According to new Norwegian salary statistics from the Statistical Central Office (SSB) for 2018, measured from September 2017 to September 2018, the average salary of geologists and geophysicists increased with 3.8%. This is good news after the decrease in 2016 and 2017 and a clear sign of the optimism in the oil and gas sector.
As the Norwegian Oil and Gas Association says geologists are the “vanguard” of the oil and gas industry. They are involved in exploration and development activities and will be the among the first to notice the ups and downs in the industry.
These statistics do not tell us about how many geologists and geophysicists lost their jobs, left the country or changed to a different industry. It seems that oil and gas companies are employing G&G people again but mostly within development and production roles and exploration is lagging behind. This is in accordance with the activity on the NCS in 2018 as presented by Bente Nyland of the NPD (Read “New Production record in 2023”). A record number of development plans were delivered, and more wells were drilled on the NCS after the low activity years before. But many of these wells were appraisal or near-field exploration wells.
