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I currently work for schlumberger as an eqipment operator aka frack operato out of alice texas.schlumberger sends you to school to get your class A license. i think schlumberger is the only one out of the bigger companies that actually does that. we go thru a 2 week class (actually 11 days) and by the end of those 11 days you'll know how to drive an 18 wheeler. i had never driven a stick shift before in my life and actually its better if you havent because they want you to "double clutch" when you drive there trucks. our starting pay is 15 dollars an hour and hour work week is 6 days on a days off vary depending on whether your switching from days to night. when your switching from days to nights you get 3.5 days off and when your switching from nights to days its 2.5. overtime is paid for anything over 40 hours. typical work week averages 60 to 100 hours. once you make it to bonus your pay increases dramatically ( which i havent reached yet) i work on a frac crew with approximately 16 people 8 are bonus eligible (white hats) 8 are not(green hats beginners). typically we do about 3 stages a day and the bonus eligible guys make about 300 bucks a plus there salary of 750 dollars a week. Now heres the catch. sometimes the wireline guys misfire and the job is down for a couple of days sometimes the well isnt ready and you maybe sitting around for a week. Also bonuses vary depending on how many people are bonus eligible which creates some conflict because the bonuses are spread out between the bonus eligible guys which means the more guys who are eligible the less money they take home. if all 8 green hat guys on our crew become eligble then the bonus would average out to about 150 dollars a stage. so theres some tension. when your a green hat you have to "prove" yourself to the other guys(white hats) and its kinda awkward for me because im 36 and some of the white hats are 21 years old. the hardest part of the job is being away from your family. if you have a wife who needs you at home or who gets "lonely" then its going to be a problem. now the COA (cement operator assistant) are on call and travel back n forth everday but equipment operators (frac crew) stay out in man camps 2 to a room. while your at work your roomate is in the room and vice versa. weather wise down here in south texas the weather in the winter is pretty miled the lowest it got was about 35 degrees and it was only that low for maybe a month or two (no snow) but on the other hand the summers are BRUTAL!!!!! it gets up to about 110 degrees and with the heat from the machines your around it gets up to around the 115-120 degree range. Rigging up in 100 degree weather is BRUTAL!!!! your instrucked to drink a bottle of water every 15 minutesand its easy to drink a case of water and not even use the bathroom. Imjuries do happen frequently because your working around metal pipes. people slip and fall all the time or hurt ther backs. Fianlly demographics also play an important part as you have to get used to the culture of the area your in. im in south texas which is predomiantly hispanic compared to working in north dakota which from what i hear up there is predomiantly white. im a black guy by the way and i fit in fine down here so if you come in with a hard working POSITIVE attitude you'll do fine
one more thing a good website for entry level employess is SOS staffing theres a website there and you work for them for about 8 months before they roll you over. beside equipment operator (frac operator) there cement operator assistant, wireline operator, coiled tubing. these are all oil field positions you can look into. also a real easy oil field related job if you like to pretty much chill relax and sleep while your at work is being a gas fueler at the site. you need a class B license with hazmat but all they do is put diesel in the machines which takes about 40 minutes at most ( simple as fueling your vehicle) they do this about 3 times a night. for the rest of the night or day they sleep and watch portable dvd movies lol
Okay sure I get what your saying and your welcome. I am just coming from a different side of working out in the oil field. If your part of a drilling crew you will finish your shift and if the next crew don't show up you stay on the rig drilling until said crew shows up. There is no waiting for drilling crews, sucks if your that crew on duty and the other don't show up, but drilling don't stop for anyone or any kind of weather. If it is a blizzard out and crew don't make it to their shift, the one that is supposed to get off will continue to work. If your a truck driver it's a different ball game I am sure.
Broncogirl, thank you for more feedback. In this case, I'm thinking more about the life of a Cement Operator and Cement Operator Assistant. Though I don't know that much about this type of position, however based on the information about what RockfordNativenowSeattle was relaying about this "particular" job, it sounds like they are not "rig workers". It sounds like their only job is to pump cement and they "the Cement Operators" have nothing to do with the actual drilling . . . yet I could be wrong.
