A year ago it seemed the oilfield jobs were moving towards houston. I had considered moving over there to have a better shot at a job. Luckily I found a few local unskilled jobs and stayed, sounds like it went to **** over there. Now I'm hearing the work moved toward the El paso area. Any truth to that?

 

your source was correct

 

How many from NOV? I suspect with $2X oil we're going to be seeing quite a bit more layoffs in the industry.

Buckle up...

William

 

i am not sure, i dont work for NOV. id have to ask my friend who does.

 

I was a teenager back in the 80's, my father was in the oil business in west Texas. We went from having a super expensive house, 6 passenger/ twin engine airplane, 36' boat, ski boat, new cars, living like movie stars to living in a mobile home behind someones house with no money, no cars, no airplanes, no boats, all in about 4 months.

I learned that being poor sucked and the oil business is brutal. I remember back during that time seeing bumper stickers that read- "Please God let there be one more oil boom". And thankfully there has been some industry growth but I would have to agree with OSCS somewhat. Anyone in that industry should know that the bottom can fall out at anytime. So why not have yourself protected financially and not put yourself in such a psoition like my father...

The oil business has always gone way up then way down- thats the business.

 

Yeah about 18 months ago my wife and I put down earnest money on a 500k house in Katy, we were even approved and everything. But 2 months into it oil prices really started to sink. I got nervous and backed out. They were confident they could sell the house anyway so they gave us our earnest money back. Whew! that was a close call. Sure glad we didn't go through with it...we'd be in a world of hurt now. I'll stick with my 230k house for now....

All my other **** is paid for so it's not going anywhere anytime soon. I do have one C3 Corvette I'm going to unload soon, but I bought it for investment reasons only and planned to sell it anyway (job or no job) once I got through fixing it up. I should churn out a nice little profit on it....my first "Gas Monkey" project.

 

Be happy your not in Williston.

1000 sq ft house now rents for $500

https://nd.craigslist.org/apa/5396412763.html

That town is about to experience a real oil bust...

 

Come on 1.00$ 87.

 

Lol GTFO!

 

any potential jobs in the area of bay city through Edna, Victoria areas? Mechanic or plant jobs.?

Thanks ski

 

Plant jobs in the BC area are still plentiful. Just get out there each day and hound the contract offices. Linked in is your friend.

 

Here's and idea. If you are making $1,000/day, how about living off $600/day and saving the other $400?

You'd be making around $150k/year (on a 5-day work week) to live off of and saving around $100k/year at the same time. After taxes, that's still very good money.

It amazes me how some of the folks I know of just pissed away every single cent they earned with those high-paying Eagle Ford Shale jobs.

Hopefully, prices will rebound some over the next several months and ease everyone's pain who has been affected. I'd rather spend an extra $50/week on gasoline than be out of a job.

 

I saw a post on facebook. Said something about how 20k people are out of jobs. That is simply not my problem. I cannot find the pity for them when there was no pity for us at the time that **** was 4$ a gallon.

Now that it is 1.5ish gallon and I'm filling my cars with 1.87 93 octane, 350million people are saving.

It does suck, but you are a fool not to know the **** is a ocean wave. Up and down.

 

So as everyone knows. Price is around supply and demand. The Saudis have learned the hard way that every time they cut production to boost prices, someone comes in behind them and takes that volume. They aren't going to give. They are going to try to push everyone else out of the way. Its plain and simple economic warfare.

That being said, fracing was a huge shift in the oilfield. I personally see that all the time and energy spent in subsea has peaked because even if oil comes back to say $60/barrel, that isn't the $80-$85 needed for deepwater, etc... and I think it is a stretch to assume that the demand for oil will peak enough to need those resources in the near term. My assumption on this is based on current economic conditions and demand, (and short of a war in the middle east I don't see anything to change it).

I spoke to someone the other day about Eagle-Ford, and that currently there are something like 8000 capped wells that could be opened up for production. The production figures I saw for the field was only a small fraction of the field in actual production.

So, the magic question is if the price of oil is going to come back? The answer is yes it will as everything is cyclical But the more relevant question is when. Just looking at the overall markets my guess is not in the near term with the only exception being a war to drive up prices based on shortages or perceived shortages like the first Gulf War.

