With
prices hovering near record highs, the natural gas in the Barnett
Shale field is providing jobs for many people.
With
country music in the air and barbecue being served, more than
1,000 people gathered recently on the grounds of D.S.I. Inspection
Service to celebrate what keeps them busy -- the Barnett Shale
natural gas field.
The
partygoers represented the many professions -- engineers, tool
salesmen, welders and truck drivers -- involved in extracting
gas. And they demonstrated how the explosion of drilling activity
is drawing labor to Fort Worth from all across the map.
Surveying
the scene, Marion Sheffield, D.S.I.'s president, reflected on
how the boom drew him from Louisiana, where his business was
previously based.
"A
year ago, this was just an empty field," he said. "Now
I employ 45 workers here, and I'm closing down my California
operation. The Barnett Shale is the place to be."
Ken
Evans, a grizzled veteran of drilling in Alaska, Louisiana,
California and Texas, sat at one of the picnic tables. "I
was passing through here last year and heard about the Barnett
Shale," he said. "I got some work and just stayed."
Drilling
consultant Tim Henricks came from Denver with his former contractor,
Antero Resources. When Antero's Barnett Shale properties were
bought by XTO Energy of Fort Worth this year, the new owner
kept Henricks and his Barnett Shale expertise on, at least for
a while.
"In
this business, the jobs are day-to-day," Henricks said.
"There's no such thing as security."
A
number of the workers say that the Barnett Shale, with its promise
of prosperity, prompted them to change careers.
David
McEntire, a salesman for R&H Supply of Bridgeport, worked
as a mobile-home builder until the natural gas boom beckoned
two year ago.
"This
was a step up for me," McEntire said.
Another
R&H worker, Benny Brito, said he quit his job as a welder
to go to work for the equipment-supply company "because
the money is better."
The
Barnett Shale revived the career of K.C. Castleberry, a field
services worker who signed on with Flint Energy of Bridgeport
after being laid off by Chevron when that company merged with
Texaco this decade.
"There
are all kinds of booms in the oil-and-gas business," Castleberry
said. "There are bad ones that play out quickly, and there
are good ones that will last. This is a good one."
Tom
Gilbert worked as a golf pro and golf course manager for two
decades after helping Texas A&M University's golf team win
the Southwest Conference championship in 1968. A year ago, he
signed on with D.S.I. and now calls on producers, selling D.S.I.'s
drill pipe and tubing-inspection business required by operators'
insurance carriers.
"We
haven't seen the best of this yet," Gilbert said of the
Barnett Shale drilling boom.
As
of mid-June, 73 of the 601 active drilling rigs in Texas were
in Johnson, Tarrant, Hood, Parker, Denton and Wise counties,
the area that makes up most of the Barnett Shale play.
The
drilling has expanded this spring into Bosque, Ellis, Palo Pinto
and Jack counties, where another five rigs were working in June.
Through
the first four months of 2005, natural gas production in the
Barnett Shale increased to 134.2 billion cubic feet from 117.6
billion cubic feet a year ago.
With
more increases expected in drilling during the second half of
this year, the Barnett Shale is likely to surpass 400 billion
cubic feet of production in 2005, exceeding the 368 billion
cubic feet produced last year and maintaining the field's status
as Texas' largest.
Although
production companies such as Devon Energy, XTO Energy, Burlington
Resources, Quicksilver Resources and others attract attention
from investors and the news media, it is the smaller contractors
who actually do the painstaking work of planning and steering
the drilling, building the rigs and operating them. They also
put up fences and signs and drive the trucks that deliver the
tubular pipe.
"The
service business is the backbone of the oil-and-gas industry,"
Sheffield said. "A drilling project needs a wide variety
of people to make it work."
Sheffield
showed visitors around his 15-acre yard, where more than 3,000
joints of pipe were stacked. Companies send their pipe to inspectors
like Sheffield to check for cracks or other problems before
the pipe is put into the ground.
"We
have a good supply of pipe and machinery," said Sheffield
in the drawl of his native Mississippi. "What we're short
of now is good, trained people who are willing to work hard."
Sheffield
has worked hard since he got into the oil-and-gas business after
completing an Army tour in Vietnam in 1969. He learned the inspection
business while working across the country, following the drilling
activity. By 1978, he went into business for himself, founding
D.S.I.
"I
had a few very good years," Sheffield says of the late
1970s and early '80s, when the U.S. drilling rig count reached
a record 4,530. But as most of those attending the party recalled
to their sorrow, those glorious days came to a crashing end
by the middle of the 1980s.
Raymond
Kincaid of Abilene works for Mike Byrd Casing of Bridgeport.
Casing is the pipe, plus the mud packing that supports it, that
reinforces the well hole.
"Business
was slow for a long time," said Kincaid, ruefully recalling
the lean days of the late 1980s and 1990s, when the rig count
eventually dropped below 500.
Today,
field workers not only can rely on fairly steady employment,
but they can do it close to home.
"I've
worked in Wyoming, California, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Louisiana,"
said Gary Moseley, a supervisor with No-Drift Tech Systems of
Fort Worth. No-Drift provides guidance and monitoring during
drilling.
"But
now I can stay at my home in Weatherford and work in one of
the busiest fields in the U.S.," Moseley said.
--
Posted on Mon, Jun. 27, 2005
By Dan Piller
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
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