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Wanted: Oil workers
Retiring baby boomers, roaring global economy and focus on information technology are leading to a labor shortage that could squeeze supply.
By Steve Hargreaves, CNNMoney.com staff writer
November 2 2007: 7:05 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Quit cutting chemistry class.

That's the advice experts give people wanting to capitalize on the current shortage of highly trained oil industry workers - a shortage that's also expected to delay new oil projects and could drive crude prices even higher over the next few years.

 
A shortage of highly skilled oil workers could soon squeeze supply.
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In the next three or four years, there's expected to be a 30 to 40 percent shortage of technical and professional oil workers in the Untied States, according to Damon Beyer of Katzenbach Partners, a Houston-based management consultancy that specializes in the energy sector.

Over a quarter of the industry's highly skilled employees - petroleum engineers, process engineers, geologists, geophysicists and the like - are eligible for retirement in two years, said Beyer.

"It's a real issue," said Beyer. "Success in attracting new people into the work force is limited."

The new math of oil
Worldwide, the industry's "people deficit" is expected to reach up to 15 percent by 2010, according to Pritesh Patel, an associate director at Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

Part of this is due to baby boomers leaving the work force, and part is due to the global economic boom that has strained the heavy industry labor market in general.

But oil has its own problems.

During the 1980s, low crude prices forced layoffs throughout the industry. Around the same time, students formerly drawn to basic sciences such as mathematics, chemistry and engineering were enticed into a new, sexier field: Information technology.

"[Oil] wasn't considered the most forefront of fields to be in," said Patel.

So now, projects to find and bring new oil to market are delayed as oil firms compete with one another for workers with the competence to bring new, often challenging fields into production. It also means new, less experienced people are designing projects, and errors can be made in the design process that take time to correct before the facility can become operational.

"This could cause some delay in supply reaching markets," he said.

And as anyone who's followed oil markets over the last four years knows, supply concerns factor first and foremost in the minds of traders, who have bid prices to record highs of over $96 a barrel in recent weeks.

The industry is trying to fix the problem.

For starters, salaries are fairly high. Patel said a petroleum engineer typically earns $70,000 to $90,000 a year, right out of school.

Second, there are stronger academic programs in emerging countries, such as India and China, home of many of the new graduates entering the field. Those graduate are closer to most of the new supplies of oil, in places such as Russia, Central Asia and Indonesia.

Beyer sees that as a good thing. "This is a global problem, and it needs to be solved globally."

Recession risk rises with record oil
But even in the United States, he said enrollment at schools specializing in petroleum sciences - such as Texas A&M and Colorado School of Mines - is increasing.

That's also a good thing, as it's fairly difficult to break into these high-skilled, high-paying jobs without studying engineering and then petroleum engineering at the graduate level.

The few exceptions, said Patel, are chemical engineers and process engineers who work at places such as pharmaceutical companies, but he added that demand for engineers is up across all industries.

"Some have switched over, but we're seeing a boom in other areas of the economy as well," he said.

For those not mathematically inclined, he said there is a similar boom going on in demand for skilled trade workers - welders, pipe fitters and such.

And unlike a half decade long stint in graduate school, those programs can typically be completed at your local trade college in six months or a year, with little more than a high school diploma. The median wage for a welder is about $30,000 a year, according to the Labor Department. 

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Sa-wat-dee kha everyone,

We took a 45 minute train ride from Ayutthaya back to Bangkok. The train route has a stop right at the airport, so it is very convenient. We had to get the person at the ticket booth to repeat the price for our tickets. We were in complete disbelief and thought we had misheard him the first time. It was 11 baht each for our tickets. That is less than 30cents! Needless to say you can get around Thailand extremely cheap. The train station was old and gave a neat feeling of what it must have been like when it was the main form of transportation.

The train was full of local people. Some were obviously going long distances. They had brought baskets with them full of everything they might need on the trip. One lady was pulling out stuff from her basket, to our amazement she had a whole meal in there. She had some meat and rice in a bowl, then she added some green onion. She pulled out a little plastic bag with chili sauce in it and continued to stir that into the mixture. After eating she pulled out a small pillow to have a nap with. I sat beside a cute little man who I swear was a hundred years old. I can assure you with out a doubt I probably weighed almost 3 times what he did. I was also considerably taller.

We took a short one hour flight with Thai airways from Bangkok to Chiang Mai which is in northern Thailand. It gets very confusing because there are many provinces that have a city in them with the same name. Like Chiang Mai province and Chiang Mai city. It was only $50 Canadian for the flight as opposed to taking a 13 hour train ride. The scenery is supposed to be very nice on the train, but we decided we wanted to get there the fast route. Hats off to Thai airways! Excellent service, we even got fed a meal on a one hour flight!

We arrived in Chiang Mai at about 3pm. We had a guesthouse in mind that we wanted to stay at, but had no reservation. We phoned it from the airport and they said they had room. We usually like to go and look at the place before we book, it can be hit and miss. We read in our travel book that you could go up to a desk in the airport that would arrange a metered taxi into the city of Chiang Mai. We had to pay them 50 baht at the desk and then the remainder to the taxi driver according to the meter. Which was about 60 baht. So under $4 altogether to get into the city.

