Crude vs Frac - Eagle Ford Shale (San Antonio, Corpus Christi: find a job, wages)

[JPatP]

Hello, I have gained a lot of needed information from this forum regarding Eagle Ford Shale, but I still have a few questions.

I will have a CDL license with hazmat and tanker endorsements by the end of the month. I'm going to visit the route between San Antonio and Corpus Christi and will hopefully find a job. I am starting this late in life, I'm 61 but in good health and physically fit.

First, does my age give me a disadvantage?

Second, from what I have read, I am interested in hauling crud or working frac. Can someone tell me the typical day for those positions and the typical annual (with OT) pay for each.

Third, if employed, I would probablly bring my RV to live in. Is there a shortage of RV Sites.

Thanks for your help.

[jimboburnsy]

Originally Posted by JPatP

Hello, I have gained a lot of needed information from this forum regarding Eagle Ford Shale, but I still have a few questions.

I will have a CDL license with hazmat and tanker endorsements by the end of the month. I'm going to visit the route between San Antonio and Corpus Christi and will hopefully find a job. I am starting this late in life, I'm 61 but in good health and physically fit.

First, does my age give me a disadvantage?

Second, from what I have read, I am interested in hauling crud or working frac. Can someone tell me the typical day for those positions and the typical pay for each.

Third, if employed, I would probablly bring my RV to live in. Is there a shortage of RV Sites.

Thanks for your help.

I spent a number of years with what is now Baker Hughes in the last decade.

You'll get plenty of hours doing shale fracs in the Eagle Ford envelope. Expect to work about 80 hours per week. Maybe more, probably not much less. Your gross annual wages will likely be in the $60k - $80k range. Maybe more, probably not less. Baker usually trains their own oilfield drivers, but there may be some hesitation to hire a man in his 60's so it's probably a good thing that you are picking up your CDL on your own; it may make you a more attractive hire, in other words.

I'm not going to blow sunshine, being in the oilfield is somewhere between being in prison and being in the army. Dragging iron around and beating it with hammers at 4:00 AM can be miserable, brutal work and you'll be junior to a bunch of twentysomethings with good joints and mean mouths - but the pay will be pretty good. You will probably want to bring your RV. Driving between San Antonio and Corpus after an 18-20 hour day just to turn around and report to the yard 8 hours later will get you killed in a vehicle accident.

I wouldn't haul crude unless I just needed a way to finance my meth habit and an excuse to keep doing meth. For what it's worth, I saw a lot of old dogs burn out in the oilfield and move to hauling water, hauling cement or hauling crude... They usually came back to frac after a few months. YMMV, though.

[JPatP]

Thank you Jimboburnsy for the information. It is very helpful.

In your statement:
"I wouldn't haul crude unless I just needed a way to finance my meth habit and an excuse to keep doing meth."

Am I understanding correctly, the money in hauling crude is good enough to finance a habit and the job is miserable enough that you will want to have a habit?

[jimboburnsy]

Originally Posted by JPatP

Thank you Jimboburnsy for the information. It is very helpful.

In your statement:
"I wouldn't haul crude unless I just needed a way to finance my meth habit and an excuse to keep doing meth."

Am I understanding correctly, the money in hauling crude is good enough to finance a habit and the job is miserable enough that you will want to have a habit?

I've never hauled crude, sand or cement so I can't give you any first hand insight. My conclusions are based upon my appraisal of the quality of life (as well as the average quality of driver) that said drivers seem to enjoy as viewed by a frac treater/cementer/technical representative. I also only have experience with crude haulers in East Texas, which is a very different cultural reservoir than one encounters from the lower hillcountry down to the Laguna Madre.

That said, YES. You understood what I was getting at. I would still disclaim all of that with "Your Mileage May Vary" since it may be a worthwhile opportunity. I don't know what the pay will be like, but you'll have plenty of stuff to haul and you'll probably be falsifying your logs quite a bit.

[Socal2Omaha]

Jim, you said that Baker trains their drivers. So they will take a guy off the street with no experience in driving or oil and train them to get their CDL? How long to yo have drive for them/contract? Swift will do the same, but you must work for them for 26 months.

Sorry to hijack this thread.