Also called: Plug and Abandonment Hand, P&A Crew Member
Works on crews that seal abandoned oil and gas wells with cement so they stop leaking methane and salty water, often paid for by federal cleanup money.
Your crew drives a workover rig to a rusty well left behind decades ago in a farmer's field. You pull out old pipe, measure gas leaking from the hole and pump cement plugs deep underground. When it passes inspection, you cut off the wellhead and bury it.
Hourly with overtime; pay varies by state and contractor.
Approximate: anchored on Bureau of Labor Statistics data for a broader job group.
High school diploma, about 0 years after high school. High school diploma; crews train new hands on the job.
Ways in: On-the-job training. Training cost: Get paid while you train.
Majors to look at: Petroleum Technology, Industrial Maintenance.
Growing faster than average. Billions of federal dollars are funding cleanup of over 100,000 known orphan wells.
Low risk for 10 years. Drones and sensors help find leaking wells, but plugging them on a rig stays hands-on.
Age 18+. One way to start: Apply to well plugging contractors (busy with federal cleanup money) First: SafeLand or RigPass safety orientation (one day), H2S awareness and a drug test
Classes: Shop or welding CTE, Earth science, PE or weight training.
Official data: O*NET occupation 47-5013.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.