If you happen on an "acronym" you don't know what it means, put your mouse arrow on top of it and you get an explanation.
The near future offshore employment: The majority of new oil exploration and production happens in very deep water. Therefore floating drilling, production, and storage units will increase in numbers. These do not need many long pipe lines at the sea bottom, which would be expensive and difficult to maintain. So employment on
FPSO tankers and SPAR-rigs will increase, which means more ballast operators. A SPAR-rig is like a big floating drum with some ballast to keep it up-right and then the machinery on top.
In March 2008 there were 115 FPSO in service worldwide, with more than 50 vessels
under construction or being planned. In June 2008 there were a total of 140
MODUs under construction ( including 43 drillships ) and in July 2008 it was reported that in the next 5 years (2008-2012) 123 new floating production units will enter service.
During 2008-2012 the majority of deep water development is expected to take place in offshore West Africa and Brazil, later in the period followed by Indonesia, Malaysia, and India. Deepwater is defined as over 1.000 feet, while ultra-deepwater is over 5.000 feet. The majority of new deepwater exploration during this time period is expected in West Africa.
About 28 new deepwater rigs were under construction in Aug. 2008. These are expected to enter service before 2010. During 2009-2013 offshore
deepwater capital spending ( investments ) is expected to increase from 15 to 20 + % of total offshore spending. Most deepwater locations are more remote from the "civilization", which can mean longer periods on duty on the rigs.
Fixed drilling rigs will continue to exist for some time ( with their pipelines ) but getting older and needing more underwater maintenance. Therefore the need for
ROV and
UUV operators and technicians is increasing.
The number of
seismic research vessels and
ROV support vessels are strongly rising. Between years 2007 and 2010 the offshore oil-gas industry needs worldwide (estimated)
new personnel:
- 2.000 new watch keeping deck and engine officers and crew on construction and diving support barges / vessels, floating drilling rigs. In addition to ballast operators.
- 800 additional personnel in connection with saturation diving.
- 1.000 new survey and inspection personnel.
- 1.200 additional ROV personnel.
The
North Sea is a mature oil field and there isn't much new construction going on any more. Trainee roustabout jobs are therefore hard to come by. There are more applicants than vacancies. If you are British it's better to look farther away from home, for instance Norwegian and Canadian Atlantic areas have some new installations coming up, including employment on construction barges.
Get
Overview of Canadian Oil Industry - Exploration and Development ( written 2005 ?).
The total number of roustabouts on any one oil field is not great. The number varies depending on the current amount of exploration and production work. Normally the roustabouts are hired locally at different geographic locations depending on where the rig /
MODU is.
Get on a
virtual tour of the Captain Platform in the North Sea north of Aberdeen. You need Flash to see it.
Changing Job Markets
The current ( 2009 ) "economic crisis" is having some effects on open vacancies offshore
in the short term. As some producers ( Saudi ) have already cut down on the production also some new exploration and/or production start-ups can be postponed. I would expect mainly older rigs taken out of production and scheduled for overhaul / maintenance. Therefore the demand for new drilling crews should come down while the demand for maintenance crews should increase. This would mean less demand at top of the "skills ladder" and higher demand on lower level manpower. Especially so in the Persian Gulf and possibly rest of Middle East.
During first half of 2009 one can expect smaller subsea service contractors experiencing lower demand, which also means less demand for new personnel. Deepwater projects, however, are mostly big projects with long lead times ( running for 15-20 years ) and even a strong downturn in available credits on the financial markets won't have much effect. These projects will proceed according to schedule. Even some new deepwater projects can be expected to start in 2009. These would be high tech projects requiring highly skilled personnel ( see below ).
The possible lay-offs of personnel in times of "crisis" are sometimes in reality a re-structuring of the workforce. The employers get rid of some "redundancies", while at the same time hiring more educated and skillful people. If we would know what kinds of people are being sacked, it would probably be clear that these are mostly "non-employable". In other words the "skills ladder" is getting little bit
top heavy, also offshore.
We should, however be aware, that all the time / every day writing, reading, hearing about the Economic Crisis can create a self-fulfilling prognosis. As long as nobody comes forward with stories about those companies that still are running full speed with no problems the situation of course looks gloomy. But
all companies all over the world
do not have economical problems.
On May 8, 2009, one of the first
optimistic reports was published about a possible economic turnaround. Mainly because of rising oil prices.
A
longer term change in the worldwide "promotion ladder" can be expected. Traditionally this has started from a roustabout via roughneck to driller and occasionally all the way to Offshore Installation Manager ( OIM ) - see diagram to the right. This will in the future be broken after roughneck / floorhand, or may be after Derrickman, as new rigs are equipped with
PC-controlled drilling (
) instrumentation ( "cyber drilling" ). With the digital controls on these newer rigs, the driller sits in a chair and controls the rig with a joy stick and touchscreen.
The first experimental training courses started in 2007 and focused on drilling / well site
foremen / supervisors [ 4 pages ].
Parallel with this there is a tendency to try to automate many processes, which goes well together with computer control. The automation will
in the long term further reduce the number of roustabouts and roughnecks. There is, in connection to a patent application, a long detailed technical description of a
automated rig drilling control management system. You need some geophysical / drilling technique /computer knowledge to fully understand the text. There is an overview article, written in somewhat more simple language, of
automated drilling control from a remote drilling expert centre.
Drilling Fluid ( "mud" ) systems have traditionally been manually mixed and controlled. There has been ( in 2008 ) experimental use of
automated mixing control [
] to increase efficiency and
reduce manpower ( roughneck ). The controls on the rig are connected by optical cable to a centre in
Stavanger ( Norway ) where a technician follows the process. As this will come into wider use in the near future - especially so with low oil prices - it means less need for manual workers ( roughneck ) on the oil rig's drilling floor.
This requires college / university level graduates to be trained through a "multilayered sandwich" model training scheme. The new training schemes copies in fact the ship cadet training where classroom training alternates with actual work practice, i.e. practical drilling on a working rig and/or simulator training. For this kind of drilling control, manual work as roustabout / roughneck isn't relevant any more. Even many American university graduates need higher proficiency in mathematics and English.
There is a tendency developing of possibly reducing offshore personnel by cross-training technicians at those service companies taking part in the digital control process - at an onshore location. This points to a possible goal in the future of unmanned automated offshore rigs remotely controlled from ashore.
Lately a "new" job position has been popping up in job adverts and vacancy lists -
Tour Pusher ( Tourpusher ). The usage of this term varies slightly from company to company. In the promotion ladder to the right I have adopted the meaning of Tour Pusher to be approximately "Assistant" Trainee Tool Pusher ( Toolpusher ). It means the Tour Pusher is the junior man working during the night shift when the Tool Pusher (senior) is sleeping. In a ship owning / operating company the Toolpusher would be the Operations Manager.
® 
. Many positions are filled by applicants from South East Asia. Get 
( Arabic ), 
, 
, 
or 
)