AI exposure: Rotary Drill Operators, Oil and Gas
Set up or operate a variety of drills to remove underground oil and gas, or remove core samples for testing during oil and gas exploration.
Reading this score
computedRotary Drill Operators, Oil and Gas is among the least exposed occupations measured, at 5.1% of weighted task load, rank 873 of 923. 90.7% of this job is work current AI systems cannot produce at all. That is not a statement about skill or value. It is a statement about what these systems can and cannot do.
What holds the line here is embodiment. Across this occupation's 21 tasks it averages 2.85 out of 3, the highest of the five friction dimensions. In plain terms, the work has to happen in physical space. A language model cannot move matter. Until the robotics to do this work is both good enough and cheap enough to deploy widely, capability in software does not reach it.
The most exposed thing this job does is Maintain records of footage drilled, location and nature of strata penetrated, materials and..., at 50.0%. The least is Lower and explode charges in boreholes to start flow of oil from wells, at 0.0%. A gap of 50.0% between two parts of the same job is the reason this index publishes at task level. An occupation-wide number would have hidden both.
Within construction and extraction occupations, this one is more exposed than most. The median across the 61 roles in the group is 5.1%, and only 30 of them score higher than this. Occupational families are not uniform, and the spread inside them is often wider than the gap between them.
What would move this score. Of 21 tasks, 1 are currently banded exposed, 0 assisted and 20 untouched. For that distribution to shift materially would take robotics cheap and reliable enough to deploy at scale, not a better language model. The score is re-computed every quarter against a fresh capability reference, and the change is published rather than quietly applied.
Where the score comes from
judgedEvery task is scored through the standardised work activities it maps to. These are this occupation’s averages on the six rubric dimensions. Capability is what AI can do; the other five are what stands in the way.
| Dimension | Mean | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | 0.33 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 2.85 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 0.81 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 1.19 | 0-3 |
| Context | 1.40 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 1.69 | 0-3 |
Task by task
21 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maintain records of footage drilled, location and nature of strata penetrated, materials and tools used, services rendered, and time required. | 50.0% | 25.0% | 25.0% | 4.75 | exposed |
| Start and examine operation of slush pumps to ensure circulation and consistency of drilling fluid or mud in well. | 20.0% | 17.5% | 62.5% | 4.46 | untouched |
| Monitor progress of drilling operations, and select and change drill bits according to the nature of strata, using hand tools. | 16.3% | 17.0% | 66.7% | 4.43 | untouched |
| Train crews, and introduce procedures to make drill work more safe and effective. | 6.7% | 18.3% | 75.0% | 4.76 | untouched |
| Observe pressure gauge and move throttles and levers to control the speed of rotary tables, and to regulate pressure of tools at bottoms of boreholes. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.75 | untouched |
| Push levers and brake pedals to control gasoline, diesel, electric, or steam draw works that lower and raise drill pipes and casings in and out of wells. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.69 | untouched |
| Connect sections of drill pipe, using hand tools and powered wrenches and tongs. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.63 | untouched |
| Count sections of drill rod to determine depths of boreholes. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.60 | untouched |
| Maintain and adjust machinery to ensure proper performance. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.60 | untouched |
| Direct rig crews in drilling and other activities, such as setting up rigs and completing or servicing wells. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.52 | untouched |
| Weigh clay, and mix with water and chemicals to make drilling mud. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.51 | untouched |
| Clean and oil pulleys, blocks, and cables. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.44 | untouched |
| Repair or replace defective parts of machinery, such as rotary drill rigs, water trucks, air compressors, and pumps, using hand tools. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.35 | untouched |
| Locate and recover lost or broken bits, casings, and drill pipes from wells, using special tools. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.29 | untouched |
| Line drilled holes with pipes, and install all necessary hardware, to prepare new wells. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.12 | untouched |
| Cap wells with packers, or turn valves, to regulate outflow of oil from wells. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.10 | untouched |
| Remove core samples during drilling to determine the nature of the strata being drilled. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.05 | untouched |
| Bolt together pump and engine parts, and connect tanks and flow lines. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.90 | untouched |
| Plug observation wells, and restore sites. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.12 | untouched |
| Position and prepare truck-mounted derricks at drilling areas specified on field maps. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.82 | untouched |
| Lower and explode charges in boreholes to start flow of oil from wells. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.72 | untouched |
Task text and importance ratings sourced from O*NET 31.0. Shares computed. The occupation score is the importance-weighted mean.
Occupations either side of this one
The four closest scores in the same occupational family, then the four closest anywhere in the index.
Read this carefully. Exposure is not displacement. A high score means current AI systems can produce this work, not that anyone will stop paying a person to do it. Adoption depends on economics, regulation and inertia that this index deliberately does not model. How the score is built.
What this means in practice
Most of this work is not reachable by current systems, so the immediate pressure is on the administrative edges of the role rather than its core: the scheduling, the reporting, the written records. That is where time is recovered.