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Larger percentage of Arkansans filling Chesapeake jobs Wednesday, Apr 23, 2008 By Jason Wiest Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - Now that drilling in the Fayetteville Shale play has been under way for more than two years, a larger percentage of Chesapeake Energy Corp.'s jobs on drilling rig crews are filled by Arkansans, a company official said Tuesday. When Chesapeake, the second-largest operator in the play, and Southwestern Energy Co., the play's largest operator, began drilling in 2005, Arkansas didn't have a large pool of job candidates seeking employment in the field. "So initially the rig crews were brought in from other states where there had traditionally been that sort of backbone of a work force," Danny Games, Chesapeake's corporate development director, said Tuesday during a speech at an economic forecast conference hosted by the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. This time last year, roughly 10 percent of Chesapeake's jobs on drilling rigs in the Fayetteville Shale were filled by Arkansans, Games said. The jobs pay $55,000 a year and up. "Now that number is about 40 percent and incrementally grows as we can train and expand," Games said. Chesapeake currently employs 354 people in Arkansas, and 299 of those employs work on rig crews. Currently, Chesapeake operates 14 rigs in the play, but the company plans to increase that number to 25 rigs by early 2009. Since beginning operations in the promising Fayetteville Shale play, where company officials plan to drill for years, Chesapeake and other companies are collaborating with local colleges to offer a simulated drill rig class to Arkansans. The first class of nine students was held last week at Arkansas State University in Searcy, Games said. Classes are booked for the next six to seven weeks, he said. Enrollment limits are set at 10 students per class. |
