“Pretty soon every rig will have one worker and a robot.”
Oil and gas workers have traditionally had some of the highest-paying blue-collar jobs — just the type
that President Trump has vowed to preserve and bring back.
Some of the best wells here in the Permian Basin that three years ago required an oil price of over $60
a barrel for an operator to break even now need about $35, well below the current price of about $53.
Pioneer Natural Resources, one of the most productive West Texas producers, has slashed the number of days to drill and complete wells so drastically
that it has been able to cut costs by 25 percent in wells completed since early 2015.
Several thousand workers have come back to work in recent months as the price of oil has begun to rise again, but energy experts say
that between a third and a half of the workers who lost their jobs are not returning.
Now, connected by computers to technicians in the field, he is monitoring the production of 950 wells, instantly checking the maintenance history
and production trends of every well with the click of a mouse.
All the big companies, and many smaller ones, have organized teams of technicians
that collect well and tank data to develop complex algorithms enabling them to duplicate the design for the most productive wells over and over, and to repair valves and other parts before they break down.
“We want to transform our work force to the point where we need to hire fewer people,”
said Joey Hall, Pioneer’s executive vice president for Permian operations.
