Working offshore.

aaron

aaron

aaron

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20 Nov 2008
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Hi everybody,

I was just wondering if any you guy's who work, or have worked offshore could offer any advice.

I'm currently looking into getting myself onto the career ladder of the offshore petroleum business.

I initially want to go on as a "Roustabout" and work my way from the bottom upwards with the intention of completing a Petroleum Open Working qualification once I get offshore.

Currently i'm looking at doing a BOSIET (Basic offshore safety induction and emergency training) course in the near future and will most likely book it come Monday when I can confirm time off work. I also do realize that a BOSIET is not a guaranteed job but instead is a stepping stone onto achieving employment.

My stepdad currently works in the sector and advised me that once I complete this my best bet is to get myself onto the agency's, such as petrofac's registers and obviously he'll put a good word in where he can.

Really I was just looking to get any advice you guy's can give on improving my chances of getting offshore and what your personal experiences have been?

I am currently 21 with no formal qualifications apart from good GCSE's and A levels and my only experience lie in sales.

Obviously the straightforward answer is to work towards more qualifications and make myself stand out. But any tidbits or pieces of advice you guy's could give would be genuinely and greatly appreciated. :)
 
Try and get onto the Petrofac (or similar, OPITO or ECITB) Mech Tech apprenticeship courses. Roustabout is a good place to start, but they will have thousands of applicants for that, everybody wants to work offshore, and that always seems a good place to start. But get on an apprenticeship course, and you can work towards control room operator or similar.

One of my mates did that, and he is now making VERY good money.

Personally, I went and got a degree (Physics), and went into MWD (Measurements While Drilling). But, to be honest, in Europe, to get a job like that now, you pretty much do need a degree.

Your stepdad is correct though. For the way your looking at going, agency is the way to start out. Banksman / Slinger course would put you a bit above many of the other applicants, but many will have this too. My brother in law has his BOSIET and Banksman / Slinger course, AND already works offshore as a night baker, and can't seem to get a start as a roustabout (his rolls are probably too fine though).

One of my cousins paid for his BOSIET and never even got a single interview in the 4 years it was valid for. But he was probably a bit lax with regards to applying for jobs. But just shows that having the courses doesn't get you the job. You need to put the effort in too. It may be worth, if nothing happens after the first few months, taking a trip to Aberdeen, and dropping in and supplying resumes in person. Just to put a face to a name if nothing else.
 
Thank you very much for that. :)

I must admit Uni sadly isn't an option for me and I wont bore you with the details (all about cost and the lack of funding I would get because of me and my families socio-economic position). Apprenticeships seem like a good way to go and it is how my step dad managed to get on but again I'm concerned that I may be too old...or that if I did get one the wage would be too low to accommodate my lifestyle (got my own place, car on finance etc as I don't rely on my parents for anything) though it is not something I have looked into thoroughly yet so will be worth a punt.

Many thanks for suggesting the Banksman/slinger course though as it is not something I had even heard about so will definitely look into that and get myself on one to improve my odds.

And I completely agree with your final paragraph as i'm not going to get to the position I want by sitting on my laurels :D Sales is completely and utterly soul destroying without even the incentive of a nice steady wage so quite honestly the thing that will drive me towards doing this will be 1). do I waste my life away in a horrible job with horrible pay and hate myself or do I 2). Work hard, do everything it takes and make something of my life. Number 2 definitely wins haha.

I like the idea of taking a trip to Aberdeen though. Would you advise just walking into the building and handing my resume to whoever is on reception? (probably a silly question I know but I want to try and cover all angles)
 
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Banksman slinger. Rigging. Working at height. All good starting courses. Don't forget your med certs either.
Can be worth getting some scaffolding training too.
 
The idea you can't go to uni because of cost is rot IMO. If you aim to do a good course you'll be fine. You will get a student loan if you haven't had one before (even if your parents are rich) which will cover fees and pay for your accommodation and possibly much of your expenses. As a mature student (I think it's 21 when you become one) and you show you are a separate entity from your parents then you can also get grants. The fact you will end up with a £35k capped tax is besides the point as you should be earning good money afterwards, if not you won't be paying it back anyway...

The fact you have a mortgage and finance on a car is an issue but you could work round that. Bear in mind a lot of people work part time while at uni. You will have plenty of time to do so on most courses.

Obviously it depends if you want to get into the more technical stuff though, which as xs2man says will need a degree now (or even a masters).
 
