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3 Years and half the workers: "Rigs have gotten so much more efficient that the shale industry can use about half as many as it did at the height of the boom i

3 Years and half the workers: "Rigs have gotten so much more efficient that the shale industry can use about half as many as it did at the height of the boom in 2014 to suck the same amount of oil out of the ground." I'm more familiar with mining and it's fairly amazing the productivity improvements that went into that, those jobs are never coming back.

cdibona 10y ago
It is worth pointing out that it is the exploratory, fracturing and 'setting up' of a well that demands the most work and labor. Once they're pumping, you don't need nearly the same amount of help. After the pricing downturn, the number of exploratory/new wells and re-fracturing of old wells declined remarkably, so it's not like they actually 'need' as many people on the oil field. If oil goes back above, say 60$/barrel you'll start seeing more hiring/exploration in ND. Right now they can profitably pump extant wells, but new wells will wait for demand...
- maxerickson 10y ago
  The article is about drilling roles being reduced though, so those future wells will come with less jobs than new wells required just a few years ago (article claims 1/3 to 1/2 of jobs will not be there on new wells).
ancarda 10y ago
>those jobs are never coming back Does it make anyone else sad to hear this? I see posts about robots/AI/etc automating away jobs and I try to be happy about that (who wouldn't want to never have to work again?) but I guess I'm saddened by some perceived loss of interesting opportunities. If I wanted to get my hands dirty or get away from the world for a bit, before robots I could work on an oil rig for a bit. Now, that's not really an option. Does anyone else have this sort of thought pattern? What replaces work you find enjoyable/exciting if it's not something you can do at home or by yourself in a post-AI, post-UBI world?
- hkjgkjy 10y ago
  Yup. The invisible hand is ruthless in that regard.
- arjunnarayan 10y ago
  This probably isn't something that appeals to the Hacker News community in general, but the first thing that comes to mind is large scale art projects, of the sort that take weeks/months to prepare (such as the big Burning Man installations).
  - mattnewton 10y ago
    I agree wholeheartedly, the only trick is getting those workers in a position where they can do such art projects (which are always massive money sinks in my experience)
  - maverick_iceman 10y ago
    Maybe something we can't even imagine at this point? Think about trying to explain animation to people in the late 19th century.
    - abecedarius 10y ago
      Actually that's a pretty fun topic in tech history. You could buy short animations cheaply then, as flipbooks, and there were fancier types: viewed through a spinning cylinder, or projected. There were even 3d animations. See samples on youtube. Checking my memory just now I learned something interesting: the magic lantern was invented by Huygens in the 1600s, and he probably had a simple animation in mind -- he sketched a sequence of Death removing his own head.
- SEJeff 10y ago
  Please do consider reading the entirety of Ian M Banks's Culture Series. It is some fantastic Scifi that literally explores humanity in a post resource scarcity world.
  - 10y ago

cdibona 10y ago

It is worth pointing out that it is the exploratory, fracturing and 'setting up' of a well that demands the most work and labor. Once they're pumping, you don't need nearly the same amount of help. After the pricing downturn, the number of exploratory/new wells and re-fracturing of old wells declined remarkably, so it's not like they actually 'need' as many people on the oil field. If oil goes back above, say 60$/barrel you'll start seeing more hiring/exploration in ND. Right now they can profitably pump extant wells, but new wells will wait for demand...

maxerickson 10y ago
The article is about drilling roles being reduced though, so those future wells will come with less jobs than new wells required just a few years ago (article claims 1/3 to 1/2 of jobs will not be there on new wells).

ancarda 10y ago

>those jobs are never coming back Does it make anyone else sad to hear this? I see posts about robots/AI/etc automating away jobs and I try to be happy about that (who wouldn't want to never have to work again?) but I guess I'm saddened by some perceived loss of interesting opportunities. If I wanted to get my hands dirty or get away from the world for a bit, before robots I could work on an oil rig for a bit. Now, that's not really an option. Does anyone else have this sort of thought pattern? What replaces work you find enjoyable/exciting if it's not something you can do at home or by yourself in a post-AI, post-UBI world?

hkjgkjy 10y ago
Yup. The invisible hand is ruthless in that regard.
arjunnarayan 10y ago
This probably isn't something that appeals to the Hacker News community in general, but the first thing that comes to mind is large scale art projects, of the sort that take weeks/months to prepare (such as the big Burning Man installations).
- mattnewton 10y ago
  I agree wholeheartedly, the only trick is getting those workers in a position where they can do such art projects (which are always massive money sinks in my experience)
- maverick_iceman 10y ago
  Maybe something we can't even imagine at this point? Think about trying to explain animation to people in the late 19th century.
  - abecedarius 10y ago
    Actually that's a pretty fun topic in tech history. You could buy short animations cheaply then, as flipbooks, and there were fancier types: viewed through a spinning cylinder, or projected. There were even 3d animations. See samples on youtube. Checking my memory just now I learned something interesting: the magic lantern was invented by Huygens in the 1600s, and he probably had a simple animation in mind -- he sketched a sequence of Death removing his own head.
SEJeff 10y ago
Please do consider reading the entirety of Ian M Banks's Culture Series. It is some fantastic Scifi that literally explores humanity in a post resource scarcity world.
- 10y ago