Offshore Drilling Job Descriptions > Derrickman

Derrickman Jobs In Oil & Gas Upstream Sector

Derrickman job description

Some of the offshore Derrickman primary responsibilities on oil rig include:

  • assisting Driller to lift and sink (rig up and down) casing and drill pipe, as well as collars as instructed and in timely, diligent, attentive, and responsible manner
  • ensuring that the mud pit, the mud and chemical mixing and the shaker areas are kept tidy, in order, and function as required.
  • during the temporary absence of the Driller, it is the Derrickman iterates who over that position's functions and supervises operations and the deck crew members, roustabouts and roughnecks on the drill floor.
  • checking up pump pressure readings and monitoring sounds produced by pumps in order to be able to detect in time the signs of possible disturbances of functioning.
  • testing mud properties and record the data each next hour
  • Ongoing maintenance of oil drilling equipment and pump
  • Inspecting the Derrick and reporting defects to the Driller. Greasing the derrick crown metal parts
  • Be always ready to call general alert and start the firefighting, should emergency occur. Derrickman is most often very first person finding themselves on the scene

Derrickman job may involve very, at times heavily exhausting manual labor for extended periods of time. It's vital that the candidate feels at ease working at heights close to heated areas and has no problems climbing quickly up and down ladders, pulling drillpipe, has excellent dynamic balance when having to adopt bodily squatting, sitting, bending over and performing other different body movements, plus be very good in both oral communication, should be apt in accurately counting and remembering the figures.

Pre-requisites and qualifications

Pre-requisites for the position of offshore Derrickman can be very different. Therefore let's have a look at who qualifies for this largely unsupervised position on offshore oil rigs, for example, at Nabors. In their recent Derrickman job advertisement Nabors' recruiters asked in part that the candidate should have a record of at least 6 months prior experience working in entry-level Floorman position on any oil rig, operated by the same oilfield servicing and oil drilling company, or the same amount of onsite work doing offshore Derrickman job for another oil drilling contractor. The selected candidate would also be required to complete additional Derrickman training at the expense of the employer. At some oil rigs this position works under the supervision of toolpusher.

It is important that the rig worker in a Derrickman position, whether we speak about land based job or work on offshore platform/drillship, should have sufficient knowledge and understanding of specifics, mud circulating systems, mud weight change, rotary drill equipment servicing, preventing maintenance, and operation procedures, be mechanically skilled, and, if needed, be capable to perform certain repairs on his own

Derrickman salaries

If we look sporadically at a Derrickman position for this segment of workforce employed specifically in the US offshore industry, then, as example, Derrickman Offshore Salary in Houston, TX of $US 69,000 a year in average for last the year's actual Derrickman jobs statistically fluctuates around being 13 per cent higher compared to median offshore Derrickman salaries, including jobs with the similar title and description of the duties and responsibilities from across the USA, nationwide. Derrickman is not an entry-level position on offshore oil rigs. Normally, to be promoted to the vacancy of Derrickman, a candidate must have at least several months of prior experience as Roustabout who, preferably has also worked as a Rope Access Technician in positions like Painter, or as Scaffolder servicing rig superstructure in offshore sector.

Submitting CV and getting employed as Derrickman

Composing your CV the right way is very important. Even if Derrickman is not an entry level, and rather specialized position on oil rig, the HR officers in oil & gas receive hundreds of applications, the majority of which receive in average 10-20 seconds of attention before being rejected. Oil drilling companies don't even give the majority of applicants a chance to inform those charged with making hiring decisions about their valuable skills. So, my advice and the main tip to applicants for Derrickman job seekers: be clear and concise and laconic in the very first paragraphs of your CV. Don't "hide" your list of skills somewhere in the bottom of the page, not say the second page, hurry to impress them before they become bored by reading the next twin resumé.

Working on offshore oil rigs as Derrickman may be dangerous.

More about dangers associated with the job of offshore Derrickman

A major threat to the people working on offshore oil rig and especially someone doing job of Derrickman who is the first to get hit, may be caused by oilfield well blowout. With regards to oil drilling, blowout is an uncontrolled escape of pressurized crude oil reservoir liquids into the wellbore and up to the surface. It's often that the oil doesn't stop there, and brakes into the waters, polluting the ocean surface in a disastrously devastating manner. The blowout contents is comprised from salt water, crude oil, natural gas emanating either in homogeneous fractions or as a mixture of the ingredients in question.

Blowout, often followed by offshore oil platform or movable oil rig going on fire, is what every person doing job on offshore oil facilities is afraid of. Derrickman is the person who has to be always ready to find himself on the fire scene, therefore completing firefighting courses is essential. As confirmed by the statistics, blowouts happen not only in course of drilling for oil, but in all kinds of oil production/exploration operations.

One of the most prominent examples of disasters that might be caused by oil field blowouts should be the notorious Transocean owned Deepwater Horizon MODU explosion in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 that claimed 11 lives and crippled another 16 offshore rig workers. Since then the US government adopted even stricter safety standards of operating oil rigs by offshore deepwater drilling contractors and obligated the oil companies and their contractors to invest major funds into implementing offshore oil drilling safety precaution measures. Oilfield Pipeline Crossover is a solution, designed to prevent oilfield blowout, is oil drilling specific safety device the editor indents to cover soon on the webpages of this site.



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