GeoJob & Energy Statistics

In an attempt to consolidate information relevant to employment in the oil and gas industry, the Personnel Placement Committee has gathered data from various sources and compiled it for the benefit of the HGS members and the geoscience community, in general. We have included all of the available monthly data (1973, to the most recent) from the following sources (in order of appearance): (1) Historical data from the HGS GeoJob Bank pages, (2) U.S. Department of Labor - Bureau of Labor Statistics, (3) American Assoc. of Petroleum Geologists - Membership Info, (4) MLA Resources, (5) U.S. Department of Energy - Energy Information Administration, (6) Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis - Economic Research, and (7) Baker Hughes - US Rig Count.

Historical Monthly Totals for GeoJob Bank Ads

(N/A=Not Available, * 1996 began in September, ** Incomplete)

Historical Monthly Totals for GeoJob Bank Website "Hits"

(N/A=Not Available, * 2000 began in May, ** Incomplete)

A graph of job ads (plotted in red) of the HGS GeoJob Bank website, partially illustrates the cyclical nature of employment in the energy industry since September 1996, when the website began. With a slight time-lag, the website "hits" data (plotted in blue), which is limited to the available data from May 2000, mimics the trend of job ads. View Adobe Acrobat Reader (pdf) file.

For the eight complete years of monthly GeoJob Bank Ads, a couple of interesting items are worth noting in this graph: (1) The second and third quarters of the year had more ads than the first and fourth quarters. (2) October had the highest monthly ad total in three out of eight years (October of 1996 was also a high month, for the records for that year). View Adobe Acrobat Reader (pdf) file.

NEW!! A new analysis of the GeoJob ads that were submitted HGS GeoJob Bank website, during 2003 shows: Figure 1. "Job Category Breakdown" (pdf file), Figure 2. "Minimum Experience Levels" (pdf file), and Figure 3. "Job Status Category, Minumum Education Requirements, and Job Location Category" (pdf file).

See last years' articles, published in the HGS Bulletin, "Geoscience Jobs 2002: Who, What, and Where? Part One" (pdf file), and "Geoscience Jobs 2002: Who, What, and Where? Part Two" (pdf file), for an explanation of the categories, and to review the year-to-year changes.

A new database of mining industry employment data (which includes petroleum extraction and production) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, indicates that about 1.18 million people were employed during the hiring peak in the early 80's (blue plot below).. However, as recently as April 2003, only about 42% of this 1.18 million (about 499,000 people), were employed in the industry -- the results of several periods of massive layoffs.. During the worst period of layoffs in 1983, the unemployment rate rose to a maximum of 20.7% (black line plot).. As recently as January 2003, the unemployment rate had risen to a level of 9.0%, but fortunately, has been on a downward trend since then.. Also, on the orange plot below, we can see that the number of ads from the HGS GeoJob Bank website, generally coincides with the fluctuations seen in the blue plot, for the same time period. View Adobe Acrobat Reader (pdf) file.

The bar chart below, of the estimated number of geoscience graduates, derived from the age information of the membership of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG), illustrates the "graying" of the oil industry (over 36% of the members are between 41 and 50 years of age, as seen on the blue segment on the embedded pie chart).. The peak years for graduates were during the period of 1974-1978, which had a high of just over 5900 current members.. However, for all periods since 1984, the number of graduates with AAPG memberships have been less than 50% of this maximum--fortunately, for about the last 10 years, the number of graduates seems to be relatively stable at just over 1700 members. Hopefully, the period of 2004+ (graduating during the year 2004, or later) isn't representative because many current undergraduates probably haven't decided to join the AAPG yet.. View Adobe Acrobat Reader (pdf) file.

The latest salary figures for 2003, recently published in the AAPG "Explorer" (April 2004 issue) indicates that only one category (0-2 years experience level) increased slightly. All of the other salary categories decreased, or were flat, from the 2002 figures.