Perfect guy's :) many thanks to you two as well.

You have a very good point Amp...I'm even wondering if it would be worth looking into an Open University course or something along those lines. I know this is a very general question as it depends what area I go into, but what degrees would actually be of value? Of course I imagine things like Physics or Geology would be highly advantageous but are there any others you can think of?

My intention is to do each course in a stepping stone fashion so for example do my BOSIET first, then maybe Banksman/Slinger as suggested and hopefully with each course completed my chances of getting a phonecall offering me a job improve. Uni most likely being my final step if I have no luck beforehand due to the financial implications.

I would love to just do everything all in one but unfortunately have very little disposable income and with the courses costing £600 to £1000 each I'm going to have to take my time...however I will get there one way or another :D.


Oh also I meant to ask is the medical done on the BOSIET or is that something you do separately?
 
Engineering would be a good one to add to the list. Alternatively you could always do something like something related to health and safety, which is always wanted in O&G. The difficulty being knowing you're doing a course that's actually good. Geology, Engineering and Physics are courses where institution prestige isn't quite as important (as long as they are accredited).

It really depends on what you want to do though, doing a course just to get offshore is not the way to go. If you don't like the job then you'll very quickly find yourself despising your life. Alternatively being a roustabout may pay more, especially at the beginning. MWD/mudlogging/wireline isn't particularly well paid. Mudlogging is terrible - the two major companies were offering about £12-15k a year (inc. offshore pay) when I applied about 4 years ago. MWD and wireline is around £20-25k starting (I think - i'm sure xs2man can tell me if I'm very wrong). You'll also be doing VERY monotonous jobs for up to 24 hours at a time without a break/or you'll be sat around doing nothing for days on end. I only have some onshore experience in this and I'm glad I now work in the office not on rigs!

As said I don't have experience offshore but work as a geoscientist in O&G but have some experience applying for those types of jobs and doing some of them onshore.
 
Medical is separate to BOSIET and I think lasts just 2 years compared to 4. I'd have to hunt my certs out to confirm though and having just moved house I'm not sure where I've shoved them!
 
Yeah, Amp has pretty much nailed it there.

Mudlogging will start you on the lowest wage, but will give you the best experience for heading up the ladder. That starting wage looks about right, after a year or so you can get to data engineer, so around £25k. Then you can move on up to either MWD (I started on £18k + offshore bonus, which was £75 per day whilst training, and 9 months later that doubled. Wont tell you what I'm on now mind, but it is quite a bit better). But from there you can go other directions. Directional Driller, MLT, Company Man and so on. Or I have known people to go into drilling as Assistant Driller, which can take you onto driller, toolpusher, OIM. These are all offshore positions though, many jump to the office at various points in the chain, usually starting as co-ordinator, then manager or sales / business development, then regional manager.

The other route from Data Engineer, so long as you have a Geology degree / masters, is Geologist. They can go all the way though. Tony Hayward was a Geologist (the guy in charge of BP when DW Horizon happened).

Many people are looking for the move to the office. I did. Then I had a job that when I started, I had to go into the office everyday.

Yawn!!! Much prefer life offshore.

But the route I took has me ad-hoc, so no schedule. Still get my salary, and can book holidays and such, but I could get a call tomorrow morning putting me on a flight that afternoon. And whilst now it will only be for a couple weeks tops, usually, in the past, I have done 8 week hitches in rural China for example.

The other downside to staying offshore is you'll never be on the big big money. Company man is probably around the top paid gig offshore, and will be £100k - £150+k I would imagine (I know a lot who are contractors, so around $1500-2500 per day). But it's not until you get into the office you can get to Veyron money.

On the other hand, my mate who is now a CRO (Control Room Operator) easily broke 6 figures last year, including bonuses, and gets a 20% non contribution pension. So I would REALLY be trying for the apprentice route. I believe they start on around £38 - £42k as an apprentice. I have been considering making the switch, but couldn't take the pay cut with 2 young kids, big car, big house and wife on maternity.

And yes. Medical is 2 years, BOSIET is 4 years. And you need additional certs on both if you want to work in Norway.
 
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Honestly that's brilliant Amp. To be honest the problem I have at the moment is I just don't know what area I want to develop in. It's the reason I want to go for Roustabout as I am hoping it will give me a good sense of where I want to go with my career, as until I get on the rig's I think it's hard to tell what appeals and what doesn't. All I know is I want to succeed which I know is a very wishy washy thing to say but the lifestyle and obviously the pay are huge incentives.

