Will AI replace Rotary Drill Operators, Oil and Gas?
AI reaches little of this job’s work.
3/100
Low exposure
More exposed to AI than 8% of US workers.
- AI already used in
- 0% of the work
- As AI tools mature: up to
- 6% of the work
What the job involves
Set up or operate a variety of drills to remove underground oil and gas, or remove core samples for testing during oil and gas exploration.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Within reach(1)
- Maintain records of footage drilled, location and nature of strata penetrated, materials and tools used, services rendered, and time required.
Out of reach(20)
- Count sections of drill rod to determine depths of boreholes.
- Maintain and adjust machinery to ensure proper performance.
- Connect sections of drill pipe, using hand tools and powered wrenches and tongs.
- Train crews, and introduce procedures to make drill work more safe and effective.
- Observe pressure gauge and move throttles and levers to control the speed of rotary tables, and to regulate pressure of tools at bottoms of boreholes.
and 15 more
Also called
Driller · Rotary Driller · Oil Well Driller · Prospecting Driller · Drill Operator · Oil Rig Driller · Cable Driller · Cable Tool Driller
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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