Yet I don't know if a Cement Operator is a standard part of a "Drilling Crew" or do they just go out in the field as needed. Yet with that being said, between what RockfordNativenowSeattle and Misc1972 said, "to me" it sounds like they are saying that a Cement Operator and other non-drill and non-rig workers work entails them waiting for another crew to finish their job before they can start, when that situation arises. Thus the Cement Operator crew is at the site but can't work due to reasons that are not theirs, yet they have paid downtime until they can actually work. Thus is why I had asked about using a laptop and iPod, while one is waiting out in the field until their crew can actually work. Somebody, please correct me if I am misunderstanding this. Thanks!
Broncogirl, thank you for more feedback. In this case, I'm thinking more about the life of a Cement Operator and Cement Operator Assistant. Though I don't know that much about this type of position, however based on the information about what RockfordNativenowSeattle was relaying about this "particular" job, it sounds like they are not "rig workers". It sounds like their only job is to pump cement and they "the Cement Operators" have nothing to do with the actual drilling . . . yet I could be wrong.
Yet I don't know if a Cement Operator is a standard part of a "Drilling Crew" or do they just go out in the field as needed. Yet with that being said, between what RockfordNativenowSeattle and Misc1972 said, "to me" it sounds like they are saying that a Cement Operator and other non-drill and non-rig workers work entails them waiting for another crew to finish their job before they can start, when that situation arises. Thus the Cement Operator crew is at the site but can't work due to reasons that are not theirs, yet they have paid downtime until they can actually work. Thus is why I had asked about using a laptop and iPod, while one is waiting out in the field until their crew can actually work. Somebody, please correct me if I am misunderstanding this. Thanks!
No they are not part of the rig crew and yes they do spend time waiting around. Usually if they aren't waiting on the rig crew, the rig crew is waiting on them
LOUTMB, thank you so very much for taking the time to provide such an excellent and detailed post! It made for an AWESOME read! I do hope that your post will help those seeking help to break into this industry. I greatly applaud such excellent posts like yours and RockfordNativenowSeattle, as I think you two are doing an excellent service of trying to help others, in need of help. As I have said before, it is not too often that people come forth and take the time to “truly†take the time to write and share so much detailed information when it comes to these online forums, when people are seeking help and advice. So I do sincerely thank you and RockfordNativenowSeattle for all of the effort and hard work that you have done by taking the time to share your thoughts, opinions, and experiences of this line of work.
Out of curiosity, this is my very first time ever venturing out of the Los Angeles section of City-Data.Com (as I have been using the North Dakota section for only 1 week now), yet I was curious as to some of the contributors to this North Dakota section, as to how did they (some of the contributors that live outside of North Dakota) come to contribute to this North Dakota form? For example, with you living and working in Texas, how did you end up posting in the North Dakota section? In my case, last week when I read a news article about Williston and the Oil Rush there and the jobs there, that article really grabbed my interest, since I have been unemployed in Los Angeles for over 2 years and I have not been able to find any good and stable work at all during this time . . . thus reading that Williston news article made me start thinking about the possibility of trying to find a job out of state. So now, I’m still mulling over the idea, since I have only been thinking about it for 1 week now, and there are hundreds of things to consider if one is seriously thinking about moving out of state to work . . . things that I never though about before until now.
Though “they†say the recession is over, I choose not to believe it, because trying to get a job in Los Angeles today (in my own opinion) is just as hard as it was when the recession started in 2008. Since the recession is nationwide, I never thought about working outside of the state before, because going by the media, nobody was really hiring anywhere in any state. Yet since reading that news article about Williston, that has been my only ray of hope to maybe try to put my life back together and try to make a good living for myself once again and getting out of my 2 year unemployed slump. As long as a job is relatively stable, pays well, offers good benefits, is relatively safe, then I'm okay with the hard work and long hours to maintain such a job. Yet based on what RockfordNativenowSeattle has said thus far, I’m more inclined to work in another state doing something else vs. working in North Dakota, since there is just tremendous competition for those $100,000+ per year jobs there AND the very bad housing situation there . . . thus it sounds like things might be easier for me to break into a new career in Texas. Yet I’m still pondering what I want to do . . . yet I’m going to try to make up my mind by the end of this month, since if I do make a move out of the state, it will be a BIG change in my life and I want to give it a very good try, to make this drastic life changing experience work for me, and I would like to try it out for at least 2 years (if I can find employment AND it I can make it work) and then decide after 2 years what I want to do (i.e. make a career of what I am doing at the time or move back to Los Angeles and do something else).
Thanks again, LOUTMB for your post , it really has made my day and gives me more hope about taking a chance on all of this and moving to a new state and starting a brand new career and “maybe†getting a new lease on life.
