2,500 oil and gas workers in Texas lose their jobs in 10-day span

[Bob_W + 37]

4 hours ago, Dan Warnick said:

 (I'm from farm country in Illinois).  I've read stories about those times and the people in the hills and mines...

Hi Dan, nice to meet ya.

My family were farmers and coal miners in Illinois.

 

[James Regan + 1,776]

6 hours ago, Dan Warnick said:

We had the same thing here when the last mine closed after a hundred-year coal industry run.  The town and all of the businesses here were built by coal mining.

In the UK it wasn't very good at all, when M Thatcher went up against the miners, whole communities demolished, unions were strong and people passionate the oilfield has never had unity, maybe only Norway has really taken care of their reserves and people. Our industry has always had the bad attitude that people are a commodity. Many of us have worked our whole lives in the Industry, lots of emotions run through your head, each peak and trough you lapse thinking it will recover. This one is different I don't see the US Industry ever being the same again. The mind set of this generation is different and the oilfield hasn't changed that much, we still turn to the right (most of the time), technology has improved but the same monster is still driving it. Most young engineers or graduates will not return or will change their studies for other areas. The oilfield was one of the industries where you could start mopping decks and go all the way to the top, not any more. The industry is ran by bean counters and alumni of some kind of the other, I digress (heading for a rabbit hole). 

The industry will do well to survive, the US Shale Play Unconventional will suffer the most, this is not any bias talking, it can be compared very easily to a coal mine it shows all the traits of how a coal mine was paramount to the area in which it is located, how the economics control its existence if its not profitable or sustainable it will disappear. Shale was only in vogue with money players, the only difference is that the circus moved from region to region, locals got temporarily by on oilfield money until it moved location. Sure people will lose jobs but it won't be focussed like a coal mine, but there are some similarities. Not pretty and the worse is yet to come, lets hope they re not as passionate as these real working men and women.

https://www.theguardian.com/global/video/2016/nov/01/what-happened-at-the-battle-of-orgreave-video-explainer

Edited April 25, 2020 by James Regan

[James Regan + 1,776]

24 minutes ago, James Regan said:

In the UK it wasn't very good at all, when M Thatcher went up against the miners, whole communities demolished, unions were strong and people passionate the oilfield has never had unity, maybe only Norway has really taken care of their reserves and people. Our industry has always had the bad attitude that people are a commodity. Many of us have worked our whole lives in the Industry, lots of emotions run through your head, each peak and trough you lapse thinking it will recover. This one is different I don't see the US Industry ever being the same again. The mind set of this generation is different and the oilfield hasn't changed that much, we still turn to the right (most of the time), technology has improved but the same monster is still driving it. Most young engineers or graduates will not return or will change their studies for other areas. The oilfield was one of the industries where you could start mopping decks and go all the way to the top, not any more. The industry is ran by bean counters and alumni of some kind of the other, I digress (heading for a rabbit hole). 

The industry will do well to survive, the US Shale Play Unconventional will suffer the most, this is not any bias talking, it can be compared very easily to a coal mine it shows all the traits of how a coal mine was paramount to the area in which it is located, how the economics control its existence if its not profitable or sustainable it will disappear. Shale was only in vogue with money players, the only difference is that the circus moved from region to region, locals got temporarily by on oilfield money until it moved location. Sure people will lose jobs but it won't be focussed like a coal mine, but there are some similarities. Not pretty and the worse is yet to come, lets hope they re not as passionate as these real working men and women.

https://www.theguardian.com/global/video/2016/nov/01/what-happened-at-the-battle-of-orgreave-video-explainer

When I was a nipper I remember the Coal miners dispute very well it dominated the news for months, Arthur Scargill the NUM spokesperson was considered a communist and his nemesis Margaret Thatcher an extreme right wing dictator (by those in the fight). All of this going on while the real fight against Communism and Capitalism was heating up the cold war a few hundred miles away. In my ignorance of youth and TV I saw the miners as pinko thugs beating on plod (English for police) and raging against the machine. Its amazing how polarised we become as we watch fellow countrymen Dads and Mums fighting for what, their kids, families and future. What we are seeing is communities seeking to exists nothing more nothing less, survival. As soon as it becomes a political agenda its over the people in power will win and the people will "move along please, nothing to see here" - If you take a trip through these towns the scars are still there and these places disappeared almost from the map and along with it hundreds of years of culture. 

The right and left has become so F567 up that is does not really have a side, all we have is a big central mess, the far right are nazzis and the far left are communists, the central or liberals or marginal right (Republicans) pale into existence compared to the photos and time above, we are all left or right slanted capitalists looking to make a living. The divide opening up in the USA will be a divide hard to sew up, as per the thread the LTO or Shale patch has already started to show signs of the coal industry, its visible literally, too big ugly leaving the land scarred and people in turmoil. 

I see the majors moving away from this sector its a visible hot potato, and they will return to the hidden play hundreds of miles offshore and in foreign lands, leaving the consumer to forget where this stuff comes from that keeps the country afloat as they get on with their consuming none the wiser, Shale won't get bailed out it will destroy the party who does it.

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

8 hours ago, James Regan said:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/global/video/2016/nov/01/what-happened-at-the-battle-of-orgreave-video-explainer

 

Great video.  Thanks for sharing.  Never saw that at the time.

[Keith boyd + 178]

A hell of a lot more then 2500 people are out of work in the oil sands. I know of 3 places that have shut down completely so far and reduced staff to a handful of security guards and probably some skeleton crew admin and executives. As well the sites still producing have cut all non essential work which includes clearing overburden in preparation for oil sand mining, reclamation of old mines, annual maitenance, (shutdowns/ turnaround deferred to unknown dates) tailings pond reclamation, as well all non system critical staff are working from home or laid off. Numbers on site are cut down by about half. This lightened up the demand for contractor services by a lot. 

There is a silver lining for those of us who actually live in fort mcmurray. There is a strong push to get away from fly in fly out work rotations and using camps so anyone living here has a home team advantage when the layoffs come. A lot of local service companies are actually flat out and hiring local because they lost/cant/too difficult to accommodate out of town workers. But I recently started working for a company that was 100% local hires before the crisis and that turned out to be less ideal as we have lost about 50% of our business and the company is trying to avoid layoffs. We are all working part time hours now as well some foremans back in trucks, management back in the field, HSE doing yard work etc. 

The amount of layoffs would be hard to quantify because the majority of the people are out of province or out of town. So I am not even going to try to throw out a number. Those people are just gone. One way to estimate would be to take the number of migrant workers that were lodged in camps in the 2018 census of 30,000. Now figure the camps are at 40% of that now.  There have been a lot of local layoffs too.