New year

So, it's back to the grindstone. I hope you had a good new year, and I hope that this year is good to you.

Optimism seems to be the general feeling at the moment. Rigzone have been talking about things looking a bit better in terms of increasing rig counts. A few of my clients have taken the next microsteps forward in getting rigs on contract, and the oil price has been up, and down. And up again, and down again, and so on.

There have been a few retrospectives on how terrible 2009 was for the industry; one here, but continuing with the positive theme, Cairn have secured another rig for Greenland, link here, there's a healthy debate about where is best to look for oil here and here.

The Guardian also had an interesting article about how offshore windfarms will need offshore workers, here. In my experience, the crossover in skills is actually pretty easy when it comes to recruitment, but the problem is the companies want people who have already done this before, which in this case no-one has. It'll be interesting to see what happens...

Jobs wise, things are busier than they were, although most roles require something specialist:

- Geophysicist, 10 years +, Edinburgh, UK
- ET, Jack up experience only, Cyberbase too, S.E. Asia
- Process Engineering Lead, Aberdeen, UK.
- Drillers, Toolpushers, Rig Supers, need Offshore Modular workover experience
- Barge Master, Needs to have worked on 8 point mooring Anchor Handling pipelay, no fixed location as of yet.
- Master Mariner, AHTS vessel, Angola
- SDPO for Dive Support Vessel, need Sat-dive experience, Qatar
- ETO, Chief Engineer, 2nd Engineer, DP2 Barge experience, UAE
- Commercial Manager, downhole tools co experience, North Scotland

As usual, if you are interested, please email, or if you know anyone who might be, I'm still doing the Whisky for referrals program!