No they are not part of the rig crew and yes they do spend time waiting around. Usually if they aren't waiting on the rig crew, the rig crew is waiting on them
Just wanted to explain something about the recession and the media. The media reports on big business and glosses over small business and in particular, agricultural business. To them, big business is the yardstick that they measure everything by.
The recession didn't effect agricultural states, such as, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming and Montana. That is because those states do not have a mecca of big business. The recession did effect large towns in those states, such as Omaha, Sioux Falls, Rapid City, Fargo, Billings, Helena, Cheyenne, Casper, but they didn't effect them near as much as states that rely on the large city to keep the state running. Take those towns off the map and you'll see those states function quite well without them.
North Dakota is starting into something that has been going on in my home state for a long time. Wyoming furnishes over 60% of the nations energy, be it natural gas, oil, or coal. The nation cannot live without that energy to keep them running, so the recession was barely felt here. It was felt in big business that is on Wall Street, but not felt so much by all the rest.
As such, North Dakota has had good entry level positions, just like Wyoming, in the oilfields or natural gas fields. The problem they are having right now is that, like any boom, they had a lot of positions to fill and fill quick. No experience was fine. But it's caught up to them now. Here they have all these newbies and they are seriously lacking in management. It's time that they fill management positions and the only way to do that is with experience. They are sill taking no experience, but not at the rate they were. Right now, if you had 4 or 5 years of oilfield experience, you could almost write your own ticket. I don't mean that you could demand outragious wages, but the field of choice would be wide open on who and what and where you wanted to work.
Years ago, Wyoming went through boom cycles and it was devastating to many communities. Finally, after about 40 years of ruining communities and building with the cheapest material available and as quickly as possible, the government finally woke up and limits well permits. We are fracking and have active rigs drilling right now. But the permits are limited so that 1) they can keep the prices up by not flooding the market, and 2) the communities can handle the numbers of crews and people in any given area. They are not over running any community and causing more harm than good. Sooner or later, North Dakota will level out and realize they don't need all the oil out of the ground, at once.
ElkHunter, thanks for the great post. I appreciate you taking the time to share as much as you have. What you shared made for great reading and is very educational. Thanks for sharing.
Broncogirl, thank you for more feedback. In this case, I'm thinking more about the life of a Cement Operator and Cement Operator Assistant. Though I don't know that much about this type of position, however based on the information about what RockfordNativenowSeattle was relaying about this "particular" job, it sounds like they are not "rig workers". It sounds like their only job is to pump cement and they "the Cement Operators" have nothing to do with the actual drilling . . . yet I could be wrong.
Yet I don't know if a Cement Operator is a standard part of a "Drilling Crew" or do they just go out in the field as needed. Yet with that being said, between what RockfordNativenowSeattle and Misc1972 said, "to me" it sounds like they are saying that a Cement Operator and other non-drill and non-rig workers work entails them waiting for another crew to finish their job before they can start, when that situation arises. Thus the Cement Operator crew is at the site but can't work due to reasons that are not theirs, yet they have paid downtime until they can actually work. Thus is why I had asked about using a laptop and iPod, while one is waiting out in the field until their crew can actually work. Somebody, please correct me if I am misunderstanding this. Thanks!
No we aren't part of the drill crew; and we don't always run jobs on site.
ie.. The job might be too drop a Rack of tanks on site; that's all and you head back to the yard..
Then there's a job to dump waste cement in powder form. Now your off to the land fill another 1hr away.
Then there is the work on site; I just completed 13hr day Monday and 21hrs this Sunday till 10pm today... It was a two stage job; nothing big... I work Bulk so I just bring supplies and run a pots.. "Pots are the 660's on the halliburton site" Too Start the week I got 34hrs already...
We had dropped off a 4 pot rack a day ago at this same site; and I managed to get the job when they wanted to pour the cement.
This is how the job went...
I get there fire up the pump and pressurize the tanks full of cement so that the cement will feed from 1 tube too the cementers truck. I then help him setup some pipes to the oilwell; that's the only time I set foot on the rig itself. Which only takes 1-2 hours to setup.
I then pump the cement for stage 1 to the cementers truck; they are your service supervisors.
Perks for Cementers; They get a company Truck; and there own Yard Cement truck. 1 driver assigned too assist you and, He's trng to be a cementer.
