Hi i recently started driving tankers for a living and heard of 2 chaps shipping out to Iraq for 12 months. Does anyone have any info?
Try the Taliban website , you greedy git
Thats not very nice is it? 2 Years out there from what ive heard will set you up for life. Just need any details if anyone has got any?
You should go and do proper research! Two years out there will definitely not “set you up for life”.
Here’s a link to the main sub-contractor recruiting out there.
I have a brother in law who worked out there (Iraq) for 12 months as a driver. He did all sorts of work. All of it was highly dangerous with a risk of being seriously injured or killed every day. He encountered many serious incidents including witnessing the maiming and deaths of others
The average wage out there is 40k to 50k for 12 months work. It’s long hours every day - 7 days a week!
These wages are very poor when you consider the life threatening driving duties you’ll be carrying out on a daily basis, and they’re set to drop due to the amount of Far Eastern drivers who are prepared to do it a lot cheaper.
The number of drivers from the USA doing the job is dropping rapidly due to the fact they cant get any medical insurance from companies back home. That tells you everything!
My brother in law couldn’t wait to get home! Thankfully he got home in one piece - quite literally!
Thanks appreciate the feedback
The ‘good earners’ are nearly all gone now. In the Basra area the transport (for the security forces, etc) is done by a company called Kuwait Transport from (funnily enough) Kuwait!!
99% of the drivers are not even from Kuwait but from India, Bangladesh, Philippines, etc etc. The reason for this is simple; a UK/US expat would expect to be paid in the region of £5k+ per month; a Kuwait driver would expect £2k+ per month; the TNC (Third Nation Countries) drivers are working for £4-500 per month!!! Despite the risks, it is a good earner for them compared to what they could otherwise earn in their home country.
The situation is the same in the CP (Close Protection) & Security sectors. A typical (civi) gun-truck team i.e. ■■■■■■ vehicle for civi convoys, used to comprise of a driver, vehicle commander, 2 x top gunners and a ‘spare man’ in the back, all of which were expats earning around £7.5k++ per month. Those teams now usually comprise of a Filipino driver (£1.2k per month), a UK expat team leader (£7.5k+ per month) and 3 x locals (Iraqi) top gunners (£400 per month).
You can see how far reaching the cutbacks are. The cold hard facts are that irrespective of if you are a driver or a CP Operator the chances to make big bucks in a short time are very few and far between!! 
Jad, don’t be expecting to make your fortune and retire within a couple of years.
I wouldnt have even thought about it to be honest. I like my head where it is at the moment 
, but a couple of blokes from the terminal where i work are just supposed to have gone to iraq on a 12 month contract driving tankers of crude about. Alledgedly they are earning 90k ish and i was told for an american company. They are supposed to be in Texas training for a month. A week of which is small arms. I have no idea how true it is. The company i heard about it from is Chevron / Texaco. How true it is i don’t know which is why i started the thread on here, From what you and the other chap who left info on here said it definately isn’t worth the risk. I want to emigrate to New Zealand eventually but would like to make some decent money before i do as i know they pay isn’t great there, but the lifestyle is much better.
If these guys are training in Texas, then it is almost certainly kbr that they are going on for, did they mention that they had to pay for their own flights out to Houston? As has been said before they will not be earning any life changing sums, that 90k sounds like dollars to me, definitely not pounds. Unless things have changed since I looked at it, very briefly, two years ago the tankers which kbr run carry diesel and petrol for military supply, not crude.
It is true that KBR have the main fuel supply contracts but think about it, why would expats (i.e. expensive drivers) be needed? The same can be achieved by utilising a driver from Kuwait etc. I didn’t see any expat tanker drivers when I was last there. I saw plenty of tankers arriving from Kuwait with the fuel, driven by Kuwaiti’s.
I honestly think if you want to find a ‘pot of gold’ and you are fit enough, calm & level-headed, gifted with plenty of common sense and ‘bottle’, presentable and a team-player who can also operate on your own, then go spend some money on a CP course, impress the training staff and then get on the circuit (from their recommendations - if you’re not too good they’ll still get you through the course but you’ll probably find that getting on with a company will be rather difficult).
From what I know, the ‘pot of gold’ is rarely found from driving jobs nowadays, hotspot or not!
Forgive my ignorance but what exactly is a Cp course and what does it entail and enable you to do?
jad24369:
Forgive my ignorance but what exactly is a Cp course and what does it entail and enable you to do?
Sorry; CP is Close Protection, sometimes known as CPO Close Protection Officer/Operator, old-fashioned name Body Guard (but I think Kevin Costner’s cheesy movie of the same name put paid to that!!! 
