Angry Jew Cat - Banned for Life

$1k/day in the oil industry IS NOT COMMON. Do not kid yourself. That is tool push/consultant wage. Most drilling rigs' Tool Push (The highest level you can reach on the crew) will make right around $1k/day. Some consultants, take for instance directional drilling hands or geologic consultants will make in that area. Some trucks who have invested into their own units will make up in this range too, but now you're looking at guys who have invested as much a a half million dollars into their own equipment which is contracted directly through the drilling companies. SOme B-pressure weldersearn in this range, but you're talking the best of the best when it comes to welding.

Step down from that and the next highest paid people you will run into are the Vac/Water truck drivers, the better field welders, rig move truckers and such. These guys will make anywhere from $400-600/day depending on the company they're working for if they are living in camp. The driller on a rig will earn this area too, he's number 2 in command.

Your average oil field worker will make between $200-350/day after living allowance is added in. Doesn't matter what positin they are in. This covers roughnecks/leasies, camp workers, the bandaids, well operators, and so forth.

Below this you'll find a lot more guys in the $150/day area. THis is where you'll find a lot of low level laborers working on service rigs, lease building, seismic jughounds, pipeline workers and stuff.

The best paid jobs are still on the drilling rigs though. This is where you find $1000/day jobs, and they are NOT dumbfuck labor jobs. You either need a high level of schooling to come in from the consultancy side, or 40 years of hardened drilling experience to work your way up to Tool Push, which ironically, doesn't push a single god damn tool at all.

I grew up in Alberta, dead center in Canada's richest oil fields. Every 18 year odl kid who graduates and doesn't go straight to college runs straight into the oil field, because your average high school graduate can go straight into a $6k/month job with zero work experience. This is where they get trapped with no education when the oil business is good. The oil business does NOT stay good though, and when it goes down, everyone is out of a job. People go broke and don't know what the fuck to do with themselves. They've saddled themselves with huge debts buying all the fanciest toys they can, and they they are debt slaves. I can't twll you how many friends I had 5 years ago with $350k houses, $60k new trucks, $10k on a new quad. $15/k on a new sled. $3000 worth the payments a month, who suddenly had no job, no income, no fuck all, because the oilfield took a giant dive in the market. Now what do you do with yourself?

I worked one winter swamping on a self contained semi-vac unit cleaning sand from oil tanks. and made around $200/day. It was an alright job, long hours, worked every single day. Not overly dangerous but still had it's rough spots. I slipped on a slick lease carrying a stinger amr and ruptured a disc in my lower back.

This is why oilfield workers get paid so well. Injury is lurking around every corner. The second factor for the high pay is isolation. The following winter I worked in the North American Oil Sands Corporation's Leismer field as a roughneck on a double rig. In that 5 month period I lived in a small work camp which was basically like a small comfortable prison. I took a steam burn over half my face, nearly broke my leg, pinched and slammed my arms and hands several times. One night during a cementing a safety line blew out on the pump line, it kicked to the side and took me out and the legs as I walked up the stairs to the drilling deck. It knocked me clear off the deck and about 15-20 feet to the ground below.

You also need to realize that most oil field jobs only go for a few months of the year. You make fat cash for 3-4 months, and then sit on unemployment checks the rest of the year, which isn't exactly ballin. Most riggers are shit broke within 2 months of spring breakup. You want to see a raging coke party? GO to any small town prairie bar right after breakup hits. All the raging riggers are free to run wild with $50k bankrolls.
I'd seen guys entire body's burnt by steaming hot muskeg they've sank into below steam lines. One day I was in the camp cafeteria and saw a guy come in with his face literally burned off. His mixed burped and shot a fresh load of caustic soda into his face. Many of my old friends work on the rigs, many of the don't have all their fingers left. If you asked me to list all the people I know who are missing limbs from working in the poilfield, I couldn't count them all on my fingers and toes, and I would forget half of them.

You never stop for the weather either. If it is -52 degrees celsius, the wind is blowing 80km/hour in the dark on your graveyard shift, and you're frozen, covered in mud from head to toe. TOUGH FUCKING LUCK. Drill baby drill. This is why you are well paid to drill for oil, and this is why people shit their pants when they fill up at the pump.

The pay rate may sound glamorous to some, but it's not all it is cracked up to be, and it ruins many many people in the process.