The Oil Industry’s ‘Man Camps’ Are Dying

[Purveyor]

Drillers spent big to house workers in the new boomtowns. No more

by David WetheKelly Gilblom
7:57 PM EDT
April 15, 2015

At the peak of the fracking boom a few years ago, Jeff Myers converted his South Texas hunting camp into rental oilfield housing. Little wonder: The industry had an almost insatiable hunger for the grunt laborers—the roughnecks—to work the fields, and employers were happy to spend whatever it took to house and feed them. Today that boomtown demand—and $100-per-barrel prices—is a bittersweet memory, and occupancy at Myers’s once-packed Double C Resort has dropped to 10 percent as job cuts take hold. “There aren’t going to be any winners down here,” he says. “Everybody’s going to have to adjust.”

America’s oilfield “man camps”—as the industry calls them—are turning into ghost towns as drillers cut back the free housing, food, and air travel once used to lure shale boom workers. The mini-settlements that sprang up throughout drilling regions in Texas, North Dakota, and Colorado are fading away as energy companies look to slash as much as $114 billion in spending this year, says a Cowen Group survey, and lay off tens of thousands of employees.

“The money flies” when the oil field’s booming, says Milton Allen, who’s built and developed facilities for the oil industry for the past 15 years and operates a 12-room man camp in the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas. “Then when the market starts to trim down, the money stops.”

During the shale boom, some companies were paying as much as $40 million a year to house and feed a group of 1,000 workers, according to worker services company Target Logistics. The man camps they built ranged from dozens of RVs neatly lined up on the edge of oil fields to entire communities of mobile homes or manufactured housing thrown up in the middle of the Texas scrub country or North Dakota Great Plains.

Competition for well-trained, specialized employees grew so fierce that extravagant benefits were necessary to recruit top talent to remote drilling areas. Lodging perks included daily room cleanings; catered meals such as beef barbecue, shrimp, and lobster; and flatscreen TVs with hundreds of channels. Many workers even got free air travel to commute between job sites and home during breaks.

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-15/oil-s-new-boomtowns-head-toward-bust

[Comrade Grumpy]

1. Boom and bust. Welcome to the oil industry.

[Electric Monk]

2. Short term thinking at its worst. All that matters is this quarter's returns. nt

[MADem]

3. Interesting article--with pics.

It's curious what's regarded as "luxury accommodations," though! Put a flat screen in a cracker box, and you've got "luxury" I guess!

I was a bit appalled at the dietary choices of the dude hacking away at the pizza, with the beer and cigs in the foreground and the doritos in the background! Hope his life insurance is current!

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

4. If you know people who work offshore

you know they eat like kings out there. One of our friends worked Thanksgiving, and the pictures of the feast were nothing short of amazing. They eat well all the time. His wife would joke that she would have to put him on a diet every other week when he was at home.

[SamKnause]

5. I used to be a cook on a tug boat that

pushed barges up and down the Ohio River.

I spent $2,700.00 for three weeks worth of groceries.

There were a total of 7 people on the tug boat.

That count included me.

This was in 1992.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

6. Wow. That is a LOT of money!

I know they eat plenty of expensive cuts of steak, as well as expensive seafood - and not just the Gulf Coast variety. Apparently, Alaskan king crab is a big favorite on the rig where my friend is working. I'm hoping he continues to have a job.

[SamKnause]

7. Yes it is.

I cooked everything from scratch.

They had 3 meals per day.

The galley was always open.

The refrigerator was always stocked with a variety of salads, lunch meats, fruits, soups, vegetables, deserts, etc.

They were so spoiled they would not eat leftovers.

If one person didn't like meatloaf, there had to be a roast or chicken for them.

I filled the Ohio River with leftover food.

I am sure the fish loved it.

It sickened me.

I was raised to not waste food.

Breakfast menu;

home made biscuits
gravy
sausage
bacon
eggs; any style
oatmeal
pancakes
cereal
fried potatoes

My average work day was 14 plus hours.
Sometimes our groceries were delivered in the middle of the night.
I would have to get up and put them all away.
There was no dish washer.
The captain stated if the tug boat had a dish washer, why would they need a cook ?

The men worked 6 hours on, 6 hours off.

Our schedule was 21 days on, 21 days off.

[MisterP]

8. sorry but the title reminded me of this Yankee Candle

but more seriously that's the pattern for isolated 98%-male institutions boomtowns from mines to Chinatowns (though the former are quite different): the alcohol, heroin, prostitutes, and now Oxycontin start rolling in and crime surges thanks to the TREMENDOUS amounts of money changing hands outside the company stores