Posted on 12/31/2012 6:28:11 AM PST by thackney
Across South Texas, the Eagle Ford Shale dominated business activity in 2012 as it emerged as one of the biggest oil-and-gas shale plays in the nation.
The shale formation reaches across 25 Texas counties, but much of the drilling this year centered on Gonzales, DeWitt, Karnes, LaSalle and McMullen counties — areas producing more crude oil or natural gas liquids than the currently uneconomic dry gas.
Eagle Ford production topped the equivalent of 1 million barrels of oil per day in the third quarter. New “man camps,” RV parks and hotels to house workers continued to open. And the activity was visible in the road damage, heavy truck traffic and accidents across the region in 2012.
The Eagle Ford also provided a huge economic development boost for San Antonio, which had scooped up more than 4,000 jobs from producers and service companies working in the play, according to a December report from the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation. The Bexar County payroll from the shale play is estimated at more than $186 million annually.
Although San Antonio sits outside the shale play, the report said the city was well-positioned for regional headquarters and supplying everything from workers, construction and goods to community college training for workers.
Uneven year for energy
Refiner Valero Energy Corp., San Antonio's biggest publicly traded company, struggled with weak demand for its products, especially gasoline, because of high prices and a still-fragile economy.
Valero, though, is making a big investment — almost $3 billion — in units that make diesel fuel, which is in demand in the United States and around the world.
Refiner Tesoro Corp. also is making a sizable investment, saying in August it would pay $2.5 billion to BP for a 266,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Southern California that would make the company the largest refiner in that state. The deal is subject to regulatory approval.
Earlier in the year, the refiner tussled with the United Steel Workers union, as a total of 1,300 workers at six Tesoro plants rejected the company's contract offers. Some of the talks at Tesoro's plants dragged on for months before union members ratified contracts.
Employment incentives
In April, the Texas Back to Work program that paid incentives to employers who hired laid-off workers came under criticism from observers who said the companies would have hired the workers anyway, without the incentives, as the economy improved.
The program, administered by the Texas Workforce Commission statewide and Workforce Solutions Alamo locally, had paid employers almost $45 million statewide and San Antonio area employers $1.74 million. A spokesman for West Corp., the largest area beneficiary of the subsidy, agreed it would have hired the workers back without the subsidy. West had received $362,500 in subsidies for 267 eligible workers. The program was set to expire by the end of the year.
Other industry news for the San Antonio area at the link:
There is always good news with bad news....Good on the oil production...bad that the state feels it has to pay employers to hire laid off workers when they would have been hired anyway. More slushy monies that reveal themselves from some lobbyist and legislative handout hidden in some bills....of course, IMHO!!!
...the Eagle Ford Shale dominated business activity in 2012 as it emerged as one of the biggest oil-and-gas shale plays in the nation. The shale formation reaches across 25 Texas counties, but much of the drilling this year centered on Gonzales, DeWitt, Karnes, LaSalle and McMullen counties... production topped the equivalent of 1 million barrels of oil per day in the third quarter.
too right!! maybe they could figure out how to lower our property taxes and not fund this (laid offf worker funds) or the govenors biz development slush fund.
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