemployed. One out of every two college students cannot find work in their chosen fields. Competition for well-paying jobs is likely to become even tougher when thousands of men and women in uniform return home from Afghanistan and look for ways to support their families.

Although many U.S. industries have been reluctant to hire new workers due to political and economic uncertainty, the oil and natural gas industry is booming worldwide. Jobs are available on offshore rigs, at service companies that support energy production activities, and onshore where technologies are unlocking energy supplies from impermeable rock deep underground.

Hydraulic fracturing, directional drilling, and 3- and 4-D computer modeling, among other high technologies, are helping to produce oil and natural gas from shale formations that once were believed to be too difficult or too expensive to tap. In the process, they are creating jobs at large and small companies in dozens of states. In the bigger scheme of things, this renaissance means that the hydrocarbon energy era has an open-ended future. [Read more →]

“It’s been my experience in 17 years of recruiting in the oil and gas industry [that] this is the ‘sweet spot,’” [Tim] Cook wrote in an email, referring to the 10- to 30-year range. “These are the individuals that companies are wanting to hire, and because of the downturn in the mid-’80s to mid-’90s, this is the missing generation in the oil and gas industry.”

Talent needed! Jobs available! Training required! Students: please major in petroleum engineering. Retirees, we need you back. University of Phoenix–start your oil and gas engines. Staffing professionals–help us please!

This is the good news, the great news, from the energy sector. And it is the reality that President Obama and public-policy makers at all government levels should understand–and heed.

First, some background. Environment & Energy News has a daily subscription service that a lot of us must read each workday: E&E Daily, Greenwire, E&E News PM, and ClimateWire. And most recently, due to marginal resources in the energy world shifting decidedly to oil and gas, E&E News added a new service: EnergyWire.

EnergyWire provides the latest oil and gas developments that those outside of the industry (analysts, lobbyists, lawmakers, pundits, etc.) need to know.

In the June 18th edition was the article: WORKFORCE:  Energy Industry Attempts to Weather a ‘Silver Tsunami’ by Pamela King. “Silver Tsunami” means that the industry has an aging workforce that must be replaced by a new generation of oil and gas talent. (MasterResource has previously described the oil/gas worker opportunities and shortage.)

Ms. King begins her article: “After years of decline, the now-booming U.S. petroleum industry is struggling to find new hires to replace an aging workforce.” She then tells the story about how previous industry instability resulted in a talent exodus that must now be replaced: [Read more →]

“Do you like to get a good pay and benefits without having to get a PHD?”

The Offshore Oil Guide (OOG) advertises itself as “the Premier Web Portal for finding offshore oil rig and marine job opportunities. This website was setup as a single access web portal to provide everything you need to know to find, apply and secure an offshore oil rig job.”

Currently on the OOG site, there are 28 countries with offshore job portals: USA, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, Turkey, South Africa, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Qatar, Philippines, Peru, Pakistan, Oman, Norway, Nigeria, New Zealand, Mexico, Malaysia, Kuwait, Indonesia, India, Hong Kong, China, Canada, Brazil, Bahrain, Australia, and Argentina.

In the USA section, as is the case in other countries, there are 27 job types: Company Man; Cook; Crane Operator; Derrickman; Drilling Engineer; Entry Level; Floor Hand; Geologist; Medic; Motorman; Mud Engineer; Oil Driller; Oiler; Painter; Pipeline Engineer; Radio Operator; Rig Electrician; Rig Mechanic; Rig Operator; Roughneck; Roustabout; ROV Operator; Subsea Engineer; Toolpusher; Welder; Well Site Engineer; Winch Operator.

Here is the introductory page for job-seekers: [Read more →]

[Note: This article has been updated to Twenty Bad Things about Windpower — go here.]

Trying to pin down the arguments of wind promoters is a bit like trying to grab a greased balloon. Just when you think you’ve got a handle on it, it squirts away. Let’s take a quick highlight review of how things have evolved.

1 – Wind energy was abandoned well over a hundred years ago, as it was totally inconsistent with our burgeoning more modern needs of power, even in the late 1800s. When we throw the switch, we expect that the lights will go on — 100% of the time. It’s not possible for wind energy, by itself, to ever do this, which is one of the main reasons it was relegated to the dust bin of antiquated technologies (along with such other inadequate sources like horse power).

2 – Fast forward to several years ago. With politicians being convinced by lobbyists that Anthropological Global Warming (AGW) was an imminent threat, a campaign was begun to favor all things that would purportedly reduce CO₂. Wind energy was thus resurrected, as its marketers pushed the fact that wind turbines did not produce CO₂ in their generation of electricity.

3 – Of course, just that by itself is not significant, so the original wind development lobbyists then made the case for a quantum leap: that by adding wind turbines to the grid we could significantly reduce CO₂ from fossil fuel electrical sources (especially coal). This argument became the basis for many states’ implementing a Renewable Energy Standard (RES) — which mandated that their utilities use an increased amount of wind energy.

4 – Why was a mandate necessary? Simply because the real world reality of integrating wind energy made it a very expensive option. As such, no utility company would likely do this on their own. They had to be forced to. [Read more →]