Congratulations to Dave Spigelmyer and this team at the Marcellus Shale Coalition and its partners OOGA and WVONGA for superb conference.  Everything from opening reception on the roof of the David L. Lawrence Convention Center to Donald Trump’s closing remarks it was information packed conference.  I heard nothing, but very positive comments from all the attendees.

I came away from Shale Insight with the following observations:

• Positive Vibe
  • A number of E&P Company representatives stopped by our booth and everyone stated that they are bringing more rigs up to the Appalachian basin. Some are coming up in the fourth quarter in 2016 and early 2017.
  • I spoke with some vendors who told me that they have a backlog of work for most of 2017. The CAPEX budgets for 2016 are spent and everyone is waiting for 2017 budgets to kick in.
  • For those vendors who do not have a backlog of work, they are seeing increases in bidding jobs

• Where will the workers come from? There is a serious concern about finding workers when the drilling picks up.  A session at the Shale Insight focused on finding workers and it was packed.  I’m not surprised.  We heard this same concern at our ShaleDirectories seminars early in the year.

My hypothesis is that workers in Texas are accustomed to the boom and bust cycles in the oil and gas industry.  That’s not the case in the Appalachian Basin.  When the drilling was very active, a number of workers left very good jobs to work in the O&G industry.  Once their jobs were cut, they were high and dry and scrambled to find jobs.  They are not going to leave their current jobs when drilling activity increases.  To meet the job demands, you will see workers from TX, OK and LA coming back to the Appalachian Basin.  However, we know the companies are looking locally first.

• Take the battle to the “anti’s” Kudos to the MSC for featuring speakers that educated the industry about how to combat those radicals committed to killing fossil fuels. With all this good information, it’s incumbent upon us to aggressive address any issues that negatively impact the industry.

Joseph Barone
www.ShaleDirectories.com