The taxi desk asks you which hotel you want to be dropped off at. They write the name down on a slip for you to show the driver. We were unfortunately dropped off at the wrong hotel. We didn't discover this until after we had given the driver the money and he was long gone. We went inside the hotel to inquire what there prices were for a room since we were there anyway. It was over 4 times the price of the place we intended to go to. We showed the paper the taxi desk had given us. The name they wrote in Thai characters was the correct guesthouse we wanted to go to. We are not sure if the taxi driver just can't read or if it was some kind of scam where he would get a commmision had we decided to stay at this hotel. We then asked how much it should be to get one of the tuk tuks or taxis sitting out front of their place to the correct hotel. They said 40 baht, but when we inquired with the drivers outside they wanted over 100 baht. We were warned about this kind of tourist scamming. We told them forget it and we would walk, since it wasn't that far anyways. The taxi drivers kept bothering us as we walked away. We informed them we were well aware that the fare should only be 40 baht and maybe they should stop trying to rip tourists off.

We stayed 4 nights in Chiang Mai. It was not in the guesthouse we first thought of, it turned out to be a dive. We ended up at the Montri hotel, which is right across the street from the Tha Phae gate. Chiang Mai is a walled city. This wall now separates the old city from the newer section. It was a bit more than we intended to pay for accommodation, but very nice and super friendly staff. We had a king size bed for the first time, what heaven! It has air con, a t.v. and fridge in our room, and a nice marble bathroom. Also a good location. A restaurant with good food and a modern internet cafe. All this we decided was worth the splurge of $20 Canadian, lol!

creative fruit we would have with our breakfast every morning at our hotel

Chiang Mai is kind of like a toned down version of Bangkok. It doesn't seem as polluted. Although this province can get quite bad for haze and smoke during this time of the year as the farmers burn off their fields.

The 4 days here were spent shopping, shopping, and more shopping! This is the capital of shopping for Thailand. We actually didn't buy much, but looking was fun. There is an incredible night bizarre here. It starts up from about 6pm and goes past midnight. It is spread out over a large area of the town. There are sections with small outdoor food vendors and tables. There is some great food to try. There is another section with many bars and entertainment. Some good and not so good live singing. One spot has a massive climbing wall. Other areas have rows of chairs lined up with people getting cheap foot massages. It can be as cheap as $2. All of this shopping area has local hill tribe people in their traditional clothing walking around trying to sell items. They try to get your attention with a small wooden frog. They run a stick along the back of. It makes a sound just like a croaking frog. When there are several of them in an area it sounds like a chorus.

Foot massages, funky lights for sale and Hill Tribe ladies selling souviniers

There are two Starbucks here, but again neither one of them has our Chai Tea! I had to take a picture of the Starbucks with a row of tuk tuks lined out front of it, too funny! It even rhymes, Starbucks and tuk tuks.

One night we were in the night bizarre area when we noticed a crowd growing and a lot of police and military presence in one area. We were a bit concerned because we have been watching on news about a growing protest against the government. Last count was 50,000 people in an area near the Grand Palace and another convoy of 30,000 coming in from the rural areas.

We asked someone what was going on. It turned out that the queen of Thailand was going to be coming and always stays in the Royal Princess Hotel that the crowd was around. We decided to hang around and get a glimpse of royalty. We ended up waiting for about an hour. The security was pretty lax compared to an arrival of the queen of England. We ended up seeing her for less than 2 minutes as she was getting out of the limo and greeted by some dignitaries. She then quickly disappeared into the hotel. The crowd was thrilled to see her though. The royal family here is loved by the people and highly respected.

One day we hired a tuk tuk driver to take us shopping to an area outside of the city. The road is called San Kamphaeng. It has about 13kms of factory type shops. We ended up hiring him from 12:30 to 5pm. He took us to several places and patiently waited outside while we shopped. He charged us 300 baht for all of this. About $9. Some of the shops include Celadon Pottery, this is famous in Thailand and comes in green and blue colours. There were many silk fabric shops where you can buy the material or have clothes made. There are also silver, leather, antique furniture, hand woven carpets, gems, and a village where they make hand painted umbrellas.

On the way back we passed by another funny site on a motorbike. There was a family of 3 on it. In the very back was a young boy, he was holding an umbrella up to keep the sun of him and the mom who sat in front driving. In the very front was a baby that looked to be about 1 1/2 years old. She was holding on to the bike with one hand and was drinking her bottle of milk, holding it in the other. We pass by scenes like this everyday.

A day at the spa........ahhhhhhh

We decided to treat ourselves to a spa. It is located just above the Mcdonald's at the night bizarre and is called Relax Spa. Jack had a 2 hour full body massage and a 45 minute session of foot reflexology. I had a 1 1/2 hour hot stone massage and an hour facial. It was a very professional spa with a tranquil atmosphere. The total price for all this was 3800 baht. ($115 Canadian) For those that have ever had spa treatments we don't need to tell you how cheap this is!

The stone massage was hot! It definitely gets you sweating. I think it really allows the massage to have extra benefit though. I felt so relaxed after. I fell asleep during my facial, lol! Jack was also like a piece of jello when he was done.

Even Ronald McDonald does the wai greeting in Thailand!
 

We have spent other days just wondering around the city seeing what it has to offer. We saw a cheesy Thai fashion show one day. We have also been trying many types of food here. It seems much better for selection and quality than what we experienced in Bangkok. They also cater to vegetarians extremely well. Including many full vegetarian restaurants. We ate one night at a place called Whole Earth. It has a very nice atmosphere within the city. You almost get to completely escape from the traffic scene as you eat your meal. It has a nicely manicured garden setting with lite up coloured umbrellas around the eating area and property. The food was excellent. We had a full course of Indian vegetarian dishes, not too spicy either.

Inside a large shopping complex and a shopping street in Chiang Mai
 

Next stop the Elephant Nature Park