I'm a COA I; we just move the stuff there and Assist with the jobs.. After stage one I hop in the truck and catch 4hrs of sleep.. I wake up for stage 2 and run out the rest of the pots... Help him rig down the pipe and load up to go back to the yard...
This is a 10-12 hr job; it turned into almost 22... The rain came and the 80K Pound Cement Truck got stuck leading the way off the site.. There's only one road leading out of the drill site.
6 hrs later the Cat Showed up to pull the Truck out the ditch; and I went back. Ohh the mud makes things tougher in the field lol.
The pipes get heavier lol... Though the physical work was only 4hrs total; I got 20+ on that one site all billed too the Company Man .....
Toys Onsite
If your a COA like myself; and I can only speak too this; I watched Netflix the whole time for about 7hrs while that Truck was stuck in the ditch on the Service Road... I also watched after the initial setup. This was on a Verizon phone lol.. I got it for that reason it works great you get atlest 3g so you can watch a movie.. Ipads are popular also with our guys.
Also you don't have to come to the yard every morning; they will call you out for the jobs. When you get done with your job; drive back too the yard you go back into position if your the first back you get slot 1... Your the second you get slot 2 and so on. Jobs go out in that order. There isn't a shortage of hours or jobs. Though you might not catch one till 8pm; and then you get back 36hrs later like I just did and was paid for 34 of them...
Hope that helps going to bed now before a call comes in or something lol... Good Night...
I currently work for schlumberger as an eqipment operator aka frack operato out of alice texas.schlumberger sends you to school to get your class A license. i think schlumberger is the only one out of the bigger companies that actually does that. we go thru a 2 week class (actually 11 days) and by the end of those 11 days you'll know how to drive an 18 wheeler. i had never driven a stick shift before in my life and actually its better if you havent because they want you to "double clutch" when you drive there trucks. our starting pay is 15 dollars an hour and hour work week is 6 days on a days off vary depending on whether your switching from days to night. when your switching from days to nights you get 3.5 days off and when your switching from nights to days its 2.5. overtime is paid for anything over 40 hours. typical work week averages 60 to 100 hours. once you make it to bonus your pay increases dramatically ( which i havent reached yet) i work on a frac crew with approximately 16 people 8 are bonus eligible (white hats) 8 are not(green hats beginners). typically we do about 3 stages a day and the bonus eligible guys make about 300 bucks a plus there salary of 750 dollars a week. Now heres the catch. sometimes the wireline guys misfire and the job is down for a couple of days sometimes the well isnt ready and you maybe sitting around for a week. Also bonuses vary depending on how many people are bonus eligible which creates some conflict because the bonuses are spread out between the bonus eligible guys which means the more guys who are eligible the less money they take home. if all 8 green hat guys on our crew become eligble then the bonus would average out to about 150 dollars a stage. so theres some tension. when your a green hat you have to "prove" yourself to the other guys(white hats) and its kinda awkward for me because im 36 and some of the white hats are 21 years old. the hardest part of the job is being away from your family. if you have a wife who needs you at home or who gets "lonely" then its going to be a problem. now the COA (cement operator assistant) are on call and travel back n forth everday but equipment operators (frac crew) stay out in man camps 2 to a room. while your at work your roomate is in the room and vice versa. weather wise down here in south texas the weather in the winter is pretty miled the lowest it got was about 35 degrees and it was only that low for maybe a month or two (no snow) but on the other hand the summers are BRUTAL!!!!! it gets up to about 110 degrees and with the heat from the machines your around it gets up to around the 115-120 degree range. Rigging up in 100 degree weather is BRUTAL!!!! your instrucked to drink a bottle of water every 15 minutesand its easy to drink a case of water and not even use the bathroom. Imjuries do happen frequently because your working around metal pipes. people slip and fall all the time or hurt ther backs. Fianlly demographics also play an important part as you have to get used to the culture of the area your in. im in south texas which is predomiantly hispanic compared to working in north dakota which from what i hear up there is predomiantly white. im a black guy by the way and i fit in fine down here so if you come in with a hard working POSITIVE attitude you'll do fine
Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a through description. I am sure that it will help many folks w/ questions about those positions. And the job descriptions help inform them of what they may be getting into. I Haven't seen many more posts as informative as you have put together here. Be safe, and make lots of bonuses.
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For example, with you living and working in Texas, how did you end up posting in the North Dakota section? 
