When you are at school, you don’t tend to dream of getting involved in the oil industry. In fact, as a younger person, you might find the process wrong and destabilising. As a result, you go through life with no drive to mine into the gas and oil industry whatsoever.
On the face of it, the decision seems like a sound one. But, if you delve deeper, are there any legitimate reasons not to try and break into the most exclusive club on the planet?
Let’s have a look and find out what it takes to build a business like Halliburton.
Find Oil Reserves
Okay, maybe you do need more than the will to want to crack into the business. First and foremost, you need the oil. Once you have a vat of black gold at your disposal, you hold all the cards. Even though oil is depreciating at the minute, it will be as valuable as ever in the coming years. Finding oil is like hitting the jackpot, which is why it is such an exclusive club. How many people do you know who have won the lottery?
Degree
In fairness, anyone who knows where to look can find oil. But, that is the point: the average person doesn’t know where to look. The people that do hit the jackpot do not leave it all to look. They might be geologists who are surveying the land and understand the signs when they appear.
Appraisal
Once you hit gold, you need to know whether it is worth extracting. After the seemingly impossible task of finding oil, it might not even be worth trying to get it out of the ground. The extraction process is long and incredibly expensive. If you are not going to recoup the initial cost, it might as well stay in the Earth.
Technology
Obviously, some heavy machinery is going to be needed if you are to get it from the ground. Specialist equipment is the only kind of technology that will help. Oil extraction is such a rare occurrence for the layman that a digger isn’t going to do the job. You are going to dig into the core of the surface, and to get that deep you won’t be able to do it by hand!
Money
Oil has one factor that never changes: the need for money. Although you will potentially make millions, you are going to need to spend just as much to get started. It is all about speculating to accumulate. Without the cash reserves, the oil, and you dreams of an oil business, are going nowhere.
Ability To Maintain The Service
Finally, you are ready to set up your business. Dollar signs will undoubtedly blind your vision because the billions are so close you can taste them. However, oil and gas is a surprisingly competitive business. Plus, they are volatile. A service that interrupts is not one that people will subscribe to for a long time. That is why most companies implement a metering station and other safeguard strategies. Confused already? Click here to get a view of what it would be like to run an efficient gas and oil company.
The answer to the question is that you need a lot of money and a lot of luck to get involved in gas and oil. No wonder governments and oil barons hold a monopoly.