When we hear the words “construction industry”, most of us immediately think about commercial and residential construction companies and processes. Although these two areas are prevalent, the industry isn’t limited to them, instead, there are other fields, including oilfield construction.
However, if you haven’t heard about oilfield construction before, you might want to learn more about it. Luckily for all individuals that are in the same situation, our article can help! Here are the top ten interesting things that you should know about oilfield construction:
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1. There Are Over 30.000 Employees in The Field
If you did some research, you most likely know that there are over half a million workers in the entire oil & gas industry. However, did you know that over 30.000 of them work in oilfield construction and extraction? Yup, that is approximately 6 percent of all workers in the industry, and the numbers have been increasing over the last couple of years, meaning that the field is becoming increasingly popular.
2. The Workers Perform Various Tasks
Besides physical labor, the workers in the field also specialize in building well foundations, setting rigs, and they also ensure that the pipelines are welded properly. In most cases, they’ll use a wide range of tools and drilling equipment, as well as industrial machinery and chemical equipment operators. Because of this, the job is considered quite dangerous, which leads us to the next fact in this article…
3. Workers Face Occupational Hazards
Since there are various tools, vehicles, machines, and equipment used in this particular industry, it’s considered a dangerous job, mostly because workers face different occupational hazards. In fact, injuries can happen all over their bodies, including the arms, legs, eyes, as well as head. There are hazards in all segments – upstream, midstream, downstream, as well as the equipment and services segment.
4. It Takes a Lot of Time to Prepare a Specific Site
As you might have guessed, a big part of the oilfield construction industry involves getting oil from the ground to the surface, which is done by drilling a hole into the earth to create a well where the oil can pass. However, since it involves drilling into the ground, the workers have to be extremely careful, which is especially true when using heavy machineries such as bulldozers and drilling machines. Why do they need to be careful?
Well, it’s simple to understand – they need to be aware of specific safety hazards. For starters, they must be aware of the traffic surrounding the area, as well as the workers on site. Second, they must ensure that they don’t hit any pipes or cables under the ground, mostly because they can be toxic and/or flammable. Also, the weather can influence the terrain, thus, they must carefully determine when they’ll begin preparing the site.
5. There Are Firms That Offer Drilling Services
It would cost a lot of money for an organization to purchase all the equipment, machines, and tools need to set up an oil well, which is why a lot of organizations opt for hiring firms such as mcel.ca that offer oilfield services. Such organizations will help with setting, manufacturing, repairing, as well as maintaining the equipment used in the extraction process, meaning that a particular company can save a lot of capital.
6. The Oil Wells Must Be Monitored Before Extraction Takes Place
After the crew is done preparing the site for the extraction process, the drilling process begins. It’ll involve the gathering of oil in a few wells, however, the oil cannot be extracted right away, instead, all of them have to first be monitored. By closely monitoring the equipment, and, of course, wells, workers can make sure that the well is stable, thus, they can prevent some serious incidents from occurring on the site.
7. It Can Be Challenging to Set a Well in Remote Areas
You might not know this, but oilfields can be set up in remote locations, hundreds of miles from where people reside. They can even be set up in oceans and deserts, which can sometimes be quite challenging. Why? Well, the entire process, machines, equipment, and tools will require electricity to operate, and when it’s located in a remote location, getting electricity can, at times, be extremely daunting and challenging.
8. The Equipment Rental Market is Growing Quickly
If you take a look at some statistics, you’ll see that the oilfield machine and equipment rental market has grown quite a lot in the last several years. In fact, from 2017 to 2024, it grew from 17 billion to 20 billion dollars, which is quite a lot. This most likely occurred due to the demand increasing, as well as investments in exploration and production of oil. The industry is expected to grow even further in the future.
9. Technology is Beneficial For Oilfield Construction
Just like all other industries, the oilfield construction industry makes use of all the technological innovations happening in the world. Besides implementing cloud computing services that can help them view, add, and edit data, they have also started using ultrasonic technology that has helped with automation, and analytics, as well as improving their overall operational processes and saving companies a lot of funds.
10. Oilfield Companies Are Becoming Greener And More Eco-Friendly
As the entire world is striving to be greener, oil construction companies are trying to do the same. One of the main things that they’re currently focusing on is recycling water, which means that they’re trying to reduce the usage of fresh water by recycling and using water. Besides this, they’re also focusing on improving filtration and oxidation methods, which have proven to be quite beneficial to our environment.
Conclusion
No matter why you wanted to know more about the oilfield construction industry, it’s pretty clear that it has been expanding and growing in the last couple of years and there is no denying – the investment is only expected to grow in the future, meaning that the oil exploration field might become a leading industry relatively soon.
Since you now know some interesting facts about this field, you shouldn’t lose any more of your time. Instead, you should know that there are a lot more interesting things to learn about oilfield construction, thus, you might want to start reading about the different machines and tools used.