{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/roustabouts-oil-and-gas/", "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology", "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.", "scored_at": "2026-08-11", "model": "claude-opus-5", "occupation": { "title": "Roustabouts, Oil and Gas", "soc_code": "47-5071", "category": "Construction", "us_employment": 44970, "median_annual_wage": 46960 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 50, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 17, "embodiment": 19, "liability_shield": 4, "trust_premium": 4, "judgment_accountability": 6 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Breaking out a stuck flange with a hammer wrench, guiding a load on a tag line, and shoveling out a saltwater spill on an uneven pad are physical sequences no software substitutes for; the 17 rather than 20 reflects that some of your shift — gauging tanks, logging fluid levels, walking the pad to check for leaks — is already being pulled into remote SCADA and pad automation, so the headcount per location falls even while the remaining tasks stay manual.", "embodiment": "You work outdoors on a live wellsite with H2S monitors on your belt, in mud, ice, and 100-degree heat, hauling joints of pipe, digging ditches by hand where a trencher won't fit, and climbing tank batteries — a 19 because virtually nothing happens at a screen, with the point off only for the occasional in-truck paperwork and toolbox talk.", "liability_shield": "No state licenses roustabouts; H2S awareness, SafeLand/PEC, and a Class B CDL are employer-imposed access cards you can be replaced with in a week, and the operator's engineer and the company man own the well's regulatory exposure — a 4 rather than 0 only because those safety tickets and the CDL are real barriers to walking on cold.", "trust_premium": "The operator contracts your crew's hours through a service company, and any interchangeable hand who shows up sober and rigged out fills the slot — the 4 reflects that a foreman who knows you don't drop tools and a pumper who requests your crew by name has real value in getting rehired next hitch, but no client picks the service company because of you.", "judgment_accountability": "Your calls are torque specs, lockout-tagout steps, load charts, and the JSA that was written before you got on site; a 6 rather than 2 because you decide when to stop the job — a gas alarm, a frayed sling, a soft trench wall — and that stop-work authority is yours in the moment even though the well's ambiguous decisions belong to the company man." }, "rationale": "Roustabouts assemble and dismantle wellhead equipment, dig and backfill ditches, bolt flanges, clean tanks, sling loads and swab out spills — none of which a language model can touch and none of which current field robotics handles in mud, heat, and H2S. The exposure here is not AI writing your work away; it is that the job carries no license, no client relationship, and almost no decision authority, so it is priced as interchangeable labor and shrinks with rig counts, pad automation, and remote monitoring that reduces the number of hands per site. Modal worker is a general laborer on a service crew, not a lead operator.", "outlook": "Ten-year employment tracks drilling activity and pad automation far more than AI — expect fewer hands per site with steady demand for the ticketed rigger, tanker driver, and pressure-control-qualified worker.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Federal or state rules that make specific roustabout tasks require a named, individually certified holder — e.g. if BSEE/PHMSA or a state oil and gas commission mandated certified flange-joint integrity technicians (as ASME PCC-1 Appendix A qualification is already contractually required by some majors) or if OSHA finalized a confined-space/H2S entry rule requiring a credentialed attendant and entrant with personal recordkeeping duties, tank cleaning and vessel entry stop being tasks any crew member can be assigned", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Insurer-driven rather than statutory: if E&P operators' well-control and pollution carriers required documented individual certification (SafeLandUSA plus task-specific bolt-torque/rigging credentials) for anyone touching pressure-containing connections, as offshore lifting already requires qualified riggers under API RP 2D", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Task-mix shift as pad automation removes routine hands: the remaining field position becomes the person who calls stop-work, judges whether a joint is safe to break, whether gas readings permit entry, whether a lift is within bounds. If operators formalize stop-work authority with personal sign-off on a JSA — already contractual on many majors' sites — the residual role owns consequential ambiguous calls", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "If the crew shrinks to one or two per pad, the surviving work is the non-repeatable tier — leaks, stuck equipment, storm damage, unmapped legacy wellheads, plug-and-abandonment of poorly documented old sites. The P&A backlog (state orphan-well programs, federal IIJA orphan-well funding) is inherently non-standard work that no fixed automation is built for", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 2 } ], "ceiling_note": "Trust premium has no realistic route: the buyer is an E&P operator or service company purchasing labor hours through a contractor, with no end customer who could prefer a human. Any gain here is bounded — liability and judgment credentials attach to lead hands and operators, and a general laborer on a service crew can be promoted into them but the laborer slot itself stays interchangeable. Headcount risk from rig count and pad automation is independent of every dimension above." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 48140, "wage": 36960 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 54810, "wage": 37580 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 58930, "wage": 38910 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 44710, "wage": 39420 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 34520, "wage": 38920 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 39100, "wage": 43590 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 43830, "wage": 46340 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 45330, "wage": 47510 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 44970, "wage": 46960 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": -6.6, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "refractory-materials-repairers-except-brickmasons", "title": "Refractory Materials Repairers, Except Brickmasons", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 65, "median_wage": 61290, "overlap": 89, "skills_to_close": [ "Operations Analysis", "Reading Comprehension" ] }, { "slug": "automotive-body-and-related-repairers", "title": "Automotive Body and Related Repairers", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 65, "median_wage": 54890, "overlap": 84, "skills_to_close": [ "Installation", "Operations Analysis", "Reading Comprehension", "Service Orientation" ] }, { "slug": "crane-and-tower-operators", "title": "Crane and Tower Operators", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 67, "median_wage": 68080, "overlap": 83, "skills_to_close": [ "Operation and Control", "Reading Comprehension", "Operations Analysis", "Operations Monitoring" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }