Locals losing patience: Area workers unsure if oil will ever come back

Houma native Roderick Collins hears all of the time that it’s soon to get better.

But after close to a half a year’s worth of waiting, he’s at a point where he’ll believe it when he sees it.

Collins has worked various jobs tied to the price of oil since graduating high school in 2011 – including some with local shipbuilding companies.

But he was laid off about six months ago after a round of cuts hit the company he was working for – an employer he asked us not to name because Collins said he left the business on good terms.

His bosses told Collins that he was a good worker – one of the best young hands in the company.

But there was a problem.

There simply wasn’t any work to be done.

Collins is one of several locals out of work and gasping for relief as the price of oil and gas hovers around $50 – far less than the $80, $90 and even $100 per barrel prices the area enjoyed for the early part of this decade.

Without work, Collins said he’s cut grass and done side jobs – anything to hang on and pay the bills. But he added that he can’t hang on forever, and something will have to change for the better for him to stay in the area long term.

“I have a lease and I have people here that I love and don’t want to leave,” he said. “But I can’t do it much longer, you know? It’s a struggle, and I’m a young guy now, but guess what? You have to make money when you’re young so you can rest when you’re old. I have to either see something pick up here or I will have to go find some hustle somewhere else. I literally have no other choice.”

Collins is one of literally hundreds of people fighting that same struggle.

And after being told for months that a comeback was imminent, some locals are beginning to lose patience.

It’s no secret that the area is heavily tied to the oil and gas industry’s success – almost to a fault.

Just about every industry locally is related to oil and gas – either directly or indirectly.

Direct impacts, of course, are obvious, as drilling companies, service companies, marine companies and several other oil-related businesses make up literally tens of thousands of jobs in the local workforce – jobs which were abundant, but now are scarce as work has slowed.

But what many don’t fully grasp are the indirect effects that the industry has on literally every other realm of the economy.

For example, when oil and gas is good, people have more money, which benefits restaurants, grocery stores, retail stores, automobile dealerships and just about everything else.

As dollars are spent in those places, sales taxes are collected, which allow projects to be funded in the area.

Media companies like this publication feel it, too.

Our business thrives based on ad sales to companies, and obviously, the more profits businesses are making, the more they’ll be willing to set aside some cash for an advertising budget. This, of course, directly impacts our budget and profits margins, as well.

“It is the engine that drives everything in our local economy,” Port Fourchon Executive Director Chett Chiasson said earlier this year. “When it’s good, a lot of people are happy. When it’s not, a lot of people are very, very uneasy. Right now, I think we’re in one of those uneasy times.”

The current economic dip started in the middle of 2014 when oil prices tanked – dropping from $100/barrel to around $50/barrel in just a couple months.

In late 2015 and early into 2016, the bottom fell out again and prices hovered near $30/barrel – the lowest they’d been in decades.

Since that time, the market has stabilized and has slowly worked upward. Oil has been around $50/barrel for the better part of six months. It sits just north of that amount at press-time.

The saving grace locals have been clinging to during the dip is history and the idea that we’ve been here before, but have always battled back.

The price of oil has slumped several times throughout history, but has always seemed to climb back up – most times higher than ever before.

And experts in the field have said for months that the same thing will happen again in this dip, citing the billion-dollar commitments oil tycoons are still making in the Gulf of Mexico for future deepwater drilling.

“By every indication that we’ve been given, it’s going to come back,” Chiasson said earlier this year. “Money is still being invested in the Gulf, and every indication is that we’re going to see things get back to comfortable levels in the future.”

But those prognostications are beginning to fall on deaf ears – especially among locals who need work right now.

Collins said he, too, has heard that the price of oil would shoot back up. He said he believed it at first but is starting to lose hope.

The same can be said for fellow Houma native Joe Romero, who is thinking about going back to school after being laid off.

Romero said he considered going to Nicholls or Fletcher to get oil-related training to use when the economy picks itself back up off the canvas.

But after thinking about it and watching the situation unfold with friends and family, he’s decided to go into a whole new career field altogether.

“I just can’t keep waiting,” Romero said. “I don’t know if it’s ever going to come back.”

That’s not the answer locals want to hear, but it’s a reality Collins, Romero and others have to face as every day passes by without normalcy having returned to the industry.

Collins said he believes in his heart the industry will return, and he’s hoping it’ll be in the next six or so months.

If not, he might have to miss out, and he said he has a lot of friends who’ve pulled the plug already and have left town.

“A lot of my old co-workers are gone,” Collins said. “Some went to Texas. Others went wherever. They just picked up and left. Louisiana and Terrebonne Parish is awesome, man. But if you can’t fend for yourself here, then sometimes changes have to be made, and right now, all the work is shaky because companies are hanging on. I got burnt once. I don’t think I can do that again.” •

Welder

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