Is hauling Crude oil a reliable career as an O/O?

Do you have your own trailer for the job or do you plan to lease your truck to them and pull their trailers?

My suggestion, if you are an Owner Operator with a truck and no trailer, would be to explore all of your options in Texas and then keep your options open because there are other opportunities in Texas other than hauling crude.

 

I know Trimac does oil hauling in west Texas. Don't know if they work with O/O though. But that would give you the choice to transfer elsewhere. I myself have been looking into going back to the oil patch, but as a company driver.

 

The way the oilfield's fluctuate, it could be a week, a month, 6 months, or never.

 

I have an oil field company up in North Dakota, and I find having multiple trailers secures your work all the time.

 

The oilfield is known for boom and bust cycles. It's always there, but when it busts, the rates go right into the toilet as work slows down.

Second. Working with one company for 20 years probably won't happen. Companies gain and lose work all the time as contracts change. They also get bought out or go out of business often.

You can make good money in the patch but you should go in with the plan of saving as much as possible in the good times and bouncing out in the bad times.

Also keep in mind that west Texas and Eastern New Mexico are a special little slice of hell. Most everything there is trying to kill you or hurt you. From the bushes packed with thorns, to the rattle snakes, to the weather.

The driving there is also something to behold. On the roads you will find all manner of bad drivers seemingly hell bent on causing a wreck. It doesn't stop when you get off the pavement either. Lease roads will tear your truck up. Highway trucks get torn up especially fast. If your planning on your truck lasting any length of time it needs to be specd for off road work and you can still plan on fixing alot of stuff.

 

What is a lot to you for an o/o ?

 

Not true...!

If you are already located in Texas, I would wager that cryogenics will offer you a more consistent work volume, over time....than the oil fields.

Texas is also a "hot bed" for cryo tanker jobs.

If you aspire to later be an owner-op, you can start out as a company driver, learn the biz, over time.....and then go owner-op later with:

• Genox West
• Southern Pines Trucking
• LGT Tranport
• Kenan Advantage Group (their "Merchant Gas" division)

All the above will offer you clean, easy, good-paying, consistent work (unlike the oil fields )....in the cryo world--after the appropriate training, of course.

--Lual

 

You should definitely lease on with a first purchaser - a company that buys the oil it hauls.

And as another poster said, lease roads are hard on equipment, especially equipment that is speced for highway work instead of oilfield work. You will spend more money in maintenance, and equipment replacement over the long term, then you would hauling freight.

Crude contracts can come and go as often as every 90 days. NGL seems to be more steady and consistent, but I don't know if there is very much of that in West Texas. There's plenty of it down here in South Texas though.