This result could either be due to the combined influences of the economic and political uncertainties during 2003, or to a trend, in some companies, to award performance-related bonuses, or other non-salary benefits (which are not included in this salary survey), in place of higher base salaries. The former, could most likely be the case however, since there was an indication of a decrease in hiring last year, revealed by a relatively high unemployment rate (6.8-9%) during the first half of the year, which was a consequence of continuing layoffs in the mining sector (which includes the oil industry). There was also a slight, corresponding decrease in the number of available positions submitted to the HGS GeoJob Bank during the year. Surprisingly, product prices had less apparent effect, as is normally the case, since they remained relatively high throughout the year. View Adobe Acrobat Reader (pdf) file.

A plot of the monthly oil and gas prices (green and red graphs, respectively) indicate the extreme fluctuations since the late 70's--between $8.03 and $46.26/Barrel for oil and between $0.54 and $8.06/Mcf for natural gas. Note that the trend for HGS GeoJob Bank ads in the graph above (orange data) are similar to the oil price fluctuations in this graph, during the same time period. View Adobe Acrobat Reader (pdf) file.

The Seismic Crew Count (orange graph) peaked at 744, on September 1981--about six months behind the peak oil prices (green graph above). Three months after that, the Active Drilling Rigs also peaked (4521 rigs on blue graph below). Nearly five years later, following the oil price collapse during the mid 80's, the market for drilling rigs and seismic crews nose-dived, along with the drastic reduction in employment within the oil industry (see Mining Employees graph, above). The first half of 1986 saw nearly a 65% reduction in the number of Active Drilling Rigs. Unfortunately, despite several subsequent oil price peaks during the past 15 years, neither the Seismic Crew Count, nor Active Drilling Rigs has ever significantly recovered--currently at a level of about 7% and 27%,respectively, of the number that was active during the "boom days", in 1981! View Adobe Acrobat Reader (pdf) file.

The interrelationship between oil prices, number of drilling rigs, and mining employees can be seen more clearly in this combined plot. The price of oil (green plot) is the leading indicator, followed by the drilling rig count (black plot), seven to nine months later. This is then followed by the number of mining employees (red plot), one to three months later. View Adobe Acrobat Reader (pdf) file.

This plot indicates a disturbing, long-term trend for the U.S., towards an increasing dependence on imported oil to meet our current consumption levels of nearly 21 million barrels per day (or nearly 882 million gallons)--more than it's ever been. Put another way, we currently consume over two decent-sized, domestic oil fields per day!!

While consumption (purple graph) has been steadily increasing, since a low in the early 80's, domestic production (blue graph) has been declining since the mid 80's. Since then, we have been importing an increasing amount of crude oil, as evidenced by the diverging trends. For many years now, well over 50% of our total domestic consumption, have come from foreign sources. View Adobe Acrobat Reader (pdf) file.

Ranking the oil reserves of the top 25 countries illustrates the vast difference between first-ranked Saudi Arabia and eleventh-ranked U.S.--we have slightly more than 8% of Saudi Arabia's total reserves (we do a little better in the category of natural gas reserves however, ranking 6th in the world). Another sobering statistic derived from this data, is that five of the top six ranked countries (OPEC members Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Iran and the United Arab Emirates) currently control nearly 55% of the world's oil reserves (the entire group of OPEC countries control over 69%!!). These top five OPEC countries are all within a few hundred miles of each other--the four largest, share common borders. Iraq and Iran, which are potentially the most unstable of the middle-eastern OPEC countries, control almost one-fifth of the world's oil reserves!!

A bright spot in the world reserve data, is that Canada's oil reserves, at nearly 179 BBO (billion barrels of oil), still ranks at second place in world oil reserves (the Oil & Gas Journal indicates that this reflects the inclusion of Alberta's oil sands, which are recoverable using current technology). Also this year, the ranking of the United States' oil reserves is still at 11th place, dropping slightly to 21.9 BBO, while it's natural gas reserves rank at sixth place, increased slightly to 189.0 TCF (trillion cubic feet). The world's total oil reserves increased overall to 1,277.7 BBO, as well as natural gas reserves at 6,040.2 TCF. View Adobe Acrobat Reader (pdf) file.

For questions or comments, contact W. Michael "Mike" Cline, of T/X Resources and Chair of the HGS Personnel Placement Committee.

HGS and T/X Resources make no warranties about the accuracy of the information presented in this page. Copyright 1996-2005, Houston Geological Society.