There is a lot of oilfield related activity going on onshore, some of these jobs require that your work an on / off schedule, and some of them require that you work a Monday through Friday type of schedule. Since most of the people wanting to work in the patch are more interested in the on / off schedule, this is the one which I will talk about.

Like offshore, there are all types of jobs onshore. Dock workers, crane operators, truck drivers and dispatcher make up the bulk of this group.

The rigs need supplies on a daily basis. This includes food, drinking water, fuel, drilling water, drilling supplies and equipment and equipment for the rigs. This all has to be loaded on supply / crew boats and transported to the rigs. There are crews of crane operators, riggers, dispatchers and truck drivers working around the clock to make this happen.

Working on land like this has some advantages, mainly when you get done with your hitch you can go home right away instead of waiting on transportation which could very easily be delayed a day or two because of bad weather or mechanical problems.

Here a fork lift operator is going about his daily chores of moving containerized drilling fluids to a central staging area where they will be picked up by one of the dock cranes and loaded on a supply / crew boat for shipment to one of the many rigs drilling in the area.

Onshore operations go on around the clock, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Loading and unloading supply / crew boats for the offshore / oilfield / maritime industry is a big part of it. Some of the larger dock cranes can pick up as much as one million pounds.

Here is a jack up rig which came in for some major structural repair. They were in for about three weeks, and used a lot of welders, fitters, mechanics, crane operators, electricians, blasters and painters. The rig looks small in this picture, but those 3 legs rise 600 feet up in the air. Notice the small platform off to the right. That's the helo deck, so that should give you some idea as to how big this rig really is.