The Great Crew Change: NPR Takes a Look at The Skills Gap Facing Offshore Oil Industry

On today’s Anniversary of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, NPR has an interesting story looking at a staffing problem facing the offshore oil and gas industry known as “the Great Crew Change”.  As offshore oil workers begin to age and technology increasingly develops, is the offshore oil and gas industry is facing a skills gap that could leave the industry with a lack of qualified workers?

And just as demand for more experienced workers is rising, their numbers are declining. A survey by Schlumberger Business Consulting finds that 22,000 experienced geoscientists and engineers will leave the field by 2015.

“When the Deepwater Horizon exploded, no one in the BP engineering team had been on the job for more than six months.”

– John Konrad, author, ‘Fire on the Horizon: The Untold Story of the Gulf Oil Disaster’ (not to mention editor of gCaptain)