My step dad actually mentioned health and safety so will look into that also. I'm quite shocked that if what you said is true, that MWD etc are so underpaid for what I assume is a highly academic and skilled field. Especially when you take into account Roustabout, while being hard work is generally regarded as an unskilled laboring job yet the pay for that seems relatively high.
 
Does the BIOSET still feature the ditched helicopter escape training? As I'm not a strong swimmer, I didn't enjoy it one bit; especially the final dunking upside down with the lights out.

Did mine at Hull many, many years ago now and I think they banned the cold water immersion section a while back.
 
Yes you'll need to do the upside down helicopter escape, but you'll likely get to do it with the full rebreather kit allowing you to breath for a good 4 minutes underwater. UK one isn't in the dark.
 
xs2man said:
Yeah, Amp has pretty much nailed it there.

Mudlogging will start you on the lowest wage, but will give you the best experience for heading up the ladder. That starting wage looks about right, after a year or so you can get to data engineer, so around £25k. Then you can move on up to either MWD (I started on £18k + offshore bonus, which was £75 per day whilst training, and 9 months later that doubled. Wont tell you what I'm on now mind, but it is quite a bit better). But from there you can go other directions. Directional Driller, MLT, Company Man and so on. Or I have known people to go into drilling as Assistant Driller, which can take you onto driller, toolpusher, OIM. These are all offshore positions though, many jump to the office at various points in the chain, usually starting as co-ordinator, then manager or sales / business development, then regional manager.

The other route from Data Engineer, so long as you have a Geology degree / masters, is Geologist. They can go all the way though. Tony Hayward was a Geologist (the guy in charge of BP when DW Horizon happened).

Many people are looking for the move to the office. I did. Then I had a job that when I started, I had to go into the office everyday.

Yawn!!! Much prefer life offshore.

But the route I took has me ad-hoc, so no schedule. Still get my salary, and can book holidays and such, but I could get a call tomorrow morning putting me on a flight that afternoon. And whilst now it will only be for a couple weeks tops, usually, in the past, I have done 8 week hitches in rural China for example.

The other downside to staying offshore is you'll never be on the big big money. Company man is probably around the top paid gig offshore, and will be £100k - £150+k I would imagine (I know a lot who are contractors, so around $1500-2500 per day). But it's not until you get into the office you can get to Veyron money.

On the other hand, my mate who is now a CRO (Control Room Operator) easily broke 6 figures last year, including bonuses, and gets a 20% non contribution pension. So I would REALLY be trying for the apprentice route. I believe they start on around £38 - £42k as an apprentice. I have been considering making the switch, but couldn't take the pay cut with 2 young kids, big car, big house and wife on maternity.

And yes. Medical is 2 years, BOSIET is 4 years. And you need additional certs on both if you want to work in Norway.
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My step dad is offshore (no idea what role, instument technician of some sort) but hes on 100k+ and i'd be rather happy with an income like that although the sky's the limit :)

I will definitely look into the apprenticeship route though as I do want as many angles as possible when it comes to moving up.

I take it mudlogger is a job that requires a degree though? [EDIT] answered my own question so generally yes. :D


Also as an aside do you guys have a rough idea of the cost of a medical? And in terms of the agency's how do they work? do you pay them a fee to put you on their books or do they take a commission etc?

Sorry about all the questions guy's i'm just trying to build myself a resource bank full of information.
 
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It never used to be the case that you needed a degree to be a mudlogger. I know some people that got in with an HNC. But as the companies have so many applicants now, they can pretty much now pick people with degrees, or previous experience. Many of my old colleagues started out as mudloggers. I went straight in as MWD though.

MWD isn't a particularly low paid job though. I mean I started on 18k, but was quickly making 150 a day. And when you do 150-200 days a year, you can get to a decent enough take home pay. But that starting salary is just that. A starting salary. And depending on what company you work for, your day rate can increase a lot. My last job was in Holland, and paid about 34k (Euro) salary, and 400 (Euro) per day (So would break 100k in euro for a 2/2 year). So was a healthy pay by any means. I was making more than my local MP anyway (not including expense swindling and other general corruption).

As I said though, you want to be on the production side of things if money is your goal, rather than drilling. Problem with that is you then spend the rest of your career going to the same ****ing rig. At least with my job I have seen a bit of the world...
 
