How's the Natural Gas industry for employment? 1

[Careful34]

I was laid off from a tier one automotive supplier early last year when things were looking bad for that industry. I was hoping to find another position in the same geographic area to maintain some family responsibilities here, but it's a fairly rural location, and I feel I've about exhausted the employer pool (not to mention my unemployment benefits), so it's looking like I'll have to relocate.

I didn't like the automotive industry while I was in it, and have no real desire to go back into it. In light of this extended lay off, I'd like to get into a field that's more infrastructure crucial. I have a ME and some past natural gas appliance experience, so I was thinking something in the natural gas transmission field? It seems like demand for the product will be increasing sharply in the near future.

How is the industry holding up? What would be a good job to try to get into in the industry? Who's hiring? and any other advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

 

[zdas04]

A couple of years ago, with gas prices topping $10/MCF the employment situation for mechanical engineers in this industry was pretty good. If you could hear thunder or see lightning (both was not required) you would have no problem getting multiple job offers in places like Houston, Denver, and New Orleans. Today the price is struggling to get back to $4/MCF and there are more Engineers looking for work than there are jobs. The industry is not as bad as the 1986-2002 period where we experienced what would have been called a "depression" in any popular industry (the media doesn't love Oil & Gas) since employment levels dropped to less than half of the 1986 peak and stayed there for 10 years, then started creeping up until we were almost at 80% of 1986 levels by 2008 when layoffs started again.

There are a few bright spots in this dim picture. The Marcellus Shale in the Northeast U.S. is developing a huge gas field (95,000 square miles) and there is not much mid-stream infrastructure to get the gas to market. There have been a number of big pipeline projects announced in the last year to change that. The big players are Williams, Tenneco, and Kerr-Mcgee.

To a lesser extent (mostly because they have better access to mid-stream and downstream pipe) the activity in the Fayetteville Shale (Arkansas) and the Haynesville Shale (Louisiana) is pretty intense. There are a couple of active Shale Gas plays in Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, and Utah as well.

If you want to enter this field you need to make sure you get familiar with the jargon. There are a lot of ways to do that. First you need to subscribe to industry magazines (I like Oil & Gas Journal, and Pipeline & Gas Journal, but there are others).

Second, study up on the acronyms. I teach a class on this stuff and had a lot of complaints from students that I used too many acronyms without defining them. This lead me to put together a glossary for the course. I've recently put the course handout on my web page (the link is below, the handout is under "Samples") and the acronym list is the last four pages. I don't know how useful the handouts are without the lecture that fills them out, but you're welcome to the slides as well.

Good luck with this.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

http://www.muleshoe-eng.com

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

"It is always a poor idea to ask your Bridge Club for medical advice or a collection of geek engineers for legal advice"

 

[GregLocock]

You could probably walk into a job in gas in Australia.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

 

[RoyTyrell]

Walking into a VISA that allows you to work in Australia is another matter....

 

[Careful34]

ZDas04: Thanks for the insights and excellent advice! Your website is very impressive, and your sideshow extremely informative. I'll be going through it for quite some time. Thanks for providing it!

 

[zdas04]

I'm glad it is useful, but be careful with it. The audience is people who are assuming responsibilities in CBM, Shale Gas, and Low Pressure Operations and the emphisis is on how to tell if a contract engineer is BS-ing you. Like I say at the start of the class "if you don't know how to build a pipeline at the start of the class, you still won't know how at then end, but you might have a better idea of the scope of work. If you do know how to build a pipeline at the start of the class, you will probably do it better at the end."

The meat of the class is the lecture, the slides are just the roadmap.

Also, I have a few months between "semesters" so I'm refining the talk in response to student comments in the last semester. There will be a new version up by mid-June.

David