This is a question a number of E&P Companies are asking themselves.  While this downturn has caused many oil and gas industry pros to turn to other industries, many senior managers are wondering what it will take to convince these workers to return.

The need for physical labor will be important on well sites, but the critical need will be to find workers who have the experience and know.  This corporate intelligence went with the workers when they were laid off.  Finding the corporate intelligence needed to run well sites could be difficult.

On Patterson-UTI’s conference call last week, the company said it has been carefully stacking equipment leaving it well positioned to reactivate iron when it is needed again. The company’s bigger concern is human capital and recovering from the industry-wide talent drain.

“We expect that across the industry, the biggest challenge to reactivating equipment will be associated with recruiting, hiring, and training new employees,” CEO Andy Hendricks said last week. “While labor may initially be easy to find, given the magnitude of the workforce reduction in the industry, we expect it will be very challenging for the industry to meaningfully increase the number of personnel quickly, given the magnitude and duration of the downturn.”

A couple of companies are commenting that they could resume drilling which will means they could be looking for workers sooner than later.

Joseph Barone
www.ShaleDirectories.com