[The_Toecutter]

Lest all that power be one day removed with but a humble bullet.

Power is overrated.

[Trab]

Hmmm.. Jabba the Hut ... in a suit....

[Antimatter]

Is that a photoshop?

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Antimatter', 'I')s that a photoshop?

[Specop_007]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('0mar', '
')sad thing is that he has more power than every single person on this board combined

[Daculling]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('0mar', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', ':')lol:

[mekrob]

[url=Good project managers in the oil industry may be like rock stars, but they're becoming just as rare.]Oil companies facing major problems filling in for retirees[/url]. Median age is about 50. Since they make so much money, they can probably retire in the next few years so this could make for a very interesting ride for oil prices and the like.

[grillzilla]

It's not just Big Oil that is having this problem.

I work for "little oil" and we can't get experienced people either.
This problem is not just surface deep in the oil industry, but runs all the way to the bottom.
It is so easy to screw up completing a well. Even if you have found a good trap you can ruin the well with a bad cement job, the wrong mud, or botched perforations. Experienced field hands are just as important as the rock-star execs, in fact a rock-star exec is as powerless as a rock-star musician without his road crew.

For us, the manpower shortage means we all end up wearing too many hats. Not enough time to do jobs properly. Eventually this costs us big time.

[Zardoz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('grillzilla', '.')..For us, the manpower shortage means we all end up wearing too many hats. Not enough time to do jobs properly. Eventually this costs us big time.

[I_Like_Plants]

This is an outcome of the decay of our educational system. When TPTB realized that instead of investing in educating US kids in engineering and science, they can just import people educated in other countries, the education system in the US was allowed to become for-profit. For a college, the profit is in educating those with money to spend and who come from moneyed families (and hence will be benefactors later) and those the gov't pays them to educate, which sadly is based on a racial quota system in the US.

There are a hell of a lot of working-class folks who traditionally became engineers and chemists and scientists, working-class, lower-middle-class, and some middle-class, whites who are just shut out now. They've found other things to do, become carpenters, small businesspeople, etc., but the country is left with a real shortage of engineers and scientists who grew up wanting nothing more than to become engineers and scientists.

Part of this also is our culture's emphasis on money over all, so another effect is that students in college want what they're told is the highest-paying career, whether it's something they'll enjoy or not. This affects all races, so the kids of the H1B engineer who's become a citizen under our "open all the doors, let 'em all in" policy, won't want to become engineers like Daddy, they'll want to become "investors" of some type or another.

Doing reall things in the real world and getting your hands dirty used to be something to be proud of, when we were a Republic. Now we're an Empire and engineering is considered "menial". Whole those who want to do it are shut out.

[rockdoc123]

The shortage in Engineers and Geologist/Geophysicist is not something that is entirely unprecidented, we have been through this cycle a couple of times before. Generally it takes sometime for students to realize there are career opportunities and then complete their curriculum. Back in the early seventies you were lucky to see graduating geoscience classes with more than 10-20 people, following the rise in oil prices in the late seventies enrollment bloomed to at least triple those numbers. When the industry experienced its next minor crash it was followed with dropping enrollments. I suspect we will see the same thing, though I think it is troubling the seeming lack of interest of students these days in the sciences.

What is most distressing is the lack of skilled labor. Rig hands, electricians, mechanics, cat skinners, camp cooks etc. are all in short supply. No sooner do you get people trained up as rig crew than they are off to Saudi Arabia or the Far East where they can often make several times the salary they might see working for Western companies. The lack of trained individuals has all sorts of fallout , increasing operating costs, increased lost time incidents and HSE issues, escalating drilling costs due to operator induced errors etc.

I believe I've pointed out before what the fallout of all this is.....what oil used to be economic at $20/bbl no longer is. Most companies are now looking at a base price of $40- $45/bbl to meet economic hurdles. So with rising prices profit margins recognized by companies are not necessarily rising. I believe that the corollary of this situation is that the really expensive oil (ultra deep water, THAI, etc) may always be elusive... rising costs always keeping such oils unprofitable (assuming no huge advance in technology).

[SD_Scott]

There are simply better places to work. The oil business sucks.

[onequestionwonder]

This is a bullshit argument.

Have any of these companies ever heard of a training program?

Go to Michigan. You can find any trade your little heart desires under the sun unemployed there right now.

How did any of the people currently employed in the oil industry learn their trade? Are you going to tell me an industrial electrician from Flint or Gary or Bethlehem just can't do that job?

Gosh, there are no unemployed engineers or geologists anywhere in America? If someone actually worked for Detroit Diesel or Caterpillar they can't work on a diesel in the field?

Personally I think that no one is optimistic about the long term viability of the American oil industry, other than those stripper wells. They don't want to take on the cost of a training program for something that has no long term viability.

You can go to Fort Worth, or Dallas and find a ton of unemployed engineers. Think someone who worked for TI can't learn digital signal processing? Of course they won't be as cheap as a Chinese engineer all told.

[FaceDown]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')his is a bullshit argument.

Have any of these companies ever heard of a training program?

Go to Michigan. You can find any trade your little heart desires under the sun unemployed there right now.

How did any of the people currently employed in the oil industry learn their trade? Are you going to tell me an industrial electrician from Flint or Gary or Bethlehem just can't do that job? Confused

Gosh, there are no unemployed engineers or geologists anywhere in America? If someone actually worked for Detroit Diesel or Caterpillar they can't work on a diesel in the field?

Personally I think that no one is optimistic about the long term viability of the American oil industry, other than those stripper wells. They don't want to take on the cost of a training program for something that has no long term viability.

You can go to Fort Worth, or Dallas and find a ton of unemployed engineers. Think someone who worked for TI can't learn digital signal processing? Of course they won't be as cheap as a Chinese engineer all told.

[Zardoz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('FaceDown', '.')..Being an engineer, geologist, or field hand in the O&G business is not something that you pick up in training course. It takes years to get yourself to a place where you are really useful...

[FaceDown]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')elcome to the boards, FaceDown. Sounds like you have a lot of experience in the field.

[Novus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('onequestionwonder', 'T')his is a bullshit argument.

Have any of these companies ever heard of a training program?