November 14, 2009

Haynesville Shale activity creates job opportunities

By Bobbie J. Clark
bobbieclark@gannett.com

There are a lot of options when it comes to job opportunities in the oil and natural gas industry.

While the economic downturn has slowed oil and natural gas activity throughout most of the country, the Haynesville Shale natural gas deposit has kept companies in northwest Louisiana. And they all need qualified employees.

This area has become a haven for oil and natural gas professionals from throughout the country, said Angie White, vice president of North Louisiana Economic Partnership. “We have more oil and gas people in the area from all over because they have been laid off.”

The increase in competition for jobs makes it more imperative for job seekers to set themselves apart, she said.

White and others involved in the oil and natural gas field, speaking Friday at the Haynesville Shale Expo at the Shreveport Convention Center, touted a wide range of options available to people looking to get into the industry.

Local colleges have announced several new programs in the oil and natural gas field. Among them is Bossier Parish Community College in Bossier City, which has started a petroleum technology program.

Louisiana Technical College’s northwest Louisiana campus has equipped itself with a rig simulator that lets students learn how to recover from a natural gas leak in a well.

The simulator is used in the Shreveport school’s basic well control class for experienced rig operators like drillers and tool pushers, said David Rhodes, assistant dean.

Centenary College also offers a lot of professional development programs. Chris Martin, dean of the private Shreveport school’s Frost School of Business touted its Energy Business Center as a resource for oil and natural gas professionals.

It offers lots of programs for weeklong study in a wide array of topics, Martin said.

And Diesel Driving Academy is yet another option for job seekers. Its program trains people to obtain a commercial driver’s license. Many of its new graduates can earn up to $40,000 a year plus benefits.

White encouraged people to look in several places when seeking jobs related to the Haynesville Shale. Newspaper classified ads, job fairs and the Web sites of the Louisiana Workforce Commission, Louisiana Oil and Gas Association and the North Louisiana Employment Opportunities Network are chock-full of jobs, she said.

“Job seekers have to think more strategically and creatively on how to find their dream jobs.”

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20091114/NEWS01/911140326/-1/SPECIALPROJECTS02/Haynesville-Shale-activity-creates-options

October 21, 2009

Patriot Proppants to build new facility in Webster Parish

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20091021/NEWS01/910210310/1060

By Vickie Welborn
vwelborn@gannett.com

MINDEN — A new startup company broke ground Tuesday and should begin moving dirt this week for construction of a two-line resin coated proppant facility that will market its product to oil and gas operators in the Haynesville Shale and other natural gas plays across the United States.

The company, Patriot Proppants, is so new that it doesn’t have a Web site. That will come soon enough, spokesman Jason Renkes said. In the meantime, parish and city officials joined Patriot Proppants representatives in the ceremonial shoveling of the dirt late Tuesday afternoon. A formal announcement, presentation and dinner at Orleans on Main followed Tuesday night.

Renkes would not disclose the company’s investment. But Ty Pendergrass, South Webster Industrial District Board president, said according to numbers shared with him it will be in the “tens of millions of dollars,” representing the largest single capital investment to take place in south Webster Parish.

Patriot Proppants is building on 27 acres in the 260-acre South Webster Industrial District park that borders U.S. Highway 371 south of Interstate 20. It’s the last available acreage in the park that’s split by a railroad line. Talks are under way with Kansas City Southern on a crossing and approach roads so the 160 acres on the east side can be developed.

The rail line and the emerging Haynesville Shale are what lured Patriot Proppants to Webster Parish, Renkes said. Rail access is essential in delivery of the raw product, and Interstate 20 and Highway 371 also are “perfect routes” to get the finished product to market, he said.

The company will specialize in producing resin-coated sand, which reduces flowback during natural gas hydraulic fracturing process. Increased activity in the deeper, high pressure formations such as the Haynesville Shale has driven demand for specialized proppants. Proppants can include naturally occurring, manmade or specially engineered materials that are mixed with fracturing fluid to hold open the facture and aid in the efficient movement of the fluid from the formation to the wellbore.

