Sidney Herald

Oil activity in Richland County is enjoying its biggest resurgence in about 20 years, but the oil business is facing problems finding well-trained employees, petroleum experts and industry officials say.

"That is a critical problem for the industry right now. There is a severe shortage of workers across the board," Ron Ness, executive director of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, said.

Fred Miller | Sidney Herald This new pumper at an oil well north of town, one of many scattered across Richland County, shows an increase in oil activity that has brought an increased need for oil workers.

The severity of the personnel problem varies depending on whom (or which company) you ask. Some say there are not enough field hands, roustabouts and laborers to allow active wells to reach peak production. Others say active wells have all the workers they need, but there are not enough available workers to allow the industry to expand. Nearly all agree, however, that well-trained employees, those with years of experience in the field, are becoming harder to find.

"It's much more of a skilled workforce than an unskilled workforce," Ness said.

Today's industry relies more on skilled labor than it did about 20 years ago, when the oil business in Richland County was genuinely 'booming.'

"It isn't the same oilfield that it was 20 years ago, I guarantee it," Duane Mitchell of Mitchell's Oilfield Service Inc., Sidney, said.

The kind of hard labor needed in the oilfield remains much the same as 20 years ago, but workers are now required to have more training or permits for work that is most in demand, such as heavy equipment operation. More barriers are being placed on employment.

The Williston Basin oil boom of 20 years ago is remembered by some in the Richland area with ambivalence. Longtime oilfield hands recall drug and crime problems among oil workers in the late '70s and early '80s. Today's workers, by contrast, face mandatory drug testing. Failing the test can mean the loss of a job.

According to Mitchell, becoming a crane operator in an oilfield-related job requires a minimum of three years of experience. In the old days, some were put to work operating cranes long before they had been in the field three years.

"Some companies are even instituting sensitivity training," Mitchell said. "This is a kinder and gentler oilfield that we're working on."

Because of barriers to becoming a skilled worker, more workers are traveling to the area from elsewhere to fill skilled positions. Some workers come from other parts of Montana, but many come from nearby western states or as far away as the southern United States.

Because of the nature of oil work, an occupation that requires long days in the field and weeks or months away from home, many out-of-state workers are reluctant to make the trip.

Mary Bluemle, president of North Dakota's Minerals Diversified Services, said. "As time goes on, the problem gets worse. Eventually a good many of them leave, and they leave permanently."

It is estimated that the energy industry will lose 50 to 75 percent of its workers to retirement in the next five to 15 years. A lack of younger oil workers coming up to replace them is becoming a problem.

Mitchell has seen a change in work ethics that makes younger workers unwilling to work hard at shifts that sometimes last longer than 12 hours, seven days a week when oil is pumping. Mitchell's company hires few summer employees or temporary workers. The biggest need is for workers who are seeking permanent positions.

Companies try to make sure employees are going to stay. The problem of finding new workers is compounded by the boom and bust cycle of oil. Many see oil work as a risky business to go into.

"This thing could be going great guns right now, but tomorrow it could be all over, Mitchell said"

Some, like Bluemle, think "boom" is an incorrect way to describe the current spike in oil activity in Richland County. Instead, what the county is experiencing is a "hopefully long period of elevated activity," she said. "Hopefully it's not a boom, because boom is followed by bust."

Much of the growth in Montana and Richland County oil production has been in the last four to five years. In early July of 1999, Montana had only about five drilling rigs statewide. In the same period this year, the state had more than 20, according to statistics from Baker Hughes, an oilfield services company. In March of 2000, Richland County had less than 330 active oil wells, compared to about 420 in March this year, according to the Montana Board of Oil and Gas Conservation. The rising cost of oil and gas has helped to spur on production, as has the availability of better technology.

Tim Lechner, senior operations engineer at Headington Oil, commented that production has been slower than during the last boom. In the early '80s, Montana had many more drilling rigs than now.

Leslie Messer, director of Economic Development in Richland County, sees the slower pace of oil growth as being better for the county in the long term.

"The economy is appreciating the oil resurgence, but it isn't such a shock as it was before," Messer said.

Fallout from the last boom left empty housing units that had been built for oil workers. Now, though, there are fewer workers arriving to the area.

Some in the oil business would still like to see more workers come in so production could be increased. North Dakota, which currently has 15 drilling rigs, could add about 10 to 15 more if more workers arrived, according to Ness. One important step in ensuring the industry will have a new generation of workers to replace the retiring ones is to provide better training.

With that in mind, Williston State College in Williston, N.D., will soon provide training classes for oilfield work. Similar education elsewhere could play a part in bringing new workers to the industry.

"It takes time to train in any kind of work," she said.