Something sets apart those who decide to make oil and gas their career. It might be the West Texas tenacity, or it could be the money that speaks to them. Four young people share their experiences of working in the oil and gas industry while living in Midland amidst a downturn and pandemic.
Kate Hornbrook, 28, has worked in the oil and gas industry for five years. She is originally from Canton, Ohio, and pursued a degree in petroleum engineering after seeking to switch majors from dentistry. She moved to Midland in 2018.
“I was definitely luckier than quite a few other people,” she said. “I actually made the switch to this position in January, so I was ahead of the curve of a lot of people trying to get new positions, change jobs, etc. We took pay cuts at work and there were furloughs.”
Hornbrook is a technical manager at ACE Completions and is the vice president of the Permian Basin chapter of Oilfield Connections.
“Luckily because of my position, my furlough was for one month and it was every other week,” Hornbrook said. “I definitely still felt it. Personally, I had just built a house and moved in on Valentine’s Day, so right before everything hit the fan, which was a little daunting.”
Her boyfriend, Cory Almady, works for Diamondback. She said they fared much better than some other people in the Permian Basin. When she graduated and started in oil and gas in 2016, the industry was coming out of a downturn so she wasn’t really affected by it.
“When I came into the industry, we were in a downturn, but I lucked out and got in with a smaller company back in Ohio,” Hornbrook said. “Obviously, this one was significantly worse when the prices were in the negatives — which I didn’t even know was possible. It was definitely a shock but the thing I love about oil and gas is that people have this tenacity about them and don’t let things get them down.”
When there is a downturn, people are willing to attempt to move to other positions even in different industries, she said. Hornbrook has seen other people transition to other industries, and a lot of her friends work in various industries but none of those industries seem as close-knit as the oil and gas community.
“The ability that as soon as you talk to anybody, you’re going to have something in common with them,” Hornbrook said. “I absolutely love that because it’s so easy to meet people and make new friends in an area I’m not from.”
James Walter, 27, worked as a field specialist at Schlumberger for about 11 months before the coronavirus hit and layoffs began. He is from Houston and wanted to work in the oilfield because of “the money and experience and a little bit of a sense of adventure because it was something I had never done before,” he said. “I had some people tell me they enjoyed the work and enjoyed the people and the schedule was great, too.”
Walter, who graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in English, worked in construction while he was in college. He said he wanted to branch out and see what else was out there.
“Right now, for me, it’s about the money,” he said. “I am trying to get into sales, like technology sales, because I don’t have an industry-specific degree. Now, I’m working in construction again and applying to sales positions.”
Walter said he doesn’t see an opportunity in the oil and gas industry for him for at least a year at this point. He stays in touch with his old manager and some coworkers, but he said all signs point to 2021 and he can’t wait that long. He said he knew the risks going into the oil and gas industry but still saw himself working in it for longer than 11 months.
“It is the oil and gas industry, there is always a potential for a downturn, but I just got in it at the wrong time,” he said.
Independent landman Chance Freeman, 35, has his own business, Havasu Energy, which focuses on the industry’s water aspect. He has been working in the industry off and on since 2006. Freeman, originally from Gadsden, Alabama, moved to Midland in 2013 after going back and forth between Midland and Alabama.
“I’m a landman, and I worked for Anadarko as a contract man. Then I worked for Diamondback Energy for a while,” he said. “I mostly focus on landowner relations, and I’ll do a water lease or buy the property and drill the water wells.”
Freeman said he became interested in the industry when a friend, John Ratliff, owner of Transglobal Services in Midland, approached him with a job. While he was attending Gadsden State on a basketball scholarship, Ratliff asked him if he wanted to make a lot of money. He said he started out making $125 a day and he didn’t have to do hard labor.
He left Diamondback Energy about two years ago to focus on his own business. When the pandemic hit and oil prices fell, Freeman said it negatively impacted his business.
“We had a lot of stuff coming up that we were going to be supplying water on in different places, and it all went away,” he said. “I’m at the mercy of these oil companies, and if they decide to take fracks off their schedule, then I’m not getting paid for supplying water to them.
“On the other side of it, we had a couple of SWD projects. A lot of water comes up with oil and they normally flush it (water) down some SWD wells but if they’re not producing oil then that’s not happening,” Freeman said.
He said he is concerned about the pandemic’s impact on the oil and gas industry and has heard a lot of talk about switching over to electric cars. Freeman said it’s like a perfect storm hitting right now. However, he acknowledges that the industry is resilient when it comes to downturns and competing with other forms of energy.
Freeman’s first experience with a downturn was when he first got into the industry. He was working on the Barnett Shale in Fort Worth, which was solely focused on gas. He ended up going back home to Alabama and working in a prison for a while.
“I was doing whatever I could to make some money,” he said. “I got here in ’14, and it busted again in ’16, oil went down to $20 something a barrel. At the time I was an employee at Diamondback, and I wasn’t really worried about it because I had a lot of stuff to do and I felt like I was pulling my own weight. We’re seeing a lot more busts nowadays.”
Freeman said it has been more nerve-wracking running his own business, but he plans to stick it out in the industry.
Amy Hall, 35, originally from Muleshoe, moved to Midland in 2009 from Lubbock where she got her degree in communications from Texas Tech University. She is now an account manager for Seven Lakes Technology.
“A love interest brought me here. My boyfriend at the time bought a house and I had been living in Lubbock, which is a common theme I hear either from men or women,” she said. “He helped me get my foot in the door.”
She started working in the oil and gas industry in 2010 at Core Laboratories in Midland. Hall said she’s been fortunate because oil and gas businesses are always looking for salespeople who live in Midland.
Since moving to Midland, Hall has become involved with several organizations and societies, including the West Texas Geological Society, Permian Basin Wine Society and Summer Mummers. She said that making connections and participating in aspects of the community has made her life in Midland more worthwhile.
Hall said some of the older industry professionals have given her advice that helped her make it through the bust times without breaking the bank. She got involved with SIPES — the Society of Independent Professional Earth Scientists — which led to mentorships.
“There were a lot of older men who mentored me and told me this isn’t the first and this isn’t the last,” she said. “Their advice to me was to save my money and not go buy the Corvette.”
However, nobody prepared her for what would happen to the oil and gas industry during a pandemic.
“Since February, I mean we weren’t in like a boom, but once COVID hit, all of those old-timers that I talk to were like, ‘Oh man, I’ve never seen anything like this,’” she said. “Everything has changed this year.”
Someone who has advice to give is Stuart MacDonald, a professor in energy land management at University of Texas Permian Basin.
He tries to prepare his students for the booms and the busts of the oil industry and said the only constant in oil and gas is the cycle of boom and bust.
“It’s a funny industry because when it’s good, it is really good but when it’s bad, it is really bad,” he said. “It makes you wonder why anybody would want to do it. I’m not sure I can fully answer that. What I can tell you is, that growing up as a young kid on a ranch in West Texas the oil industry certainly seemed glamorous and exciting compared to attending cows all day.”
MacDonald said he thought this industry would make him feel on top of the world, which was a limited vision.
“A lot of these students that I’m teaching now aren’t that different from who I was,” he said. “This industry is like a dice game where you play 6,000 feet underground and you have to bet several times before you know you won or lost. For some people, that seems crazy, but for others there is a certain attraction to that, which is why it’s such an entrepreneurial industry.”
Read it from MRT – Photo as posted on MRT (Photo: Jacy Lewis/Reporter-Telegram)