The nine-month construction window should mean the plant is operational by late summer or early fall. The construction payroll, which will include local contractors, is estimated at $3.8 million.

The plant will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week and include a 100-foot tall production tower, attached administrative building and laboratory and two “fairly sizeable” silos that will hold inbound and outbound materials, Renkes said.

Plans are to have 30 skilled employees with a payroll of approximately $1.3 million annually. Renkes already has been in discussions with state workforce officials in identifying employment needs.

“We will need fairly technical employees,” said Renkes, of Spring, Texas. All management staff should become locally based.

The Webster Parish site will serve as the company’s worldwide headquarters. Renkes anticipates the Patriot product will be shipped to Canada and Mexico.

“We feel by building a plant in the middle of a strong play allows us to grow our business.”

Renkes offers high praise for Webster Parish, regional and state economic development officials who worked with Patriot in securing tax incentives and exemptions.

“I want to thank everyone in the surrounding area, in Bossier City and all the way to Baton Rouge. Everyone has been a pleasure to work with and we are looking forward to a long marriage,” Renkes said.

Added Pendergrass: “We’ve been working on this deal for months. During that time, they’ve been lining up permits, contractors and spending money on engineers. “» We were happy to finally get the deed signed and finally announce the new company.”

October 20, 2009

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20091020/NEWS05/910200323/Prospect-expo-like-a–shopping-mall–for-oil–gas-deals

Prospect expo like a “shopping mall” for oil, gas deals

We are all familiar with the term expo or exposition. As defined by Wikipedia, an expo is “an exhibition organized so that companies in a specific industry can showcase and demonstrate their latest products, service, study activities of rivals and examine recent trends and opportunities.”

This week energy companies head to Shreveport for the Gulf Coast Prospect and Shale Expo, beginning today, just as they have traveled to Lafayette for the past 13 years. (During the last week of October, Lafayette plays host to one of the largest expos in the country — Louisiana Gulf Coast Oil Exposition. This is a true expo or trade show and is very different from a prospect expo.) These same companies attend prospect expos in Houston, Dallas and around the country all year long.

A prospect expo is most easily defined as a shopping mall for oil and gas deals, referred to as “prospects.” An exploration prospect normally begins with a petroleum geologist using his knowledge of geology and geological structures of a particular area to determine if oil and/or natural gas is trapped in the rocks below the surface. The geologist often uses 3-D seismic technology to explore the geologic formations that make up the earth’s crust. This very technical and expensive process provides the imagery necessary to determine if oil and/or natural gas is present. Once oil and/or natural gas is found, a prospect is created.

However, a prospect is merely a potential prospect until the company can obtain the mineral leases surrounding the prospect. Landmen, or as they were called decades ago “lease hounds,” go into the field to secure from landowners or mineral lease owners the mineral leases surrounding the prospect. Thereafter, an oil and gas prospect is created; the company now has a drilling deal to sell.

Most independent oil and gas companies retain a percentage of their oil and gas prospects for themselves. They sell the remaining interest to investors, made of independents like themselves, or institutions, companies, and individuals. Historically, selling a drilling deal on the “street,” so to speak, can take months traveling to Houston, Dallas, Denver, Lafayette, or Shreveport showing your deal over and over again. Thus, roughly 14 years ago the prospect expo was originally developed.

A prospect expo is nothing more than a “mall” full of drilling prospects. The oil companies love the idea; in two days they can show their “drilling prospect” to more potential investors than they could in three months of traveling. Potential investors love it for the same reason of being able to view a variety of drilling deals in just a few days.

The buyers of these prospects are often from companies showing prospects elsewhere in the show. But mostly they are investors from companies all over the world that are looking for the next great oil or gas discovery. They come to the show looking for just the right deal for their company. When they find that deal, they sit down with the company and begin to work out some of the details. If the details work out for everyone, the prospect is sold, and a successful show is in the books. This is exactly what will be happening in Shreveport this week, or at least, this is what everyone is hoping.

Don Briggs is president of Louisiana Oil and Gas Association. Contact him at don@loga.la.

Additional Facts

What: Gulf Coast Prospect and Shale Expo
When: Today-Thursday
Where: Shreveport Convention Center
Schedule: www.gcpeonline.com

Dormant pipe plant in Bossier City to reopen
Northwest Pipe could employ 120 by early 2011
By John Andrew Prime
jprime@gannett.com

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20090925/NEWS05/909250328

Joined by local elected officials and company executives, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal welcomed the reopening of the Bossier City location of Northwest Pipe Co.as a signal of good health for the Shreveport-Bossier City area economy.

“What this shows is we can compete with any state in the country,” the governor said Thursday after touring a revitalized manufacturing line at the 187,000-square-foot facility on 25 acres north of Interstate 20 and just east of Hamilton Road in Bossier City.

“They literally moved modern equipment down here from Oregon into this facility. What this shows is we can continue to outperform the national and Southern economies.”

Jindal noted that plant executives “were pleasantly surprised how strong the economy was here, much better than any of the other locations where they operate facilities.”

He was joined in his walk-through of the cavernous plant by Bob Mahoney, president of Northwest Pipe’s Tubular Products Group, under which the local facility will operate.

The decision to close down the line that made fence pipe four years ago was not due to dissatisfaction with the local work force or setting, but rather due to market pressures, Mahoney said. The promise of exploring the Haynesville Shale formation and a market for the miles of pipe needed for such drilling were key in revitalizing the plant, he added.

“This facility will be about natural gas exploration. We’re bullish on that, and we’re bullish on Bossier City. Despite the difficult economic times, we are excited at Northwest Pipe about this project,” he said.

“It is an investment in gas exploration infrastructure. … Natural gas is going to be with us for a long time, and we expect to be an important player in that business.”

With Jindal and Mahoney were Bossier City Mayor Lorenz Walker and members of the Greater Bossier Economic Development Foundation, including its president, David Rockett, whom Mahoney noted as being key in facilitating the plant reopening here.

“It was not a done deal that we were coming back to Bossier City.” But in Louisiana and, particularly Bossier City, Mahoney said, “we received a welcome mat and a level of assistance that (was) helpful.” Rockett, he added, “was holding our hand and making it easy the whole way.”

The plant was created in 1956 as P&H Tube by Shreveport businessmen J. Roy Parker and Isadore Horowitz and was purchased by Southwestern Pipe of Houston in 1967. It later was acquired by Northwest Pipe. The local plant was idled in 2005.

The reconstruction will occur in two phases. The first, now under way, includes relocating a recently modernized, existing mill from the company’s facility in Portland, Ore. Its product will be pipe up to seven inches in diameter, intended for oil field and Haynesville Shale natural gas customers.

According to a news release from Jindal’s office, “the project represents the company’s largest internal investment project in its history.”

When fully operational, the first phase will require 50 permanent and full-time employees to meet the 120,000-ton production capacity.

The second phase, now in the planning stages, will add further processing and inspection capacity, which will create up to 70 jobs.

Bill Tungate, the local plant’s operations manager, noted it initially will have 90 employees working in three shifts, with plans to hire up to 120 in all depending on the market for its products.

The heavy-manufacturing facility will be able to produce about 50,000 tons of finished product per shift.

Company representatives were reluctant to discuss payroll, but Jindal’s office said the plant will have an average annual salary of $39,000 per worker plus benefits.

The renovation is projected to be complete later this year or in early 2010. It is expected to utilize the Louisiana Quality Jobs program and the Industrial Tax Exemption Program, Jindal’s office noted. Additionally, the company will partially finance the project through Recovery Zone Facility Bonds issued by the Caddo-Bossier Port Commission.

“Our top priority is to make sure we are creating jobs for our people right here in Louisiana,” Jindal said. “By reactivating this facility, they are providing great-paying jobs for our people.

“Not only do we want them to grow in this facility, we want them to have a great future in our state. We want this to be the best state they operate in, in the entire country.”

In addition to Mahoney, company leaders include Brian W. Dunham, president and CEO, Gary Stokes, president of its Water Transmission Group, and Stephanie Welty, senior vice president and chief financial officer.

North American natural gas drill costs to rise – Schlumberger
Wed Aug 26, 2009 1:26pm EDT

http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssOilGasExplorationProduction/idUSN2626922120090826

* Says N. American natgas prices to stay low due to supply

* U.S. natural gas prices have dropped to 7-1/2 year lows.

By Anna Driver

HOUSTON, Aug 26 (Reuters) – North American natural gas prices will remain low due to oversupply and weak demand, but extraction costs will start to rise soon, Schlumberger Ltd’s (SLB.N) president of oilfield services for the region said on Wednesday.

“Gas prices are going to remain low,” Bill Coates told a meeting of exploration and production firms in Houston. “The bad news is that costs are not going to remain low.”

The executive declined to say how long the industry would face low natural gas prices, but said he believed that demand will be weaker than expected.

Crude oil and natural gas prices have fallen sharply from peaks reached last summer as the global recession cuts into demand and supplies swelled. But that drop in prices also brought down exploration and production costs.

But now, that slide may be slowing.

Coates, whose company is the world’s largest provider of services to drillers, said costs in the industry had “bottomed” and he expected to see them start rising as early as next month.

Energy research firm IHS CERA, which sponsored the meeting, also said exploration and production cost declines leveled off in the second quarter.

“You’ve likely reached a bottom in some of the goods and services,” Bob Fryklund, a vice president at IHS CERA told Reuters after the meeting. The steep declines in raw material costs like steel are over.”

U.S. spot natural gas prices are trading near their lowest levels for 7-1/2 years as a weakened economy is failing to absorb a glut of production. [ID:nN25219074]

To cope with the oversupply of gas, many producers have slowed drilling. For example on Monday, Newfield Exploration Co (NFX.N) said it was curtailing production, citing low natural gas prices. (Additional writing by Braden Reddall; Editing by Christian Wiessner) (Editing by Christian Wiessner)

HOUSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Object Reservoir Inc., a technology and services provider to the global upstream oil and gas industry, today announced the commencement of a multi-company initiative to help increase the value of Haynesville shale assets. Companies now participating include BP America, Comstock Resources, EXCO Resources, Forest Oil, Petrohawk Energy, and several other prominent Haynesville operators. A limited number of additional operator participants will be admitted to the project.

The Haynesville Shale Collaborative Exploitation Project, or CEP, formally commenced on April 1^st, and the first workshop for participants will be held in Houston on April 21^st. The objectives of this CEP are to accelerate the learning curve for optimal exploitation of operators’ Haynesville shale assets, with best practices for well stimulation, completion, and spacing.

In addition, in partnership with leading reserves determination firm, DeGolyer and MacNaughton, Object Reservoir’s efforts are intended to lead to practical prescriptions for “turning resources into reserves”, helping operators to monetize their assets earlier by booking proved reserves and determining contingent resources. The project will include well and other data from both Louisiana and Texas.

About Object Reservoir

Object Reservoir Inc. is a technology and services provider to the global E&P industry. Operators in numerous oil and gas basins around the world have improved reservoir exploitation economics by employing Object Reservoir’s unique Resolve^TM technology and workflow plus extensive reservoir characterization and development planning expertise. Headquartered in Houston, Object Reservoir has business offices in Dallas and Buenos Aires and has its technology and software development center in Austin.