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.
“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.
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.
In less than two years, he has helped rewrite computer software to instruct workers on the best designs
for hydraulic fracturing, optimizing the amounts of fluids, sand and chemicals pumped into the wells.
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.
