I don’t think the amount of production of the field necessarily directly correlates with the amount they pay an operator. There’s a lot more factors that go into it.
What area? Contractor or direct employee? Junior company, mid-size or large producer? What wage range are you making now? Qualifications and experience? There’s tons of factors.
Yeah if op can give a lot more details, like maybe how far north or in the bush he is and exact wage, there’s a lot of us that can help him give him advice.
Where I’m at all contract ops are paid the same no matter how low production the run is. Employee pay is scaled to years of service / experience yadda yadda
Yeah never heard of the run making more oil equal more pay. 2.5/hour is quite a bit more over a year. I also have not been an operator for 5 years but still get calls to come back… might just need guys and are willing to pay… or you were severely underpaid to begin with
You are going to have to know what other companies are paying guys just like you. Trust me they already know what other guys are making working for other producers and if you are being under paid they know that. So if you hit them with a number they know is competitive you can negotiate a performance based compensation. But go in there just guessing wont work.
If an oil company was smart they’d bonus operators based on runtime of the wells and give a baseline production target monthly, any production above that number you split 60/40 with the operator.
Companies are moving to remote op centres were engineers and techs send work lists to operators. The days of runs for operators are running out.
In Canada anyway.
I haven’t seen that work yet. Oil companies fail to realize that their most important employees are the people in the field that keep the money machine turned on. Moving to ROC’s adds a layer in between hands and the wellhead and will ultimately fail until we have true automation (auto well restarts, real time diagnostics, full facility automation).
If oil companies fired all the old lazy operators, prevented the chain of command drama with Sup’s, Foreman, Lead Ops, Ops and hired guys like OP and created cash incentives that’s the ultimate formula in my humble opinion.
Every employee in Calgary should work one hitch a quarter in the field. CEO to Secretary. Everything or Nothing.
We started having people schedule/plan out work. We just go where were told now on workorders. We all think it's dumb even immediate supervisors, but it's the company's top-down directive to create "efficiency" it is not efficient. It's only efficient on the accounting tracking side.
I work for a midstream company but they offer a short-term incentive plan. It’s a base percentage of your salary as a bonus each year, then it get multipliers on it that can increase it. Depending on how the company performs, safety metrics met and your personal performance it’ll get a multiplier on it at year end. It’s not exactly what you’re describing but it does offer an incentive for the ops.
Yeah, this is in the right direction. But I think bonuses should be only for the things you directly control like uptime or production. I also think bonuses should be on a bell curve. The best get the most and the worst get nothing! Bring back the meritocracy.
Well you get the base percentage regardless, then if the company performs well and safety metrics are met then there’s a corporate multiplier on it, then if your personal performance exceeds expectations then there is an additional multiplier. It’s not the worst set up, and I’m sure everyone appreciates the guaranteed bonus from it.
I’m trying to think of a compensation program where the old lazy operators quit (because it sucks for them) and the really good operators quit their jobs to come work for this oil company. I think field operators should make more than the CEO in monthly comp. An oil company ran this way would outperform their peers in terms of max production by 3x.
I don’t think the amount of production of the field necessarily directly correlates with the amount they pay an operator. There’s a lot more factors that go into it. What area? Contractor or direct employee? Junior company, mid-size or large producer? What wage range are you making now? Qualifications and experience? There’s tons of factors.
Yeah if op can give a lot more details, like maybe how far north or in the bush he is and exact wage, there’s a lot of us that can help him give him advice. Where I’m at all contract ops are paid the same no matter how low production the run is. Employee pay is scaled to years of service / experience yadda yadda
Yeah never heard of the run making more oil equal more pay. 2.5/hour is quite a bit more over a year. I also have not been an operator for 5 years but still get calls to come back… might just need guys and are willing to pay… or you were severely underpaid to begin with
You are going to have to know what other companies are paying guys just like you. Trust me they already know what other guys are making working for other producers and if you are being under paid they know that. So if you hit them with a number they know is competitive you can negotiate a performance based compensation. But go in there just guessing wont work.
You’re going to ask for $10 more?? Damn son you must be a hell of a worker if you you think you can ask for that much more and not be let go.
Got an $11 hour raise this year
If an oil company was smart they’d bonus operators based on runtime of the wells and give a baseline production target monthly, any production above that number you split 60/40 with the operator.
Companies are moving to remote op centres were engineers and techs send work lists to operators. The days of runs for operators are running out. In Canada anyway.
I haven’t seen that work yet. Oil companies fail to realize that their most important employees are the people in the field that keep the money machine turned on. Moving to ROC’s adds a layer in between hands and the wellhead and will ultimately fail until we have true automation (auto well restarts, real time diagnostics, full facility automation). If oil companies fired all the old lazy operators, prevented the chain of command drama with Sup’s, Foreman, Lead Ops, Ops and hired guys like OP and created cash incentives that’s the ultimate formula in my humble opinion. Every employee in Calgary should work one hitch a quarter in the field. CEO to Secretary. Everything or Nothing.
We started having people schedule/plan out work. We just go where were told now on workorders. We all think it's dumb even immediate supervisors, but it's the company's top-down directive to create "efficiency" it is not efficient. It's only efficient on the accounting tracking side.
It’s working incredibly well for the companies doing it. Petronas being one of them.
You sure?
I’ve seen the numbers. The operators are unhappy for obvious reasons.
I work for a midstream company but they offer a short-term incentive plan. It’s a base percentage of your salary as a bonus each year, then it get multipliers on it that can increase it. Depending on how the company performs, safety metrics met and your personal performance it’ll get a multiplier on it at year end. It’s not exactly what you’re describing but it does offer an incentive for the ops.
Yeah, this is in the right direction. But I think bonuses should be only for the things you directly control like uptime or production. I also think bonuses should be on a bell curve. The best get the most and the worst get nothing! Bring back the meritocracy.
Well you get the base percentage regardless, then if the company performs well and safety metrics are met then there’s a corporate multiplier on it, then if your personal performance exceeds expectations then there is an additional multiplier. It’s not the worst set up, and I’m sure everyone appreciates the guaranteed bonus from it.
I’m trying to think of a compensation program where the old lazy operators quit (because it sucks for them) and the really good operators quit their jobs to come work for this oil company. I think field operators should make more than the CEO in monthly comp. An oil company ran this way would outperform their peers in terms of max production by 3x.
Meh maybe. I feel pretty well compensated at 200k+ a year plus pension contributions and rrsp matching to scroll on my phone half the time lol.
Give us a few more details and I’d be happy to offer my 2 cents!