Generally you do need a degree to be a mudlogger on Europe now, however it's not as hard and fast as I thought. Last year we contracted a small mudlogging company and they had a new trainee that didn't have a degree. Most of the bigger companies will demand a degree though. When I went for interviews with Geolog and Geoservices (now part of schlumberger) The others there all had degrees, including places like Cambridge, Imperial etc.

xs2man, out of interest what is the tax situation like? I only ask as the two companies above had rather interesting tax arrangements. Essentially it was something like they would take 20% of your salary and deal with any tax issues you had... Their argument was it saves you having to deal with all the countries tax systems... To me it just looked like they were reducing actual wages 20% from the advertised rates (and you end up paying way more tax than a standard UK citizen on not much more than minimum wage...).
 
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aaron said:
Honestly that's brilliant Amp. To be honest the problem I have at the moment is I just don't know what area I want to develop in. It's the reason I want to go for Roustabout as I am hoping it will give me a good sense of where I want to go with my career, as until I get on the rig's I think it's hard to tell what appeals and what doesn't. All I know is I want to succeed which I know is a very wishy washy thing to say but the lifestyle and obviously the pay are huge incentives.

My step dad actually mentioned health and safety so will look into that also. I'm quite shocked that if what you said is true, that MWD etc are so underpaid for what I assume is a highly academic and skilled field. Especially when you take into account Roustabout, while being hard work is generally regarded as an unskilled laboring job yet the pay for that seems relatively high.
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No worries. Very true, you'll need to experience it before you decide if it'll work for you. They are all pretty poorly paid but as with many careers in oil and gas although the starting salary may be low the increase is generally significant. You can easily expect 10%+ a year and significantly bigger jumps at certain times. You are expected to learn on the job (and quickly), being responsible for potentially multi million $ decisions within a year in many cases. Mudloggers in big companies are expected to move up to the next rung in a year or so, any longer than that and you're probably not cut out for the role.
 
Amp34 said:
Generally you do need a degree to be a mudlogger on Europe now, however it's not as hard and fast as I thought. Last year we contracted a small mudlogging company and they had a new trainee that didn't have a degree. Most of the bigger companies will demand a degree though. When I went for interviews with Geolog and Geoservices (now part of schlumberger) The others there all had degrees, including places like Cambridge, Imperial etc.

xs2man, out of interest what is the tax situation like? I only ask as the two companies above had rather interesting tax arrangements. Essentially it was something like they would take 20% of your salary and deal with any tax issues you had... Their argument was it saves you having to deal with all the countries tax systems... To me it just looked like they were reducing actual wages 20% from the advertised rates (and you end up paying way more tax than a standard UK citizen on not much more than minimum wage...).
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I have always worked as if "resident". So my first job was UK based, on a UK contract, and simply paid UK tax. Any other obligations were dealt with by my employers, without me even knowing anything about it, if anything did happen. Same as my current job.

When I was in Holland, I paid Dutch taxes as if a Dutch resident. They are BIG though. It's surprising how quickly you run into the 52% tax rate (and over there you pay 40% where we pay 20%). On the plus side, you do get a tax rebate on the interest paid on your mortgage for the year. So between 5-7k euro per year back. Still quite a lot of tax though. Somewhere around 10-15k more than I would have paid here per year.
 
Jokester said:
Yes you'll need to do the upside down helicopter escape, but you'll likely get to do it with the full rebreather kit allowing you to breath for a good 4 minutes underwater. UK one isn't in the dark.
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Mine last year didn't feature a full rebreather. Basically a bag that grants 30 seconds of air.
I may have accidentally kicked the instructor in the face too...oops!
 
Dis86 said:
Mine last year didn't feature a full rebreather. Basically a bag that grants 30 seconds of air.
I may have accidentally kicked the instructor in the face too...oops!
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It's coming in because of that last crash, you won't be able to sit at an non-window seat without one from 1st September I think it is.

Then's the whole too fat to fly thing which I think is April next year, though I suspect that may yet get knocked on the head as putting thousands of people out of work probably isn't that great a move to save a couple of lives maybe.
 
Gents, a quick question for those in the know,

How is the industry set for electrical engineers atm? Based on the fact that atm I'm qualified to NVQ lvl 3 avionics and electrical aircraft engineering and cert'd for level J wiring and soldering ( I think, that may be due a refresher) Is there any demand?
 
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