Everyone blames the Chinese, the Chinese are dropping production and their economy is suffering because its customers (the U.S. and Europe) aren't buying their "stuff". If you look at the commodities markets everything is down across the board right now (copper, corn, scrap steel, etc...). If you look at prices from recent peaks the current drop is worse than the level seen in 1929. A very good friend of mine in simple terms said these are the worst charts he's ever seen since he started in the markets almost 50 years ago.

The market seems to be moving into a strong deflationary direction right now. If you don't understand why deflation is bad, I suggest you read up on it.

To anyone who is out of a job, I would suggest you take whatever you can find at the point even if you consider it below "what you are worth". Bringing in anything, is money you aren't having to take out of savings, or forcing you to borrow money you can't pay back.

If you want to better understand the global markets look at site like Zerohedge and read Tyler Durden's postings. And read some of the material by John Hussman or John Mauldin.

 

You would be surprised how many bloated fat lazy people I work with that don't understand that. We have had great bonuses the last few years but the one for last year that we will be getting in the next few weeks is projected to be miniscule in comparison. I already started a house build when the big dump started. I may be looking at a racecar sitting in the shop or even back up for sale for pennies on the dollar. Hopefully that won't happen but if it does, I will remain head down *** up for as long as it takes. Zane, the fact that has was $4.00 a gallon had nothing to do with the people that are now out of work.

 

Yup, but when we were down and they were up, now the tables are turned. I am just going to enjoy it before we get Fd and everything goes up. Which it will as it has no choice over time. Then the 350 million will be bitching again.

 

Sorry to inform you, just cause gas is expensive doesn't equal us oil field workers were in hog heaven. There's many more variables than just fuel prices that impact our compensation. Realize that there's federal and state taxes within the cost of fuel per gal. Look at states like CA their state tax is 30 cents per gal! Then you have crude cost, refinery cost, state fuel take fees, gas stations profits that add to the cost of fuel. There's many things made from oil/petroleum. Chances are you're responding to this thread with a product that consists of petroleum products. To this day I continue to get same pay as I was back when gas was 4+ a gal. I agree there was plenty of fat that needed to be trimmed. I'm willing to say about 30% of individuals(Oil field workers) I've met out in the eagle ford shale area are only good at possibly holding the floor down. Note these individuals also lack some type of skill or trade. Sorry to break it to some of you guys but applying to work out here isn't like joining the Illuminati. At 1 point it seemed like the only requirements were willing to work 80+ hr weeks and breathe. lol During this last boom they couldn't hire enough people. From reading this thread it seems like many of the people are under the impression everyone out here makes 250k+ a yr, trust me that's not the case. Not to say there isn't people making that. If I were to lose my job tomorrow I'd have a job by the end of day in my prior career.

 

And the oilfield trash trucks n car abandoned builds are going up for sale.
For reduced n slashed prices.

 

A real good friend of mine. Has been in the petroleum industry for a long time.
He's at the point at where he will not lose his job as easily. Sez he's seen the UPS n downs in the industry n learned along time how to manage his finances for the hard times. But sez most of the younger peeps are usually the ones the most when laid off if they don't got there finance n priorities in order.

 

So I understand the point you are trying to make. But I disagree with you. I'm going to steal this directly from Wikipeida to make my point.

When global oil production was ~1Mbbls day short prices rose to $145. At the same time the global financial crisis occured brought on by sub-prime mortgages.

When oil was $145/bbl, then drilling offshore for $80-85/bbl made all the sense in the world, and we went deeper and deeper to find new production. Fracking was the "new" disruptive technology. Those prices made it affordable to go experiment with fracking, and you see the boom it generated.

When you have a boom like that, people want a piece of it. To attract talent, you have to pay good money to get every warm body you can out there to work. Its all simply supply and demand. Demand drove exploration and new technology, those fields needed people, and that demand for people drove wages. Its economics 101. Taxes on fuel and the other reasons you cite are factors, but not the significant market drivers

So, I agree that your pay may not have changed as prices have changed, but they need a lot fewer "warm bodies" out there as the economics of producing shale at $40-$45/bbl don't make sense when prices are $30/bbl.

The oil boom here is no different that the mining boom in Western Australia as an example. All the need for steel and copper in China drove Australia to open up huge mines, and in Western Australia every able bodied man picked up and went to work in the mining industry, and everyone was making good money doing so. That bubble has burst. Unemployment was around 1%, now its at a 13 year high around 6-7%. Those people still left in the mining industry are still getting paid the same, there are just a lot fewer of them.