Chemical engineering degree... any possibilities? (Grand Forks, Dickinson: job openings, construction, school)

[Sharks With Lasers]

Hi everyone - I'm a relatively young guy (31) with a chemical engineering degree and I've been laid off from the full-time job I got after grad school for a little over a year. I've heard a lot of stories about the oil boom in Williston from the media and some people who seem to think I should go out there. That being said, from searching jobs, it seems that most jobs in the oilfield either require a CDL or previous oilfield experience, and the other areas of high demand (retail, construction, services) are things you could find elsewhere. For example, I could work in retail in my hometown and not have to worry about the whole moving 1000 miles away and housing issues.

So, for a person with a chemical engineering degree - is there anything out there? Would certain oil companies be interested in my skills? Thanks!

[bobsmith101]

I too have a degree in Chemical Engineering. I went in the oilfield right out of school. There are many large service companies that will hire a chemical engineer as a field engineer (frac, cement, wireline,etc). It is hard to get into an operating comapany with only a degree though. The operating company will sometimes take a petroleum engineer or geologist with no prior oilfield experience. Schlumberger and Haliburton both hire a huge number of engineers with no previous oilfield experience. Smaller companies usually prefer someone with experience; they often don't have the programs in place to provide the techinical training needed.

[fourwinds]

Cbmsu01:

A lot of the technical jobs are located at company headquarters, especially for the exploration oil companies. Look at a list of ND Bakken oil companies and review their job openings.

A few other places to look in ND:
ONEOK (building four nat gas plants in ND)
Hess (expanding a nat gas plant @ Tioga)
Carbo Ceramics - building a huge ceramic propant plant near Dickinson
Montana Dakota Utilities (MDU) - oil and gas holdings
UNDEERC - usually hiring ChemEs in Grand Forks

There are huge chemical plant expansions ongoing in Texas due to ethane / propane supply growth. Also in Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh (Marcellus and Utica Shales) - specifically Shell and Markwest Partners.

Tulsa, Houston, OKC, Denver, Beaumont, Lake Charles, Baton Rouge are cities to look at too.

Check websites of chemical and process engineering companies.

[Sharks With Lasers]

Thank you for the advice everyone. So it looks like I would need to check more for company positions on their websites, and not just move out to North Dakota and hope for the best. That's kind of what I thought, but thanks for the links.