very slow this year , i need a job now

[liddelljohn]

I have got my health back , last job was December , missed 2 jobs in Jan /feb due to illness , nowout of hospital fit again and short of dosh

but its quiet for work , my specialisation is ROVs supervisor and PT elevtronis bias ,,, any leads ,??? i recently had 2 jobs canceled in Europe

so getting worried

[Soutpeel]

The whole o&g market is currently very quite at moment, only thing I can suggest is try with the likes of Sonsub, IKM, in Singapore or Mermaid offshore in Thailand

[smokie36]

Earwigging a conversation in an Aberdeen pub yesterday between three oil workers....seems one hasn't worked same as the OP since Xmas...and another was told by his agency that his company wanted him to take a 20% pay cut....he negotiated to 10%.....neither of them sounded happy.

The third was busy sorting out applications for West Africa.

Times are tough it seems.

[jvc]

Seahorse emailed me yesterday about a Supv job at the end of the month on their Astrix..

[Soutpeel]

Earwigging a conversation in an Aberdeen pub yesterday between three oil workers....seems one hasn't worked same as the OP since Xmas...and another was told by his agency that his company wanted him to take a 20% pay cut....he negotiated to 10%.....neither of them sounded happy.

The third was busy sorting out applications for West Africa.

Times are tough it seems.

Its cyclic clean out of personal that's goes on periodically, last time round it was 2008-9, when oil price is high most companies become bloated with too many people on the books, and when the down turn happens which it does every few years time for a clean out to get the operations lean again

[stoneyboy]

Earwigging a conversation in an Aberdeen pub yesterday between three oil workers....seems one hasn't worked same as the OP since Xmas...and another was told by his agency that his company wanted him to take a 20% pay cut....he negotiated to 10%.....neither of them sounded happy.

The third was busy sorting out applications for West Africa.

Times are tough it seems.

Its cyclic clean out of personal that's goes on periodically, last time round it was 2008-9, when oil price is high most companies become bloated with too many people on the books, and when the down turn happens which it does every few years time for a clean out to get the operations lean again

Then come knocking again when things pick up.

Over in the UK sector it's been a real slow year thus far.

Big lay offs from Archer,Talisman the usual service companies like Halliburton etc.

Lots of moving folk around as well KCA Deutag went to the expense of training up a new drill crew on the Dunbar in preparation for drilling in the next couple of months only to bin the lot of them and ship over the old crew from the North Alwyn amazing.

There is light at the end of the tunnel in the form of decommissioning with recent announcements like the Dunlin summer shutdown being the final shutdown as it will be decommissioned there after.

Lots of rigs coming out of contract as well and a couple of new builds out to the west of Shetland on the Clare field.

Invergorden again looks like a car park for drillers.

Reduced day rates are the order of the day with people like Rowan and Transocean knocking $50,000 or more off.

With less drilling activity etc comes less sub sea and third party requirement.

I only can speak for the UK sector which is certainly in for a rough ride in the next few years.

[liddelljohn]

yes its very bad out there... I have worked for seahorse ,, very primitive and not always easy to get paid ...mermaids are fully crewed up,

lots of jobs being offered to me now but then cancelled or filled from within the companies permies ..

[NanLaew]

Keep an eye out for the unsolicited email job offer. Buddy of mine, married and living in Pattaya working about 12 years in well testing maintenance and out of work since February said he's got a job 'out of the blue' in Aberdeen. I was thinking why would an Aberdeen-based company hire a US citizen living in Thailand on a 28/28 rotation especially in THIS market? But he wasn't thinking that, he was thanking Buddha. I asked him for the details. In the meantime, I googled Addax Petroleum Aberdeen and the fifth hit was;

https://www.scamwarners.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=91843

I sent him the above link and he asked me if I thought he is getting scammed. I asked him, "Is the Pope a Catholic?"

For grins, I asked him how it played out. He got an unsolicited email that claimed to be from Addax Petroleum in Aberdeen, saying there had been an industry referral and asking for his cv. He sent it and after a few days and without a phone call, he was offered a $10k/month ++ on 28/28, based in Aberdeen with fully paid local lodging and transport plus biz class travel back and forth to Thailand with allowances up the ying yang.

