Ginny, my husband was an independent oil operator and only worked for companies under contract from time to time. Ryder-Scott in Houston was contracted by Argentina to run their biggest water-flood project in Argentina, and my husband ran that for them for 4 years and then returned to the US. Though he is an American, he was raised in Tampico, Mexico, thus his first language was Spanish. His working all over the world was shortly ended by marriage when he was 46......he was domesticated rapidly acquiring a wife, a new baby <Da Kid>, two cats, a dog, a house, and a lawn to mow, all by the end of the first yr. of marriage. And, to hecky w/ Argentina and their fancy water flood production! ( : He never worked off-shore which is another whole different deal engineering wise. Buckette Susan - You have mentioned that your husband had worked for a petroleum company. What is the name of the company? And ask him if he has heard of an organization called STLE (Society of Tribologists & Lubrication Engineers). I used to work for them and they had many of the Petroluem Companies as members, including BP. Ginny of Chicago