Saudi Arabia Wooing Fired U.S. Shale Workers to ‘Join Our Team’

Workers fired from U.S. shale fields after the collapse in oil prices could soon have a new boss: the nation some blame for driving that decline.

The state-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Co., also known as Saudi Aramco, is posting new job ads online aiming to snap up experts in extracting oil from shale as the country seeks to become a leader in that rapidly expanding effort. Tens of thousands of U.S. workers have been fired since November as oil prices plunged because of oversupplies, driven in part by an OPEC decision supported by Saudi Arabia.

That’s now giving Saudi Aramco a better chance to lure experienced workers to its own shale formations. Difficult living conditions had previously made the country a hard sell, said Tobias Read, chief executive officer of Swift Worldwide Resources, a recruiting firm.

“We’ve seen people who have historically been reticent to look at Saudi Arabia who are now more accepting of a job there,” Read said in an interview.

For decades, the Saudis have recruited workers from the U.S. for its conventional drilling programs, offering hefty salaries and benefits as lures. Even so, “it’s been hard for us to put people there,” Read said. “The conditions are just quite difficult.”

Previously, Saudi Aramco didn’t need expertise in shale oil and natural gas exploration because it has large conventional oil reserves that don’t require expensive extra steps to develop, such as the hydraulic fracturing or horizontal drilling used in shale rock.