Oil Prices & Jobs

[Letsrunem8]

Anyone else's career been impacted due to the gnarly oil prices?

I just got laid off. 😒

[Bavarian Beast]

You in Midland/Odessa?

[NemesisX]

Yeah it's affected job and internship prospects for a lot of the petroleum engineers (and chemical engineers looking to work upstream) at my alma mater, although they're still hiring. I know 4 ChemEs who have job offers with $90k+ starting (base) once they graduate at Exxon, Chevron, and Total, and 2 of those are upstream positions.

[P1]

I thought the price of oil was swinging back up again. Price of 93 is already up by 40 cents per gallon here.

[fecurtis]

It's expected to creep back down. The US is running out of places to store it's crude, http://www.businessinsider.com/the-u...-put-it-2015-3

[Maestro]

I figure if you are in the business of extraction or finding new places to extract oil from hard to get to places your probably in trouble for a job for while. Unless you are working on extraction which costs less than $50 per barrel you not going to be in a job. OPEC is ramping up production and cutting cost to shut down the hard to get at oil reserves.

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by P1et

I thought the price of oil was swinging back up again. Price of 93 is already up by 40 cents per gallon here.

Gas prices make no sense lately. Regular here jumped 18 cents in one day last week when the price of oil started falling again. The REG/PRE differential is quite high now, too. Used to be 20-25 cents/gal difference. Now it's closer to 40 cents/gal.

Still, I'll take premium for $2.60-$2.70/gal anytime.

[P1]

Originally Posted by M_Six

Gas prices make no sense lately. Regular here jumped 18 cents in one day last week when the price of oil started falling again. The REG/PRE differential is quite high now, too. Used to be 20-25 cents/gal difference. Now it's closer to 40 cents/gal.

Still, I'll take premium for $2.60-$2.70/gal anytime.

Still $2.49 here but it had dropped all the way to $2.17 at my local Shell station.

[gtron]

sorry you got laid off.

on a related note i was just thinking... remember when they started charging baggage fees and stopped giving food on airlines due to high fuel prices? when are those fees removed again? yea, right. lol

[davis449]

My dad lost his job two months ago. He's a Geologist. So yeah, that affects my life. I wised up real quick during my brief stint in the Eagleford Play and bailed out after 6 mos. I bailed for a number of reasons, but now I am really glad I did as that company of 700 employees is now down to 2. Grew up in Midland\Odessa and experienced two booms and two busts. I know how these things play out.

[JasonCSU]

Sorry to hear about the job OP. The company I work for is in the industry, and so far we have been affected by taking temporary pay cuts.

[JasonCSU]

Originally Posted by Maestro

I figure if you are in the business of extraction or finding new places to extract oil from hard to get to places your probably in trouble for a job for while. Unless you are working on extraction which costs less than $50 per barrel you not going to be in a job. OPEC is ramping up production and cutting cost to shut down the hard to get at oil reserves.

Yep, that is exactly what is going on and while it sucks for some of us now, it means we'll still have oil in those places after OPEC starts running low on their resources.

[M_Six]

The oil industry has always been up and down. My degree is in geology and when I graduated in the late 90's there was no market for petroleum geologists, so I went environmental, which naturally didn't pay nearly as well. It was a stable field, though. Always cleanup to be done somewhere.

OPEC is just trying to maintain market share and hope the marginal players fall away soon. Then oil will rise to a sensible equilibrium where some of the higher cost drilling will make sense. I don't see it going back to $140/barrel again, though. If it settles out at $65-$75, you might see some comeback in the US.

[Inspired]

The price of oil in CA skyrocketed $1/gallon in the past month. I was paying $2.50 for premium in Feb, now it is at $3.40-3.50

[P1]

Originally Posted by davis449

My dad lost his job two months ago. He's a Geologist. So yeah, that affects my life. I wised up real quick during my brief stint in the Eagleford Play and bailed out after 6 mos. I bailed for a number of reasons, but now I am really glad I did as that company of 700 employees is now down to 2. Grew up in Midland\Odessa and experienced two booms and two busts. I know how these things play out.

I know people from that area, and they know better than to go spend their money all in one place. The foolish get excited and start buying expensive things, but the veterans know to save the money you're making and quietly have a backup plan.

[UncleWede]

"When the price of oil goes up, the price of gas goes up.

When the price of oil goes DOWN, the price of gas goes up."


SNL skit.

[Maestro]

Originally Posted by JasonCSU

Yep, that is exactly what is going on and while it sucks for some of us now, it means we'll still have oil in those places after OPEC starts running low on their resources.

Yeah the US oil policy was to use everyone else's natural resources first. Just mean the US gets to put the cork back in the oil wells again and ride it out.

I curious to see what happens in LA they had a lots of wells around the area which is owned and operated by the government. They have been making lots of money in the past numbers of years, helps pay the bills,

[Letsrunem8]

I was working out of North Dakota. But I think my option now is to relocate back to California.

Sucks. But it is what it is.

[MrPrena]

[davis449]

Originally Posted by P1et

I know people from that area, and they know better than to go spend their money all in one place. The foolish get excited and start buying expensive things, but the veterans know to save the money you're making and quietly have a backup plan.

I have experienced EXACTLY the opposite in my 15+ years there. People make all kinds of stupid purchases and end up eyeballs deep in debt. The "veterans", as you so appropriately put it, like my father (and perhaps the people you know) are the exception, not the rule in my experience.

[P1]

Originally Posted by davis449

I have experienced EXACTLY the opposite in my 15+ years there. People make all kinds of stupid purchases and end up eyeballs deep in debt. The "veterans", as you so appropriately put it, like my father (and perhaps the people you know) are the exception, not the rule in my experience.

My original sentence was poorly written, but I meant exactly what you wrote. We're on the same page!