As a noticeable 2023 shift, the oil industry outlook is picking up with demand. Jobs in the field jumped by 1,500 plus positions in March as additional rig sites and drills were put back into production in the early Spring. Granted, this change is part of a return from the 102,000 positions lost globally during the pandemic cutbacks, with a return of some 19,000 positions since then. In the U.S. the losses were as much as 27,300 by April 2020. However, overall, there is still room to grow; the industry in terms of domestic activity is still well over 10 percent below where it was in 2019 before COVID arrived.
Significant Pandemic Losses are Still in Place for the Oil & Gas Industry
No surprise, the pandemic hammered oil and gas support services like it did many other economic areas, a downstream industry sector reliant on the primary demand and rigs kept online for production. When gasoline and jet production dropped, so did the commensurate demand for oil as well as all the secondary services that supported its harvesting.
2023 growth is expected to add back another 23,000 positions, a considerable jump again toward the pre-pandemic levels. That also means an indirect impact on the need for support services, covering everything from specialized rig support services to general overhead and personnel management or security. The more physical sites opened, the more the related economic ripple effects are felt across multiple industry sub-sectors with the same increased activity. Additionally, oil and gas companies are hedging their positions, relying far more heavily on scalable contract services in case they have to downsize with short notice and quickly, a common challenge in a fast-changing post-pandemic market.
Tentative Commitments are Clearly in Play
Big oil fields like Levellend, TX, and elsewhere are seeing only fractional production, with plenty of rigs and un-tapped pockets still ready to be turned online or accessed. However, for that to happen, the domestic industry also needs to see commensurate demand remain steady for the long-term as well.
Many gas and oil experts instead expect to see a market leveling off, as the shift back to normal business and removal of the last bits of social distancing are still occurring nationwide. Once that transition is completed, many in the industry expect to see a plateau in the latest demand, both in transportation as well as in the consumer markets. So, not a shock to anyone in the know, the amount of commitment to bringing on more resources is frequently tempered. It’s in this kind of environment that Levellend oil field support services can easily expand and provide more to their clients, filling in the gaps where companies are not ready to expand permanent labor resource commitments just yet.
