How does one get into the oil and natural gas industry? (20yrs in Financial Services)

[dsc]

I'm not sure why the desire to get into a dead-end industry.

Renewable energy sector would be a far wiser move. And whilst the offshore aspect of that industry has a lot of commonality with O&G the rest is just another utility industry.

Middle East is probably still active in O&G, elsewhere it is indeed a dead industry. Renewables are currently growing massively in Europe, although there's signs that it's not a very crazy-money-making industry (in fact companies are loosing money on projects), so I wouldn't be surprised if that also dies at some point unless propped up by govs.

[Lance]

Middle East is probably still active in O&G,

Indeed. But only extraction and processing.

elsewhere it is indeed a dead industry.

Dead end. Not actually dead. It's still running but it will cease over the coming decades. Whilst there is money still to be made it's a shrinking pool of money and the skilled people already exist.

Renewables are currently growing massively in Europe, although there's signs that it's not a very crazy-money-making industry (in fact companies are loosing money on projects), so I wouldn't be surprised if that also dies at some point unless propped up by govs.

It will be propped up if it cannot make money. But I'm not sure that it's loosing (sic) money in reality. A few energy companies went bust that were offering renewable sources but they went bust because of the energy crisis of the last 2 years. Those that generate are doing just fine.

[edison]

In Pharma / O&G site work practices are very specific, same goes for documentation, especially test docs, if you've never dealt with it, you will have a hard time doing it / organising it / planning it and assessing how much time things take. This is why previous experience is needed as I doubt anyone will be happy to explain why a permit to work is required to complete a 15min task when the chap who's responsible is already there on the rig and nothing's been arranged.

I learnt the perils of documentation the hard way in my first stint in pharma. I still remember sitting down with the IT Compliance Manager at the start of my project to go through the list of 80 odd project documents that would be needed during its lifecycle. I found the whole process so energy sapping that after my second stint in pharma I decided not to ever work in the industry again.

Similar experience in FS at a bank. All the compliance and sign off processes took longer than actually implementing the project from start to finish (6 months vs 5 months.) After the Architect on the project had gone through about 25 meetings to discuss the solution design, it's amazing anything ever got done.

[Lance]

I learnt the perils of documentation the hard way in my first stint in pharma. I still remember sitting down with the IT Compliance Manager at the start of my project to go through the list of 80 odd project documents that would be needed during its lifecycle. I found the whole process so energy sapping that after my second stint in pharma I decided not to ever work in the industry again.

Similar experience in FS at a bank. All the compliance and sign off processes took longer than actually implementing the project from start to finish (6 months vs 5 months.) After the Architect on the project had gone through about 25 meetings to discuss the solution design, it's amazing anything ever got done.

documentation is a good thing...
Too many companies, including F&S and pharma, have insufficient, poor, out of date, or just plain inaccurate documentation.

Governance procedures that require documentation before proceeding with a project is good practise.

[alphadog]

I worked in O&G for a number of years. I got into it through a friend who was working in it. I would recommend you do the same, forget about useless certificates, etc. Basically you have to be recommended into it from someone inside, on a project that is desperate for bums on seats. You will probably have to go in at below market rates initially.

As others have said, O&G isn't particularly booming, so it's not an ideal time to sneak in the back door. If you can earn 900pd in FS, assuming that's outside IR35, you're doing very well financially as it is. If you're looking for a low tax jurisdiction, can't you just do FS in the middle east?

Offshore wind was booming over the last few years, but is currently in the process of hitting a brick wall due to inflation and higher financing costs, etc.