Well, I got laid off from the bronco drilling yard yesterday along with about 20 other guys. It was a bit of a suprise to us all because they had hired about 4 new guys and put us on mandantory 7 days a week just a few days ago. One guys was hired just two days ago. I've heard of a few more drillin yards lettin some guys go and even some pipeline outfits. Guess thats just part of this business, just wondering if everybody else is seeing it too. Hope to get on a little pipeline job that just fired up here by the house.
Thats nothing new for Bronco. They hire 50 this week and lay off 30 next week then a week later, they will hire 40 more. I have pretty good feel on the pulse of most of the yards and Most of them are running normal. Drilling (belive it or not) is picking up. Drilling contractors are building as fast as they can go for the new Shale Plays in Louisiana and North Dakota. The biggest hold up and the biggest reason for lay offs is lack of parts. For example, a 1500 hp or a 2000hp Draw works is a 1 year wait right now and getting worse. A BOP is about 6-8 months. Of course you can always get a Chinese Part but, no body wants them. So in order to get domestic parts you must wait. The yard I am in is going wild. We have sold about 8 rigs in the last month. Half of them for overseas And half of them here
o-beam kid,
Don't be shocked if you see tightening up of a lot of projects or temporary holds in the oil and gas sector. People working 10-12 hours a day are usually too busy to see the huge drop in crude oil prices that has been experieced in the last three weeks. A few more dollars per barrel slide early next week and oil will be half of what it was the last of July ($147/July vs. $78/now). True, it was probably overpriced but the oilies start to get nervous when they see this because anyone in the business over ten years can remember the crashes in the mid-eighties and late nineties. The problem right now is now one knows how low the price of crude will go before it stabilizes. Folks can think what they want but the larger operators know EXACTLY what projects they can spend money on and that changes when the price of crude oil changes ($145>>>>$100>>>>$77>>>>?????).
Hope things go well for you and your next job. High prices for crude and natural gas cause pain for a lot of people but it sure helps the local economies if you live in oil country.
Kep this in mind. For the most part, all of the drilling going on in the U.S. is not Oil. It is for Gas. The price on Gas remains steady. So does the Drilling Industry
Your last statement is correct and I tried my best and told others not to comlpain to much, because I knew those high fuel prices were what was keeping me busy.
A few years ago, I got hired at Todd shipyard, after taking tests and physicals, I was to start work the next monday. they called me friday afternoon (before the day I was supposed to start) they layed me off along with a bunch of their crew!
o beam kid did u work for bronco in okc
Nope, I worked in the Duncan yard.
Did you ever know Dan Barton ?
Cant say that I did Cactus, I was only there about the last five weeks.
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