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Thanks for answering my other question about Fort Mac, good to see that they're making a move towards cleaning up the town. Another question - how are the opportunities out there for safety specialists? I work in H&S in Ontario and I've always flirted with the idea of moving out west and making way more than I do here. What does the job look like out there? Any oil-specific challenges that may not be present in other sectors?
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Apr 3, 2015 01:28
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Why on earth are they cranking out 1000 new 4th class PE's every season!?! I hosed up and took NAITs CML 4th class program because I didn't want to quit my job. I've been working on a drilling rig for the last 2 years and I had a great crew and was making great money but I knew my body couldn't handle it forever. I was offered a SAGD field operations job in Foster Creek for Cenovus in December just as the rig I was working on was drilling the last well of its contract. Two day before I made the trip to Calgary to sign my letter of acceptance Cenovus activated their hiring freeze and the job went goodbye. I managed to get on a triple for a couple more months, then found a cushy agriculture job in the south of the province for spring breakup, so all is well. Is a 4th class ever going to be viable again? I have my provincial exams completed but no steam time ( like everyone else). I'm thinking about pulling the plug on a PE career and studying NDT this fall, I just don't want to make the same mistake twice. The first time I ever worked in The Mac I saw a purple ferrarri with a lift kit and mud tires crossing that lovely old bridge across the Athabasca on the 63 before the new one was built. It was surreal. Edit: I also worked as a Frac Operator for a year and I'm a born and raised Albertan, so I guess I've done all the bad things. Sadmantongue fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Apr 3, 2015 |
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Apr 3, 2015 17:18
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jot posted:Thanks for answering my other question about Fort Mac, good to see that they're making a move towards cleaning up the town. Safety is a REALLY big deal in the oil sands. I knew a former RCMP officer who came up here to do safety and was making huge money, but I don't know much about how you'd get into that kind of position or what qualifications they look for. I think he started his own company where him and his wife were the only employees and contracted themselves out, so it's a bit different than if you were employed directly by a company. A safety officer in the oil sands basically tours the different units and finds safety issues to bring to the attention of the company, make operators aware, etc. Conversely, safety issues that employees have can be brought to the attention of the safety officer. They also conduct permit audits. A safe work permit is basically a document that an operator fills out to authorize almost any kind of work being done in their area. A safety officer will review permits to ensure the operator was accurate in filling them out and that work being done is done in accordance with the permit. I don't know what current opportunities are like with oil prices being the way they are, but it is a possible career path. Sadmantongue posted:Why on earth are they cranking out 1000 new 4th class PE's every season!?! Simple answer: Everybody wants their fingers in the oil pot. Schools included. Power engineering is a relatively quick way to make good money, requiring a year minimum to get a 4th class ticket and a job whereas to be a journeyman tradesperson is four years. As a result, colleges are marketing the poo poo out of power and process courses and people are buying into it. This has caused a flood of certified people with no job experience all competing for jobs. Along with it, it's making it difficult to find places to offer steam time, let alone paid steam time. That's why programs like Keyano College exist. Now, allegedly Keyano's PE program is pretty lovely. It rushes students out into the field in four months, its coursework is basically textbook regurgitation, and it's stupidly expensive. Tuition and textbooks are about $7000 a year and it's a two year program. However, if you qualify for a co-op term it gets you very well paid on-site experience and guaranteed steam time unless you mess up and get fired or something, and you end with a 3rd Class ticket. However, due to no actual training done by the schools, the students I've had to deal with are a mixed bag. Some are well suited to the job, others are weak but have an aptitude and desire to learn and better themselves, and some are useless if not outright incompetent. Unfortunately, I don't think 4th class will ever be viable for oil sands again. Most companies are tightening their standards and only want 3rd classes, regardless if it's legally required or not. Without even a full 4th your chances are very, very grim for O&G. Some schools offer institutionalized steam time. If you want to continue on this path your best bet going forward would be to get your steam time through NAIT or SAIT, because I'm fairly sure they offer it at one of those places. I don't know if it's something you can do part-time however. If you want to work your way up here after getting a full 4th you'd have a couple of options 1) Find a job that offers third class time and work on your papers. Remember, we can work in many different industries. It might not be that hard to find. I've never had to do it so I can't vouch for how easy that would be. 2) Work on your papers anyways and hope somebody will hire you knowing they're all done. As far as I know Alberta is the only province in the country that allows completion of B papers before appropriate steam time. Before the rule change you had to have all required steam time before being allowed to challenge B papers. This is no longer the case. Papers are a big bottle neck for many people, so having them all done shows an employer that you're serious, and that in a year they'll have a third class anyways. I've seen a LOT of job ads seeking for "3rd class but will consider 4th with significant progress towards 3rd" 3) Enroll in Keyano College's third class program. It's expensive, but you will only be without work for a few months and the rest of your steam time is paid. I hear students gross anywhere from $45-60k in a six-month co-op term depending on which company they end up with, if they ever get overtime, and however many stat holidays happen to fall in their co-op term (we get paid triple time to work stats here). However, this is also a gamble because you aren't guaranteed a co-op, and you may be denied one for reasons beyond your control.
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Apr 4, 2015 08:15
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