Ever since the discovery that oil can be used to generate large amounts of energy, the oil industry has been a giant entity, providing the world with the oil needed to power everything from your bedside lamp to your car. The companies in this multi-trillion dollar industry are all extremely large, due to the sheer amount of equipment and resources needed to tap oil reserves deep beneath the surface of the earth. As such, each oil company hires huge numbers of workers, providing many thousands of oil & gas jobs. If you are looking for oil jobs in the industry, then you first need to know the different types of oil & gas jobs available.



The main categories of oil jobs can be broadly categorized into the laborers, technical professionals, geosciences professionals, and logistics. Laborers are considered the entry-level class of oil jobs, and these jobs generally do not require very much in the way of academic qualifications. Laborers? tasks typically involve physical labor, and training is given on-site for whatever job needs doing.

Oil & gas jobs as technical professionals include the operators, technicians, and engineers that together keep all of the equipment and machinery required to run a petroleum company in working order. Operators specialize in controlling the machinery and equipment needed for the day-to-day operations of a petroleum operation. Technicians are mainly involved in the installation and maintenance of these pieces of equipment. And finally engineers are responsible for designing and building the various pieces of equipment that allow petroleum companies to extract the oil from deep below the surface of the earth and transport it to the refineries and on to consumers.

The jobs of the geosciences professionals form a relatively small part of the available oil jobs, but without them petroleum companies would cease to function. Geosciences professionals are responsible for surveying the sites where oil extraction is to take place, and determine if the site is suitable for the heavy drilling and other processes required to bring oil up to the surface. The oil & gas careers in this sector are mentally challenging, and require relatively high academic qualifications. Geosciences professionals can also expect to travel frequently all over the world, as even petroleum companies cannot afford to hire that many of them, so each geosciences professional is expected to shuttle back and forth from one drill site to another.

Finally, there are the oil jobs in the logistics sector. These are the oil & gas careers that keep everything going on in petroleum companies linked up and working together. Without logistics, there would be no way to transport workers to and from worksites, no way to ferry equipment about, and no way to accomplish the hundreds of thousands of other tasks that are necessary to keep the day-to-day operations of a petroleum company going.

Now that you have a general idea of the types of oil jobs available in the petroleum industry, you can better decide if any of them might possibly suit you, and whether you wish to send in your resume and apply for one of these oil & gas careers.