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To: Les H who wrote (42495)	3/7/2000 4:24:00 PM
From: Lee Lichterman III	Respond to of 99985

What labor shortage???? Tuesday March 7, 4:13 pm Eastern Time U.S. oil industry hit by labor shortage By Richard Valdmanis NEW YORK, March 6 (Reuters) - The labor shortage that has savaged U.S. industries from high-tech to financial services has now hit the oil patch -- another blow to the nation's fuel consumers. With oil and gasoline prices hovering at nine-year highs, U.S. oil companies are anxious to ramp up crude production and rebuild emaciated inventories, but they are finding the task difficult because there aren't enough rig hands and field engineers to go around, industry watchdogs say. ``Any kind of substantial increase in production would be most difficult now because we don't have the people to fill the jobs,' said Don Briggs, head of the Louisiana Independent Oil and Gas Association (LIOGA). ``From Texas to Louisiana to Oklahoma, producers are having trouble finding people, and the domestic industry is suffering.' With the U.S. economy growing at a breakneck speed, almost every industry has been affected by a shortage of workers, prompting techonology companies like Sun Microsystems (NasdaqNM:SUNW - news) and Texas Instruments Inc. (NYSE:TXN - news) to urge politicians to make it easier for foreign laborers to work here. But in the oil industry, solutions are even more complicated by the nature of the work. ``This industry is one of the most volatile in the country,' said Danny Biggs, president of the Independant Producers Association of America (IPAA). ``People don't want to work in an industry where they might only have a job for a short while. Prices could fall tommorrow and people could be laid off.' During last year's period of exceptionally low crude oil prices, for example, the U.S. oil industry was devastated by across-the-board layoffs, rounds of consolidation, and slashed exploration and production programs. Roughly 30,000 people, or nine percent of the industry's workforce, lost their jobs. ``Those people weren't sitting at home all these months, they were looking for jobs,' said Briggs. ``And now that they have them, they're not coming back. Why would they?' Oil prices over the past year have nearly tripled to about $30 a barrel on global supply cutbacks orchestrated by OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) and other large producing nations, but the powerful cartel is now considering pushing production back up and prices back down. Fears of a resulting price downswing have helped keep workers out of the oil patch and outside investment rather low, a combination which has contributed to recent lackluster oil production in the U.S. and, in turn, high petroleum prices, analysts say. The Energy Information Administration (EIA), a Paris-based global oil watchdog, estimates that crude production in the U.S. was barely 8,000 barrels per day higher in December 1999 than in December 1998, at 6.051 million -- a remarkably low increase with oil prices so high. The low production levels, both domestic and abroad, are exacerbating a supply squeeze which has pushed gasoline, heating oil and jet fuel prices to levels not seen since just after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1991. Gasoline at the pumps is now approaching $1.50 a gallon -- more than 50 cents a gallon higher than in April 1999 -- and the EIA is predicting a continued spike into summer driving season. ``What this industry needs is a sustained, healthy market price for oil,' said Biggs. ``That would help us get back on our feet. Right now we're far too dependent on the whims of other countries. 'http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/000307/bc4.html Good Luck, Lee