I asked him if he has sent them any money and he said hadn't but they had said that he would be expected to send money to speed up getting his work permit. Lucky he mentioned it to me or else I am pretty sure his desperation (and ego) would have said otherwise and he would be waiting for his 'travel packet' and be a few thousand baht poorer.

PS. The real Addax Petroleum are only hiring for their Gabon operations right now.

...and you need to speak French.

[Soutpeel]

Keep an eye out for the unsolicited email job offer. Buddy of mine, married and living in Pattaya working about 12 years in well testing maintenance and out of work since February said he's got a job 'out of the blue' in Aberdeen. I was thinking why would an Aberdeen-based company hire a US citizen living in Thailand on a 28/28 rotation especially in THIS market? But he wasn't thinking that, he was thanking Buddha. I asked him for the details. In the meantime, I googled Addax Petroleum Aberdeen and the fifth hit was;

https://www.scamwarners.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=91843

I sent him the above link and he asked me if I thought he is getting scammed. I asked him, "Is the Pope a Catholic?"

For grins, I asked him how it played out. He got an unsolicited email that claimed to be from Addax Petroleum in Aberdeen, saying there had been an industry referral and asking for his cv. He sent it and after a few days and without a phone call, he was offered a $10k/month ++ on 28/28, based in Aberdeen with fully paid local lodging and transport plus biz class travel back and forth to Thailand with allowances up the ying yang.

I asked him if he has sent them any money and he said hadn't but they had said that he would be expected to send money to speed up getting his work permit. Lucky he mentioned it to me or else I am pretty sure his desperation (and ego) would have said otherwise and he would be waiting for his 'travel packet' and be a few thousand baht poorer.

PS. The real Addax Petroleum are only hiring for their Gabon operations right now.

...and you need to speak French.

Its a stock scam, I sussed out a similar scam a few back for a TV member who was offered a job in SEA, bottom line is if any agency starts asking for fee's/admin costs etc upfront its a scam

[KarenBravo]

I've been in the O&G business for 40 years and have been through the many slumps that occurred during this period. Most of these slumps lasted one to three years, with varying speeds of pick-up.

This slump is going to be the worst and IMO is going to last at least five years.

Most of the other slumps were due to either geopolitical events, or, lagged behind a general slump in world economies.

This one is unique and is caused by the avalanche of new oil coming to the market from the US shale oil business.

The Saudis, to protect their market share, are not reducing their production and their active aim is to put the myriad of shale oil producers out of business.

It costs the Saudis approximately US$10 a barrel to extract the oil. Shale oil producers between US$50 to US$60 a barrel.

Many shale oil producers have capped their wells in response to the drop in oil price caused by the continued pumping by Saudi Arabia.

It has got so bad that the world is running out of storage space for the approximate two million barrels per day that is in excess of world daily usage.

Each time the price of oil rises, the shale oil producers un-cap their wells, start pumping which then drives down the oil price again.

This is going to be a long, long slump. Even the Saudis estimate that we are not going to see US$100 per barrel for at least 10 years.

In my own sector, seismic surveys, we have seen reduced demand for services and have seen a 12% to 15% reduction in the day rate.

Seismic contractors are stacking vessels and have already gone through one round of lay-offs.

Personally, I don't think we have seen the worst yet.

There is good news for the future, though.

Firstly, those people that have been laid off and can't afford to wait out the slump will leave the business; probably permanently.

Many of my older colleagues have said that they are not going to work for the reduced daily rates and have brought their retirements forward.

Also, approximately 50% of all personnel in the entire oil business are within five to seven years of the retirement age.

What this means is that when the oil business finally recovers, there is going to be a chronic shortage of experienced people.

For those experienced people that were able to ride out the slump, it's going to be a bonanza.

As a self-employed consultant, I would work six to seven months a year, also turning down work to be able to get some time off.

From now on, I'll be lucky to get three months work per year.

I'm one of the lucky ones. I live in Thailand with a mortgage free house and I only need two months work to pay for a year's expenses.

