Will AI replace Derrick Operators, Oil and Gas?
AI reaches little of this job’s work.
0/100
Low exposure
More exposed to AI than 2% of US workers.
- AI already used in
- 0% of the work
- As AI tools mature: up to
- 0% of the work
What the job involves
Rig derrick equipment and operate pumps to circulate mud or fluid through drill hole.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Out of reach(15)
- Listen to mud pumps and check regularly for vibration and other problems to ensure that rig pumps and drilling mud systems are working properly.
- Supervise crew members, and provide assistance in training them.
- Repair pumps, mud tanks, and related equipment.
- Control the viscosity and weight of the drilling fluid.
- Inspect derricks, or order their inspection, prior to being raised or lowered.
and 10 more
Also called
Rotary Derrick Operator · Derrick Operator · Well Service Derrick Worker · Derrick Hand · Derrick Man · Derrick Worker · Derrickhand · Derrickman
Related jobs
What these numbers mean
The score is the share of this job’s work, weighted by how important and frequent each task is, that AI could do in half the time: tasks an AI model could do alone count in full, tasks that need software built on AI count half.
“AI already used” is the share of the work in tasks where people are recorded using AI today. “As AI tools mature” counts every task AI could halve, with or without extra software.
The percentile compares the score with every job’s, weighted by how many people in the US do each one. Exposure means AI could change how the work is done, not that the job goes away. These are estimates for the typical job, not predictions.
Sources
- O*NET 31.0 Database, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration
- GPTs are GPTs: Labor market impact potential of LLMs (task labels), Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin & Rock (2023), OpenAI and University of Pennsylvania
- Anthropic Economic Index: labor market impacts (task penetration), Anthropic
- Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (national and metropolitan areas), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics