August 2022, Vol. 249, No. 8

Features

Help Wanted: Oil Patch Operators Need Quality Workers

By Richard Nemec, Contributing Editor               This spring, Lynn Helms, who has been North Dakota’s chief oil and natural gas regulator for nearly three decades, abandoned his usual bullish outlook toward the state’s more than 1 MMbpd of oil and 3 Bcf/d (85 MMcm/d) of gas production while speaking at a monthly webinar he holds for news media.   In April and May, Helms was decidedly negative on current job and operating prospects in the oil patch. On a recent trip he had made to Denver, he reported on the large amount of shrinkage in Colorado’s once thriving oil and gas business, including many of the operators who are involved in North Dakota’s Bakken shale. Workforce issues permeate

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