Education | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Ohio | Statewide OH
75+ Gas and Oil Related Careers in the Marcellus/Utica
A few weeks ago the Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Education Program (OOGEEP) published a new resource for those interested in checking out the many (many!) job opportunities there are working in the oil and gas industry. Not a list of open positions at specific companies, but a list of jobs and careers. Everything from administrative assistant and attorney to welder and workover rig supervisor. But this isn’t just a laundry list of 75+ careers/jobs, it includes a detailed explanation of what each job does, the amount and type of education required, and a list of places (in Ohio, of course) where you can receive training for that type of job. This is an awesome resource!
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The best teachers (people) and the best teacher (method of instruction) have the same thing in common: Hands on. As in tactile, doing stuff, rather than sitting in a chair attempting to learn by information dumping. Particularly with elementary-age kiddies. Cabot Oil & Gas and Southwestern Energy recently sponsored the annual Vehicular Career Day where 400 fifth graders from school districts across Susquehanna County climbed into big rigs, buses, and emergency vehicles. The shale industry was well-represented. Needless to say, the kids loved it.
Houston-based Schlumberger (pronounced Shlum-Bur-Zhay) is the world’s largest oilfield services company. They’re the company a majority of exploration and production companies (drillers) call when they want a new well drilled. The #2 company on speed dial for drilling new wells is Halliburton, and they’re not even close in size to #1 Schlumberger. Here in the U.S., the #3 company on speed dial for drilling is Baker Hughes, still (for now) owned by GE. We mention all that because most folks recognize the names Halliburton and Baker Hughes, yet are often not familiar with the hard-to-pronounce Schlumberger. Even so, Schlumberger has a big presence in the Marcellus/Utica region. In a gesture of “giving back,” the company has just made a VERY generous grant of $14 million of its own proprietary software used for modeling and assessing risk associated with drilling new wells, to Youngstown State University. Most major E&Ps use Schlumberger’s software, even if they don’t use Schlumberger itself to do the actual drilling. While at first glance the gift of software may seem self-serving, it’s not. This gift means that students will be trained on the latest and greatest software that they will need to know, coming right out of college. It helps the kids gain a valuable skill, making them more employable once they hit the workforce…
The Gas Technology Institute (GTI) continues to offer its popular 100% free training program (worth $3,500) for those interested in a career building pipelines in the Marcellus/Utica region. Starting salaries often exceed $40,000 per year, and a six-figure income is attainable for employees with time and experience. Companies supporting the GTI program have told GTI they anticipate hiring 1,100+ workers over the next two years. There’s no excuse! If you want a high-paying job, get the 4-week training and get yourself to work. Because of ongoing construction programs within the utility and pipeline industry, and because of aging workforce retirements, the M-U pipeline industry has an acute need for reliable gas pipeline workers. The next round of free training, limited to 20 students per section, begins on Sept. 24 at Belmont College in St. Clairsville, OH…
The answer to the question posed in our headline for which skills are most valued (and missing) in new employees looking to work at companies involved in the Marcellus/Utica industry may surprise you. Would the answer be, detailed industry knowledge, like knowing what mud logging, wire lines and Christmas tree (wellheads) are? Nope. Employers can teach those things on the job. How about subject-specific skills, like knowing how to weld (if you work in the field), or the difference between debits and credits (if you work in the accounting department)? Obviously if you apply for a welding job, or an accounting job, you’ll need to know something about those specific areas. But no, we’re talking about what kinds of skills ALL new employees should have, regardless of which area they work (in the field or in the office)–skills that so often are missing in new hires. Would you believe those skills are: writing, speaking and time management? Yep, according to a study done by RAND Corporation looking at how employers and colleges in the Marcellus/Utica region are preparing workers for the shale workforce, they found a skills gap in workers who don’t know how to properly write, speak and manage their time effectively…