Edited June 11, 2015 by KarenBravo

[Soutpeel]

Re the shale oil business, OPEC has just about shut down that avenue by forcing the oil price down, as ever current prices are below the break even for the shale oil business but take your point, but correct me if I am wrong, you don't cap a shale oil well, there are no wells, shale oil is more a kin to mining than conventional O&G extraction we all know

Further the 100 USD/10 year thing, I read an article by a Saudi economist a few months back and he was predicting 200/barrel in the "medium term"

My prediction, another 12 to 18 months on the current slump and prices will head upwards again

Edited June 11, 2015 by Soutpeel

[KarenBravo]

I'm sure you're right. I have no idea how they extract shale oil. The only thing I know is that they drill and then frack.

Do you really believe that US$200 a barrel is around the corner?

On the BBC today online, it says that the USA has now surpassed Russia as the worlds biggest O&G producer.

I'll stick with my prediction of at least five years before the slump ends.

[Soutpeel]

I'm sure you're right. I have no idea how they extract shale oil. The only thing I know is that they drill and then frack.

Do you really believe that US$200 a barrel is around the corner?

On the BBC today online, it says that the USA has now surpassed Russia as the worlds biggest O&G producer.

I'll stick with my prediction of at least five years before the slump ends.

Not that believe anything just repeating what the article stated on the 200/barrel thing, it just appeared to be an interesting article given the current downturn

[kwonitoy]

Re the shale oil business, OPEC has just about shut down that avenue by forcing the oil price down, as ever current prices are below the break even for the shale oil business but take your point, but correct me if I am wrong, you don't cap a shale oil well, there are no wells, shale oil is more a kin to mining than conventional O&G extraction we all know

Further the 100 USD/10 year thing, I read an article by a Saudi economist a few months back and he was predicting 200/barrel in the "medium term"

My prediction, another 12 to 18 months on the current slump and prices will head upwards again

A Shale Oil well is indeed drilled, just as a conventional well is.

The difference is that rather than drilling into pourous rock that allows the oil to flow naturally to the bore hole the oil is constricted in the the tighter shale rock.

This rock is the fractured, " Fracked" by pumping high pressure chemicals and specially chemicals to aid in breaking the formation open with the sand and helping flow with the various chemicals.

The problem with a fracked shale well is if you stop production early the formation will set back up effectively stopping flow.

The errors with a lot of what you read is that once a fracked well is in production it's as cost effective to operate as a normal well, and their are a LOT of these wells already producing.

It does stop future fracking in higher risk areas, but they are cutting costs quite dramatically and concentrating on the better fields.

They ain't dead yet and the OPEC stratagey has only made them more efficent.

[NeverSure]

Gone are the days when the Saudis cut back production and not only drove the world price up but actually caused shortages. I remember in the US being allowed to buy gas only on odd or even calendar days depending on some number on the license plate of the car. I'm pretty sure this was 1973 because I had bought a new 1973 car that I remember waiting in the gas lines with.

The US is now the #1 producer of oil, indirectly telling the Saudis to.... I think it will be a long time before there isn't excess supply and lower prices but someone has to work to bring in that excess supply. I know there are a lot of OG jobs in the US but they aren't offshore at least the newer ones. Some areas like N. Dakota have been booming. Of course the companies want to pay less when the price is low but someone has to man the rigs.

The US hasn't even really started to look for oil. Think of Alaska which is barely being touched and it has a lot of oil. The US isn't only the #1 producer but it has more oil reserves than all the rest of the world combined.

With private enterprise rather than a ME cartel now deciding how much global oil will be pumped I don't see those $200 prices, but that's just me.

[liddelljohn]

Im 57 ,, i dont have to worry much about mortgages UK and thai they are either fully paid off ,or retirement funds big enough for after im 65 ,, but i only work 4 months a year for pocket money and cash flow to pay my youngest daughters education ,,, i dont intend to retire any time soon as i would go stir crazy through boredom ,, i normally keep 1 full year of spare cash on hand for slow times ,, but with heavy medical expenses ,, thats all gone is 7 months and i dont want to cut into investments ,, so im hoping for a at least 2 months work this year ,,

I was up in Norwich uk last week and visited 6 offshore employment agents i use all are sitting on thier hands through lack of work and they are good agebnts , also the traing comapny PETANS where i was re doing my offshore HUET certs reckons they are down 50% this year on work ...

when it picks up i will still be there for work ..