On 26 August 2008, CNN Money reported that the oil drilling are scrambling for workers. Too many years of under-investment in oil rigs and workers alike, coupled with the surge in oil prices over the last few years have led to major shortages of experienced workers in oil fields at all levels. Noble Corporation, one of the largest companies drilling offshore in the world, has 1500 rig job openings in the next 2 years for his 5 new oil rigs. Every oil company is rolling out new oil rigs all over the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil's deep water off the coast of Africa and Saudi Arabia to meet growing demand for oil today.
The filling of work in these offshore oil fields is proving a major challenge. Despite soaring salaries in the range of $ 50,000 to $ 80,000 even for new leases, not many takers for these jobs offshore. 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, extremely cold (most of the deep sea 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 right
* Volatility political and armed violence, for example rebels and insurgents in Nigeria and other African nations, potential terrorists in Saudi Arabia
* The physical danger of storms like Gustav and the recent hurricane Katrina in 2005
* Accidents dangerous as the 1988 rig piper alpha in the North Sea - 167 of the 226 men on board died when the oil rig caught fire
Reliable, the highest salaries are drawn on oil companies executives with titles beginning with "C" as the CEO, CFO, etc. Then you have the VPs and top sellers. But what about jobs and salaries for new leases? Well, in February, Wall Street Journal reported that the new petroleum engineering graduates received starting salaries of $ 80,000 to $ 110,000, not including various perks and signing bonuses. This demand is ninguĂ?? No danger to fly anytime soon. Oil companies are hiring students in the freshman engineering oil as summer interns, paying as much as $ 32.50 per hour. Reports from Texas Tech its 2008 graduation older receive an average salary of $ 110,000.
Geologists are also in great demand. The U.S. Geological Survey reports that half the starting salary for a geologist fresh out of school is $ 81,300, up from $ 55,000 in 2003. At its April meeting, the American Association of Petroleum Geologists reported that postgraduate students (masters and PhD) were paid $ 80,000 to $ 110,000. The good news for job seekers is that the demand for geologists is unlikely to be filled anytime soon. The U.S. Geological Survey reports that out of 20,000 students of geology, only achieve their BSCA 2800 after 4 years of study. Moreover, many geologists today's oil industry began work in the '70s, and leave in the coming years. Taken together, these facts mean that vacancies of geology are increasingly open to oil companies in the coming decade, with wages that are likely to increase further. It seems that even today, have a degree in geology or engineering geology is well worth it. Reinforcing this with a master in sedimentology, stratigraphy, structural geology or geophysics fished it almost certainly additional $ 20,000 or $ 30,000.
With increasing demand for oil from China and India as well as continued demand for U.S. and Europe to conduct the search for more oil, job vacancies in oil fields and oil-drilling rigs in the sea will remain unfilled for a while. This is definitely the hot work of the next two decades.
