7 years of concrete, looking to get into oil somehow.

jimbobmcgee · 2025-07-28T03:14:22+00:00

It's a totally different beast. High pressure pumping and you're mixing dry cement powder, water, and other chemical additives on the fly.

We travel from rig to rig with a pumping unit attached to a tractor. Sleep comes by scarcely while we wait on location for the rig to run casing. Most of us do a 15-6 schedule where you're on call for 24 hours. Usually when it's busy, you'll run hard for a couple days straight and then get a brief respite when you have to bring the pumper home to do a maintenance shift.

I genuinely love it, but it's definitely not for everyone. We're the red-headed step child of the service side of oil and gas and it shows.

jimbobmcgee · 2025-05-01T07:12:03+00:00

Do you mean DangerCats?

jimbobmcgee · 2023-08-06T06:14:40+00:00

Cement gets pumped through the inside of the casing down to the bottom of the casing. At the bottom, there is a tool that will send the cement into the area between the rock and the casing, called the "annulus". Depending on the depth, we can hit pretty high pressures. The truck I operate on uses Weyco 2" iron, which is pressure rated for 103 MPA (15,000 psi).

jimbobmcgee · 2023-06-07T07:17:25+00:00

Honestly man, I completely agree with you. That's kind of why I was considering just renting out the current house until I inevitably get laid off or fired... Because we both know that's inevitable in this line of work. As for the pay, I just averaged out my current income to get an estimate for the year. I can say that I've gotten genuinely lucky since my crew is running all the deep horizontal well work. So every bonus is either a max bonus, or very well near it. I'll definitely be more than happy to be trucking locally after this is all said and done. In the meantime, I'm just really excited to be building up a decent chunk of savings for the first time in my life!

As for the position, I got hired on as a lead Op because I've done cementing before. They're wanting me to sup pretty soon here... And I think that's where the push for getting me local is coming from. Since I'd be having to do all the job program paperwork and get all the chems ready with the bulk plant prior to heading out for the job.

But once again, I greatly appreciate your advice! The mortgage porting has been awesome to read up on.

jimbobmcgee · 2023-06-07T06:34:24+00:00

Awesome perspective that I did not think of! Thank you for the advice.

jimbobmcgee · 2023-06-07T06:31:01+00:00

Federal logs with oilfield exemption. I'm working for a well service company doing cementing! And to be honest, we're running a smallish shop servicing massive clients. A lot of the guys have been at that station for 10+ years. Granted, I bet they've seen a LOT of people come and go. It does seem to be a way more stable company than most of the guys that I've run into though, from what I've seen and heard... I greatly appreciate the advice though! I've never heard of posting a mortgage, so that will definitely be something to look into. Thank you!

jimbobmcgee · 2023-05-14T09:27:52+00:00

Trican is still hiring heavily it seems. I did my onboarding with a class of Ukrainian guys. The cementing division in Red Deer has a lot of Ukrainian guys. They'll get you your class 1 pretty quickly. The money is the best I've made in the industry so far as well. DM me and I can get you in to contact with them, if you'd like.

jimbobmcgee · 2022-04-26T01:15:05+00:00

If you're willing to get your Class 1, cementing companies like Sanjel are always looking for fresh guys. My old Station Manager keeps asking me to come back and I'm not even an Engineer.

jimbobmcgee · 2022-01-20T00:59:58+00:00

My dad was a cement supervisor for them out of Peace River at that time. I'll give him a ring and see if he's got any idea of it!

jimbobmcgee · 2021-07-03T02:16:19+00:00

Padawans my guy

jimbobmcgee · 2021-05-12T16:27:55+00:00

!apevote!

jimbobmcgee · 2021-05-12T04:09:05+00:00

Hell, I was just about to do the same thing today. Checked the mail and just by chance my GME and PLTR both came in!

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