What Does An Oilfield Pumper Or Gauger Do?

Whether an oil or gas well is on land or is offshore it does not just make oil day after day without someone taking care of it, replacing parts on pumpjacks, checking tanks, repairing gas and oil separators, etc. The person that does this job is known as a production employee or pumper or gauger in the oilfield.

On land his job is 24 / 7 for as long as he works, if he is an independent contractor. Problems on a well location such as leaks, oil that needs to be called in to be hauled, broken pumpjacks, gas compressors that won't work etc, must be fixed immediately or the oil company will be losing up to thousands of dollars per hour.

Company pumpers, who are issued a company vehicle and paid a salary, have the benefit of having paid vacation and relief, yet they still are required to work long and odd hours when problems in the oilfield arise.

Many Kinds Of Gauging and Pumping Jobs

There is a great variety of types of oil and gas wells, and therefore the job of a pumper or gauger varies greatly. A gauger working in the swamps of Louisiana may need a small work boat to take care of his wells which may be on islands or platforms in the swamp.

A gauger in North Dakota may need to get to some of his wells by snowmobile, when the roads are impassible. Helicopters or work boats may take production employees to remote spots offshore or when roads are impassible.

Many Types Of Wells That Gaugers Take Care Of

There are natural gas wells, oil wells, coal bed methane wells and shale gas wells among others. A gauger may have to maintain injection wells, which inject CO2 or water into the oil bearing formation to increase production. An oilfield pumper or gauger may spend a lot of his time keeping pumpjacks running, which may be run on propane, natural gas or electricity.

No Rest For An Oilfield Gauger

A pumper or gauger may get a call from the dispatcher in a monitoring station that has sensors on vital pumps and equipment that that equipment has quit working or is spilling oil on the ground. No matter how remote or what the weather is or time of day or night he will have to get up and drive out to the well and be prepared for just about anything.

These unsung heroes work long hours and if they are self employed do not get any overtime but instead are paid a fixed amount for each well that they look out for each month.

There is a need for oilfield pumpers but it takes months if not years of on the job training to understand all of the complex equipment that is used in the oilfield. Persons wanting to know more about this job might want to read books like "A Nontechnical Guide To Petroleum Geology, Exploration, Drilling and Production" available at Amazon.

My background for this article:

My father owned his own contract gauging business in South Texas in the 1980's to 1990's and I worked for him, as well as other independent gaugers as a relief or weekend gauger for much of my life. It is a hard way to make a living, but does have it's rewards, such as working outside and being your own boss.

You can find an in-depth article I wrote about the life of an oilfield gauger here; The Life Of An Oilfield Pumper