Rolling Up Sleeves
Friday's work force education summit at Waynesburg to focus on
Marcellus job demands
Washington PA Observer Reporter
25 October 2010
By Michael Bradwell, Business editor
mbradwell@observer-reporter.com
A meeting of the minds will be held later this week at Waynesburg
University, where more than 100 area industry, education and work force
professionals will address one of the biggest manpower challenges ever
to hit the region.
According to Barbara Kirby, director of Waynesburg University's Center
for Research & Economic Development, Friday's Tri-County Expo Work
Force Education Summit will attempt to determine how best to proceed
with educating the work force in a five-county area of Southwestern
Pennsylvania to meet the projected long-term demands of the Marcellus
Shale industry.
Registration for the summit begins at 8:30 a.m. The program runs from 9
a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Kirby said the goal of the summit "is to get education leaders around
the same table as the industry leaders and begin to understand the
depths of this challenge. We need to initiate a dialogue to understand
what a well-qualified energy work force looks like and to identify
gaps, opportunities and next steps in collaborating to meet the needs
of the natural gas industry and the region's work force."
The summit will showcase the findings of a study conducted earlier this
year that projects a demand for between 8,000 and 13,000 workers across
a wide range of blue-collar and white-collar job skills within the next
few years in Washington, Greene, Fayette, Beaver and Westmoreland
counties.
The comprehensive survey was conducted by the Marcellus Shale Education
& Training Center, a collaboration between Williamsport-based
Pennsylvania College of Technology and Penn State Cooperative Extension.
In the spring, MSETC team members conducted in-depth interviews with
many of the major Marcellus Shale energy and drilling companies and
service providers operating in the region, which represented nearly 90
percent of all permitting activity here from 2009 to 2010. The team
also created an online work force needs assessment in the summer for
gas industry representatives. Thirty respondents completed the online
survey.
Funding for the project was provided by the state Department of Labor
and Industry through the Southwest Pennsylvania Oil & Gas Industry
Partnership on behalf of the Southwest Corner Work Force Investment
Board and the Westmoreland-Fayette Work Force Investment Board.
The MSETC model shows that more than 420 people working within about
150 different occupations are needed to perform all the operations
required to complete and produce gas from a single Marcellus Shale well
in Southwestern Pennsylvania.
The occupations range from geologists, biologists, chemists, landmen,
civil engineers, attorneys, loggers and hydrologists to heavy equipment
operators, commercial truckers, welders and general laborers.
The number of workers required per well becomes exponential when
coupled with another MSETC statistic that shows that as of August,
there were 217 wells drilled and 438 permits issued for 2010. Those
numbers followed 295 wells drilled and 682 permits issued in 2009.
According to an analysis by MSETC of publicly made statements and
personal interviews with companies operating in the region, the number
of wells drilled in the region could increase from about 330 wells this
year to roughly 470 wells in 2011 and 779 wells per year by 2013.
Kirby, who has worked in various work force development roles for the
past 25 years, said she has never seen job demand from industry on such
a scale in the region.
"The oil and gas industry ( job demands) are also complicated by the
fact that traditional industries here are expanding at the same time,"
Kirby said, noting the ongoing recruitment efforts for coal miners by
Consol Energy and other area mining companies.
One of the biggest challenges to finding new workers falls in the area
of ensuring adequate training.
When MSETC surveyed Marcellus energy companies, drillers and support
companies, the top two needs, identified equally by 77.8 percent of
respondents as "a very big challenge," was finding workers with the
required experience and workers with adequate required technical skills.
Most respondents indicated they used some type of training programs,
although the vast majority used private or in-house training services,
which surveyors said suggests an opportunity for public work force
development organizations.
One of the most interesting aspects of the MSETC assessment is its
delineation of drilling phase jobs and production phase employment.
While noting that the phase of natural gas development during which gas
wells are drilled and pipeline infrastructure is put into place is an
extremely labor-intensive process, the MSETC noted that in the oil and
natural gas industries, the drilling phase period is often referred to
as "the boom," as vast work forces are often suddenly required to
perform tasks associated with natural gas development. Conversely, the
drilling phase can suddenly decline, which is often referred to within
the industry as "the bust."
According to MSETC, the drilling phase is defined by workers who
maintain temporary residency in a given area, such as in motels, RVs
and monthly apartment/house leases.
The group noted that the Southwestern Pennsylvania region has a large
advantage over other Marcellus Shale regions because many of the large
natural gas companies have located their regional corporate offices in
the greater Pittsburgh area, which provide local opportunities to fill
large numbers of white-collar jobs in these offices. They noted that
white-collar or "office" jobs in the gas industry tend to be more
geographically stable than other types of work that must be performed
on a development location.
While acknowledging that many of the jobs created by natural gas
development in Southwestern Pennsylvania have been initially filled by
transient or non-local workers, MSETC adds that "the majority of these
jobs have the potential to be filled locally if/when the properly
trained and skilled workers are available."
The authors acknowledge that it is uncertain how long the drilling
phase will last within the Marcellus Shale or within specific areas of
the shale formation, reporting drilling estimates that range from 10 to
70 years, which they said reflect uncertainty created by fluctuations
in commodity prices, economic conditions and technological changes.
The study contrasts drilling phase jobs with those coming from the
production phase, noting that the latter are viewed by the industry as
long-term or permanent, tend to be less labor-intensive, with fewer
hazards and more specialization than development phase jobs.
It also notes that the high-BTU gas that is present in about 60 percent
of the Southwestern study area offers an additional opportunity for
local production phase jobs, because of the need to remove non-methane
compounds such as butane, ethane and propane as well as oil, water and
gasoline that naturally occur in the area.
Kirby said the growing demands of the Marcellus Shale industry here may
not be fully understood in the region.
"The biggest challenge now is awareness," Kirby said last week. "I'm
not sure if we as a community fully grasp the opportunities and
challenges that are on our doorstep."
For more information on Friday's Tri-County Work Force Education
Summit, contact Barbara Kirby at 724-852-3388 or e-mail
bkirby@waynesburg.edu.