).
PM me if you fit the bill and want more info ref courses etc.
haha these iraq threads get better and better.
1, you do not pay for your own flights out to houston.
2, medical insurance is compulsory for every kbr employee out here and no-one has a problem getting it.
3, cp work pays possibly little more than we get but only on you are only on a short term contract.
4. fuel comes in from kuwait, kbr has contract to distribute it, this is the bit of the contract i work on.
remember jad most people on here are armchair experts or heard it off a friend of a friend.
US military run things completly different from the UK. i know i spent 10 years in the british army and have been out here 18 months.
stuh wrote
2, medical insurance is compulsory for every kbr employee out here and no-one has a problem getting it.
Nonsense!
I’m beginning to wonder if you’re actually out there at all! If you are actually out there - be safe!
Oh… and don’t forget whilst you’re risking life and limb for what is in effect a pretty ordinary wage, that you’re lining Vice President ■■■■ Cheney’s extremely deep pockets, seeing that he’s a major shareholder with KBR.
Still it’s not quite as bad as his old buddy Donald Rumsfeld - back in the early 80’s, in his capacity as an arms salesman for the then Reagan administration - selling chemical weapons to Saddam, in order to help him win the Iraq/Iran war, due to the USA’s then growing obsession with Iran and the late Ayatollah Khomeni.
The same man went back 20 years later - under the guise of a politician, with his cohort Bush - to “retrieve” those same weapons (Weapons of Mass Destruction), only to find Saddam had “used them all up” through years of tyranny!
Ironic? Hardly!
Oops…I’m way off subject.
Best of luck.
It’s one thing having aspirations of “big money” driving jobs in the worlds “hot spots”, or starting a new life in Canada - but can any of you guys actually strap a load and take it down the high street? (if you know what I mean)
andy1961
i am out here and have been for the past 18 months and YES we all have medical insurance it’s part of the requirements the US military contract.
i’ve been driving for over 15 years back in the uk and abroad. this job is a way for me to get out of sleeping in the truck all week and complaining about the job.
this way my house is payed off, i’ve set the missus up in her own business.
i would’nt have been able to do either if i was still working in the uk.
and in ref to strapping a load yes been there done it and don’t want to do it anymore.
Andy, the ins and outs and politics of working out there are not for me to discuss but i guarantee stu is out in iraq.
I regularly speak to him (hes just flown back out after a fortnight at home) He regularly rings me (the number begins with +964) and ive seen the photo`s of him sitting on wrecked iraqi tanks!
Maybe he just goes on holiday to a war zone for months or its an elaborate way to make himself look more interesting… but i doubt it
I was told quite catagorically, by kbr, that they would not pay the flight out to Houston. However if they offered me a position, and I accepted it, after 3 months they would refund the cost.
acd1202:
I was told quite catagorically, by kbr, that they would not pay the flight out to Houston. However if they offered me a position, and I accepted it, after 3 months they would refund the cost.
Hi - maybe KBR have changed their way of doing things now.
I worked for them over 4 years ago & at that time did,nt have to part with any money at all. They paid for all flights.
I was in Houston for 2 weeks, the first of which was to do a strict medical, NBC training etc. The second week was just waiting for an available flight into Kuwait. ( KBR were sending about 400 people a week then )
While in Houston i was fed three times a day & put up in the Marriot Hotel at Greenpoint. ( all paid for ) The facilities were excellent but i was not being paid.
The pay started from the minute i boarded the plane at Houston airport for Kuwait.
mappo thank you for confirming things.
thought i’d imagined it all.
you still out here?
greenspoint hotel was good, stayed my 2nd week there, good bar.
STUH
Hi mate , no i hightailed it back to blighty. you,re a braver man than me
but good luck to ya
Regards Tony
stuh:
andy1961
i am out here and have been for the past 18 months and YES we all have medical insurance it’s part of the requirements the US military contract.i’ve been driving for over 15 years back in the uk and abroad. this job is a way for me to get out of sleeping in the truck all week and complaining about the job.
this way my house is payed off, i’ve set the missus up in her own business.
i would’nt have been able to do either if i was still working in the uk.
and in ref to strapping a load yes been there done it and don’t want to do it anymore.
Do you know what Stuh! After being made redundant recently, for the SECOND time this year, I feel like joining you!
This industry of ours, here in Britain, is in a seriously bad way - so many companies losing contracts, going out of business - lots of drivers being made redundant!
I’m so fed up with it all! 
Anyway stay safe out there! 