The Changing of the Guard

The end of World War II caused 2 significant events that would have a major role in shaping the oil industry as we know it. The baby boom and the oil boom happened almost in parallel and both were born out of a wave of optimism that swept across the allied nations.

The world was at peace and folks saw this as a fresh beginning. The infant boom started straight following the war and is officially know because the period from 1946 to 1964. Birth rates in the US soared during this period and in 1954 annual birth rates exceeded 4 million and didn't drop below that figure until 1965 when 4 out of 10 Americans were beneath the age of 20.

This trend continued across each of the allied nations and a fresh work force was being born.

Separately to this there was another boom happening, this time in the oil industry.

At the end of the great depression the oil industry had began to grow with oil being discovered around the world. Many of the American oil companies had expanded into these regions and the introduction of the initial submersible drilling barge in 1933 had created another massive avenue for growth. In 1938 oil was discovered in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and things were looking good until per year later when WWII put another premature end to the impending boom.

This was however only delaying the inevitable and when the war ended in 1945 the donkeys started nodding once again and this time there is nothing to avoid them.

For another 28 years the grew rapidly with more oil being discovered and new technologies invented rendering it easier to reach reserves once thought impossible.

By the late 60's early 70's, the infant boom generation had finished college and were ready to hit the work place and the oil industry was waiting with open arms.

In 1969 Oil was discovered in the North Sea also it wasn't long before the oil fueled circus come to town. Aberdeen went through an amazing transformation as the oil men moved in. A city home to fishing, textile mills, shipbuilding and paper making factories was soon to be became the center of Europe's petroleum industry nonetheless it wasn't until 1975 that the initial oil was produced from the North Sea

2 years earlier the oil embargo had raised oil prices from $2.90 to $11.65 propelling the oil industry into a new age. The attractive wages caused a stir in the united kingdom and lots of the baby boomers joined the oil industry to get their fortune

By 1981 the oil industry was the to be in. School leavers, college graduates and university students all saw the as a place to make a lot of money and between 1979-1981 oil prices had risen from $13.00 to $34.00

During this time the industry attracted folks from all walks of life. With a rich vein of new recruits joining the all appeared to be going along smoothly. The baby boomers now in their mid 30's / 40's provided a good mixture of experience and youth and information was being transferred between the generations. Until 1986...

The 1986 oil price collapse was commonly known as the perfect storm. Oil prices that were trading at over $30 a barrel had dropped to $9 by August that same year. Hundreds of Thousands of jobs were lost worldwide and in america marginal wells were being plugged one every half an hour.

This event was the start of a grim period where the oil industry attracted more bad news than good. The golden days of the last twenty years were now well and truly over and the was fast becoming the pantomime villain.

With continued bad press and insufficient growth the staggered on, unable to attract any new blood. With a surplus of experienced oil workers combined with emergence of the more colorful careers like marketing, advertising and investment banking the generation X didn't want to work in foreign countries drilling for "black gold", instead these were lured by a new trend, the M.B.A.

The M.B.A. (master of business administration) became touted as the yuppie degree as having an MBA was a passport to high pay and rapid advancement in the brand new corporate world.

With the infant boomers heading into their late 50's and towards retirement a daunting realisation appeared. Having less developing new blood in the 80's and 90's meant that a generation gap had appeared and the valuable experience gathered by the infant boomers was in danger of being lost.

Because the world steamed into the 21st century the crisis was becoming a lot more evident and your choice was designed to actively recruit new blood into the industry. It had been a brave move nonetheless it happened way too late. The baby boomers are now well on their way to retirement and the graduates have not yet fully bought into the industry

The result is that a vast quantity of knowledge and experience will retire along with the baby boomers and the graduates won't have had time and energy to acquire that knowledge.

The current overall economy has amplified this matter and rather than the big players in the industry using the lull to invest in the near future by recruiting and training up graduates with the aid of the baby boomers, they have made cutbacks releasing a large number of graduates and accelerating the retirement of many of the infant boomers.

In 2008 Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, born on January 1, 1946 became the first of around 80 million American seniors to apply for social security benefits.

The Changing of the Guard has begun.

I am in the industry and see first hand how it has shaped the industry. You can find is an extremely noticeable absence of people within their 30's and 40's causing a massive gap between your experienced seniors and the graduates who have recently been recruited so that they can soften the blow. The primary issue will undoubtedly be in transferring the knowledge to the graduates.

As a conscientious person in the Oil & Gas Industry that is an issue which I am very aware of and passionate about and I've taken it upon myself to create tools that will help the next generation. MasterVendorList.com is the first. This can be a vendor sourcing tool designed specifically for the oil & gas and Petrochemical industries. The tool resolves a number of the major issues facing both clients and vendors during these changing times.

Jeremy Ball

CEO & Founder of MasterVendorList.com