Will AI replace Roustabouts, 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
Assemble or repair oil field equipment using hand and power tools. Perform other tasks as needed.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Out of reach(11)
- Unscrew or tighten pipes, casing, tubing, and pump rods, using hand and power wrenches and tongs.
- Walk flow lines to locate leaks, using electronic detectors and by making visual inspections, and repair the leaks.
- Move pipes to and from trucks, using truck winches and motorized lifts, or by hand.
- Dismantle and repair oil field machinery, boilers, and steam engine parts, using hand tools and power tools.
- Bolt together pump and engine parts.
and 6 more
Also called
Roustabout · Floor Hand · Oil Field Roustabout · Roustabout Pusher · Cathead Operator · Connection Worker · Derrick Hand · Gang Worker
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