Atlantic Coast Pipeline, the $6.5 billion Dominion Energy/Duke Energy pipeline from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina has had a few setbacks, but that isn’t stopping construction on the pipeline–in all three states where it runs. On Monday we reported on the latest setback–news that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is refusing to extend tree cutting season for the pipeline (see 
It seems that all new Marcellus/Utica pipelines run through West Virginia, at one point or another. That means there are (and will be) a lot of jobs available for those trained to work on them. The question is, how do you get trained? According to a recent article, there’s two potential pathways to training, and getting a job, in the midstream industry, in WV. One way is to get an associates (two-year) degree in petroleum or welding technology–like the degrees offered by West Virginia Northern Community College (WVNCC). The other way is to get training from a labor union, like the International Union of Operating Engineers…
Shell Chemicals this week announced the donation of a $1 million gift to the Community College of Beaver County (CCBC). The gift will benefit the school’s process technology program and will be used to construct a new Shell Center for Process Technology Education building. CCBC President Chris Reber called it a “transformational gift” and an “extraordinary investment.” The gift will ultimately help train students to work for Shell and other companies that will benefit from Shell’s ethane cracker plant (being built in Beaver County). This isn’t the first huge gift for the process technology program at CCBC. In December, the Allegheny Foundation donated $1 million toward the first phase of the program’s expansion. Shell’s donation will fund the second phase. Aside from the big $1M announcement, Shell also awarded $2,500 (each) scholarships to 13 students in the CCBC process technology program. Shell has really stepped up to the plate in SWPA. They are investing in local talent and local institutions…
On Tuesday, two left-leaning, Harrisburg-based Democrat groups with innocent sounding names–the Keystone Research Center and the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center–introduced what they labeled as “The Pennsylvania Promise” during a presentation in the Capitol Rotunda. We call it “The Pennsylvania Grand Theft.” No doubt inspired by autocrat Andrew Cuomo in the state next door and his “free college tuition” program, the groups want to give away a “free” college education to PA residents who go to a PA state college or university. Of course nothing is free. The program would cost $1 billion a year and would be funded in part by (you guessed it), a Marcellus Shale severance tax. The personal state income tax would also go up in order to help pay for this “free” program. How is this not theft? Transferring money from those who work hard to earn it–to those who don’t. Government theft, plain and simple. We have such a program here in New York State and people are leaving our state in DROVES. Year in and year out NY loses population, particularly in the Upstate region. Socialism, the transference of wealth from those who earn it to those who don’t (or won’t), eventually breaks down when the earners get tired of being shaken down by their government and move away. That’s what will happen in PA if a cockamamie plan like “The Pennsylvania Promise” is adopted…
In November MDN brought you details about a 100% FREE training program for those interested in a career building pipelines in the Marcellus/Utica region (see 
If you are unemployed–particularly if you once worked in the coal industry–and you’re interested in getting your foot in the door of a rewarding job in the Marcellus/Utica industry, LISTEN UP! For those who live in southwestern PA and eastern OH, the Washington Greene County Job Training Agency and the Gas Technology Institute have teamed up to provide a FREE 4-week training program just for you (
An extensive article in the Pittsburgh Business Times calls attention to the developing shortage of qualified construction workers in southwest Pennsylvania. So far the need for workers has been met, but it’s not hard to predict that as Shell ramps up its “vertical construction” (building the buildings to house the cracker) this fall, that shortages will happen–not only for Shell’s project, but for other expansion projects in the area as well. Shell is the anchor. There are dozens (perhaps hundreds) of other businesses that will launch, relocate or expand to take advantage of Shell’s forthcoming supply of cheap plastics. All of those projects will create thousands of jobs in the construction industry. Various colleges and unions have launched training programs to meet the need for electricians, carpenters, iron workers, steamfitters, insulators and sheet metal workers. Question is, will it be enough?…
In 2014, Chevron launched the Appalachia Partnership Initiative (API) with $20 million to fund education (for students) and training (for workers) in STEM–Science, Technology, Engineering and Math across 27 counties in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio (see