Rural Pennsylvania was transformed into one of the nation’s oil and gas boom regions virtually overnight thanks to abundant Marcellus Shale gas development. Many people know the City of Williamsport, located in Lycoming County, as the site of the Little League World Series, but gas production helped make it the 7th fastest-growing community on a… Keep reading →
In a bid to attract younger generations to the international oil & gas business, Maersk Group recently launched a Sims-style computer game designed to simulate the high-stakes challenges that come with finding, producing and transporting oil in harsh environments. “We believe we have a very fascinating story to tell about the oil & gas industry,… Keep reading →
Judging from a DOE analysis of smart grid projects, spending on Smart Grid Investment Grants and Smart Grid Demonstration Programs is more than paying off. As of March 2012, the $2.9 billion spent on projects has yielded a total economic output of $6.8 billion.
Also, the analysis indicated that high tech, industrial and service businesses usually involved in smart grid projects record higher than average labor income and boost job numbers in the economy through “indirect and induced mechanisms.” Keep reading →
It would have seemed the stuff of science fiction if it hadn’t appeared on newspapers across the world: According to new forecasts, the United States may soon overtake Saudi Arabia as the planet’s largest oil producing country. Developments in technology and high oil prices have created stunning oil booms across the U.S., transforming sleepy towns into energy powerhouses, and making the longtime dream of American energy independence a possibility again.
There’s just one problem: More oil requires more oil workers. Keep reading →
An industry source told Breaking Energy last November the two greatest challenges companies operating in Alberta’s oil sands region face are access to markets and skilled labor. Alberta Energy Minister Ken Hughes elaborated on these and other issues during a recent phone call.
In a scenario where the Keystone XL Pipeline is not approved by the Obama Administration, Minister Hughes said companies have lots of different options and that rail has become “compelling.” Although generally less efficient than transporting oil via pipeline, rail could be used to bring Canadian oil as far as the Gulf Coast and maybe the West Coast and Mid-continent as well, he said. Keep reading →
Rising oil and gas prices have brought big oil, plenty of workers and lots of housing headaches to the nation’s fastest-growing boomtowns. The small city of Williston, N.D., was once a sleepy farm town — until oil companies discovered ways to tap the vast Bakken formation believed to hold as many as 24 billion barrels of oil. “It’s a game-changer, a bonanza,” said Tom Rolfstad, executive director for the city economic development department.
Despite wildfires, drought, a superstorm and an election, 2012 wasn’t all chaos. As the talking heads debated, the clean energy and transportation sectors continued their quiet but steady upward growth. Companies and communities across the country announced more than 300 projects in 2012 that are expected to create 110,000 jobs, according a report released today by Environmental Entrepreneurs.
Although fossil fuel industry lobbyists and the politicians who love them threatened to eliminate funding and tax incentives, the energy and transportation sectors soldiered on, further proving their value as the future of our economy. Keep reading →
California has traditionally thought of itself as the leader in US environmental policy; where the state goes, the nation follows. If that’s the case, the next round of clean energy policy promises to be no more decisive or conclusive than the last ten years of lawsuits and countersuits. A 2006 law passed by voters in California’s infamous bottom-up system of interactive democracy requires renewable energy investments by the state’s utilities, but current lawmakers are backpedaling on widely acknowledged goals, according to recent coverage by the Associated Press as featured on the San Francisco Chronicle. Read more about that here, and read some of AOL’s in depth insight on the issue here.
The rise of the energy workforce has been a broader story in the slow economic recovery of the past few years, as demand for qualified workers in oil and gas fields alongside related sectors has proved a unusual bright spot for jobs. The Houston Chronicle notes that the trend has filtered even into internships; while interns in other sectors often go unpaid, energy company interns can early properly grown-up salaries. Keep reading →
The sluggish economy has many workers anxious about job security. Yet despite the nation’s high 7.8 percent unemployment rate, there are careers out there with jobless rates so low as to nearly guarantee a job to anyone qualified to work in those fields.
For many decades the benefits of oil and gas development in the US have been overshadowed by the amount of money companies in the sector have made, the environmental impacts of use or development and occasional accidents and the degree to which imports impact US foreign policy and economic health.
The extent to which the US oil and gas business drives job growth, contributes to local and the national economies and has renewed potential to shift economic and political power back to the US were the focus of the American Petroleum Institute’s State of American Energy presentation in Washington, DC today. API has sought ways to boost the reputation of the oil and gas industry in recent years after the industry faced unprecedented opposition to new development both on-and-offshore as new technology allowed access to onshore reserves and offshore development revived. Keep reading →
