Goldman Sachs Says Jobs Will Soon Return to Shale O&G Fields
Although we’ve begun to hear rumblings about jobs coming back to shale fields, like the Marcellus/Utica, this is the first time we’ve read about a massive comeback on the way. According to a news report, big investment bank Goldman Sachs is saying upward of 100,000 jobs are on the way back to oil and gas fields–after the industry lost 170,000 jobs since 2014. That’s still a 70,000-job deficit, but hey, we’ll take it. Here’s the good news that the job picture is about to turn around in our beloved industry…
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It’s not all doom and gloom in the Marcellus/Utica. Seems like for the best part of a year we’ve only heard about layoffs and companies filing for bankruptcy, due to the major slowdown in drilling in our neck of the woods. But that’s not an accurate picture. Take an old steel plant in the Wheeling, WV area that had been closed for 30 years. A new business now occupies the old Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp. plant in Benwood, WV. JLE Industries has set up shop in the old plant with (so far) 25 full-time workers to inspect and repair metal tubes used in shale drilling. Chris Harris, the owner/operator, believes the company will continue to grow…
Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas is out with their Mid-Year Job Cut Report (full copy below). Overall, across all sectors, it seems that job cuts are slowing down–a good sign to be sure. But what about job cuts in the energy industry? The news there is mixed. While the pace of job cuts in the energy industry is slowing as the year progresses (a good sign), if you look at the raw numbers for the first six months of 2016 versus 2015, the news is not so good. For the first six months of 2015 the energy industry cut 60,500 jobs. For the same period in 2016, the number of jobs cut was 77,211, a 28% increase this year over last. Oy vey! Will the cuts never stop?…
Can a single petrochemical facility, like Shell’s proposed ethane cracker plant in Beaver County, “rebirth” all of Pennsylvania’s moribund manufacturing base? That would be a resounding “Yes!” according to Marcellus Shale Coalition president Dave Spigelmyer and Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association president Dave Taylor. Writing a column in the Harrisburg Patriot-News, the two Daves make the case for just how big a hairy deal the coming Shell cracker in PA really is…
There was lots of cracker talk at the first Northeast U.S. & Canada Petrochemical Construction Conference & Exhibition in Pittsburgh yesterday. According to NGI’s ace reporter for Shale Daily, Jamison Cocklin, excitement over the Shell cracker announcement from a few weeks ago was “palpable” at yesterday’s event. There was plenty of talk about the Shell cracker–but the talk coming from the event that interests MDN is talk about both the PTT Global Chemical cracker planned for Ohio, AND the Braskem cracker planned for West Virginia. These other two world class cracker plants (similar in size and scope to Shell’s project) “remain on track.” Now that is news!…
The coming Shell ethane cracker plant complex in Monaca (Beaver County), PA, will create a lot of jobs–some in the near-term, but many in the medium-to-longer term. The plant won’t be complete for another five years. Between now and then it will take 6,000 temporary workers to build it. Once built, the plant will take 600 permanent employees to run it. Is Beaver County and the greater Pittsburgh region ready for that kind of jobs challenge? As of today, the answer would be “no.” But leaders in the area are working on it…
The good vibes are still reverberating following Shell’s announcement that they will move forward with building a $3+ billion ethane cracker in Monaca, PA (see 
Forget about a cracker plant in West Virginia. Well, not really–just put it on the back burner for the moment. A researcher from West Virginia University says what the Mountain State and indeed all of Appalachia really needs is ethane storage. Specifically, an ethane storage hub. According to Brian Anderson, director of West Virginia University’s Energy Institute, without ethane storage (and pipelines) the Marcellus/Utica region risks seeing its abundant ethane leave the area, mostly heading to the Gulf Coast. Why is that bad? Because if we can keep ethane in the area, we will attract manufacturers to the region who want to use the results of that ethane–ethylene, the raw material in plastics. Our region can realize a bonanza in manufacturing jobs and investments–if we can store and use the ethane here, at home…
New research from the once-great Duke University actually supports shale drilling for a change–instead of denigrating it. In the past researchers from Duke, using money from the odious Park Foundation, have been bought off in their research efforts. This latest research, which concentrates on the benefits to local governments from shale drilling, wasn’t funded by Park and appears to be objective for a change. Two Duke U researchers conducted a three-year research project (between 2013-2015) funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. They traveled far and wide, to 16 states and interviewed over 200 local government officials along with gathering data and facts. The conclusion: on balance oil and gas drilling benefit local communities…
Be careful who you bank with. That’s the lesson from welding/fabricating company NuWeld Inc., headquartered in Williamsport, PA, NuWeld does a lot of business with the oil and gas industry, and lately that industry has been in decline in the Keystone State. The decline led to NuWeld’s bank, BB&T, getting skittish. BB&T, according to NuWeld, cleaned out their bank accounts. Took all of the money in them–and without money, NuWeld had to lay off all 150 employees. Apparently the money was the bank’s to take–but the reason they took it (cold feet instead of unpaid bills), is what grates. And the way they took it, without any warning, really grates. Here’s the story of “be careful who you bank with”…
Hey, it’s tough out there in the oil and gas patch. Something like 200,000+ workers in the industry have been laid off in the past year and a half. Now, somebody wants to do something about it.