Workers in oilfield gain status in labor shortage

ABILENE, Texas -- For Daniel Shumate, a 32-year-old parolee, it's another chance to get his life on track. For Melissa Bolton, 23 and also a parolee, it's an opportunity to show that a woman can handle heavy work in the oilfields. For Ruben Garza, 20, it's a way to break out of toiling at minimum wage. And for Ben Hilgreth, 21, a college student, it's a way to build up a stake that he can use to invest.

While their goals vary, these four share a single dream: to make it in one of the most physically demanding, dangerous and at times technically challenging jobs around -- being a "roughneck," or laborer, on an oil rig.

Dripping with sweat, their clothes stained with grease and dirt, their bodies aching from wrestling with equipment weighing hundreds of pounds, they struggled recently to develop the skills and endurance needed for that life. The site was a school for roughnecks in Abilene, run by the Texas Engineering Extension Service, part of Texas A & M University.

With starting pay of $9 to $13 an hour, and with shifts that can last 12 hours -- a typical schedule is 14 days on, 14 days off -- a worker can eventually make more than $200 a day working on an offshore platform.

For everyone in this class of eight, becoming a "weevil," as new workers are called, would be a big step up the economic ladder. That is why they gave it their all in this monthlong class.

The school reopened in early April after closing four years ago, a victim of a boom that fizzled when oil prices hit bottom in the late 1980s. That boom left such a glut of workers that for years new opportunities in the field were almost nonexistent.

When prices strengthened several years ago, though, oil service companies suddenly found that a whole generation of workers had vanished, and have been scrambling ever since to catch up.

So while oil prices have again fallen, hitting a nine-year low last month, the underlying need for new blood is so strong that there is still a healthy demand for all kinds of workers -- from starting laborers, or "roustabouts," to chemical engineers.

"In the 1980s, we lost an entire generation," said Gary Lee, vice president for human resources at Grey Wolf Drilling. "There is still a shortage of good skilled people."

This profession has been so volatile that even though Garza and two other graduates have gotten jobs, history seems to suggest that their budding careers could vanish at any moment.

Like Lee, though, many industry executives argue that it may be different this time -- that even if oil prices stay low, or drop more, the pool of skilled workers has shrunk so far that the labor shortage will persist for at least several years.

And even though smaller independent drillers have cut back, most larger oil companies are holding firm. They are in the midst of bringing large fields into production, projects that make economic sense despite unexpectedly low oil prices.

One reason the industry can withstand lower prices is that rapidly advancing technology brings down the cost and risks of finding oil.

No matter how high-tech it gets, though, the industry still needs strong workers who can take the punishing 12-hour shifts and stay mentally alert. For they play a crucial role in bringing to surface the vast amounts of oil and natural gas needed to supply the 74 million barrels a day the world now consumes.

Thus recruiters still come to the roughneck school to interview potential trainees.

New recruits could end up on rigs in the deserts of Kazakhstan, where temperatures range from 40 below in winter to 110 in summer, living in isolated barracks for a month at a time and then having a month back home. Or they could toil two weeks at a time on platforms in the North Sea, where storms send huge waves crashing into the concrete and steel structures.

Most get their start with smaller independent companies, then try to move to the majors, where jobs can be steadier and opportunities for advancement more numerous.

In the 1980s, the industry had plenty of experienced roughnecks. Though benefits and pensions were rare, the pay was high.

But "when the drilling stops, they're through with you," said Dennis Hooper, an instructor at the school who started to work as a roughneck when he was 15. He has seen boom and bust many times in his 54 years.

In 1983, a big drop in oil prices led to an almost decade-long retrenchment by oil companies. Tens of thousands of workers were forced to find other jobs or move away. Many were plunged into poverty.

By the time oil prices recovered and a sustained drilling boom took off, the pool of skilled labor had largely evaporated.

"The contractors themselves have caused this," Hooper said, since little effort was made to keep skilled workers in the industry.

The lack of good entry-level workers has caused many drilling companies to begin their own training programs, and even offer benefits like health insurance and 401(k) plans.

Still, many companies now send more veteran managers into the field to supervise workers. Green workers, executives said, are prone to make mistakes while learning a variety of tasks, from painting and scraping to handling expensive equipment.

"It's scary," said Michael V. Ronca, president and chief executive of the Domain Energy Corporation, a medium-size Houston independent that does a lot of drilling and exploration in the United States and the Gulf of Mexico. "We have to send our experienced people to baby- sit."

Even after extensive training, roughnecks "don't know what they are doing sometimes," he said.

One time, he recalled, a worker was unable to turn off the water and ended up flooding equipment.

Suppliers can fall short too, he said, recalling that Domain recently had to ship back 34,000 feet of defective pipe -- pipe that had passed four sets of inspectors.

Copyright 1998
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