SAN ANTONIO - A
s people are looking for work, the state is looking at ways to make up budget shortfalls. The Eagle Ford shale just south of San Antonio is offering some answers to both of those problems. Some experts are calling it one of the biggest oil and gas discoveries ever in the U.S.
A UTSA study estimates the shale will account for 11 billion dollars in gross product; 21 billion in total revenue impact; and support nearly 70,000 full time jobs. There are three major companies in Pleasanton, for example, that are deep in the Eagle Ford shale fracking business. Pumpco has been here since September of last year. So far, they've hired 320 people and they're looking to add many more.
The company is doing all it can to hire enough field workers to keep up with a furious drilling pace that seems to be ratcheting up every day. It's attracting people from all over the state. Some have experience...some don't.
Jeff Zink moved from Fort Worth told us, "You got people who have never done this a day in their life, people who have never driven trucks. They going to get that CDL, because they know they can come here and make some good money."
For the local folks here it's about not having to move to stay employed. Andrew Garcia quit the food transport business for a range of reasons. "I heard how good the money was, being home everyday, being 2 weeks on and one week off was the schedule so I decided to come down and try it out."
The Eagle Ford shale field is an enormous area of brittle shale that has opened up to the oil and gas business by way of fracking....a relatively new way of extracting oil and gas through high pressure water and chemicals. some energy analysts compare this discovery as the most important since Spindletop launched Texas into the energy industry. Local economy experts say that's translating into huge numbers.
Gilbert Gonzalez with the U.T.S.A. Small Business Network, told us, "In Dewitt county, and Bee county and Dimmitt you've seen about 750 jobs added in just one quarter."
Now production is expanding so quickly that Pumpco along says it's going to be hiring 100 more peole before the end of the year.
