NORWICH – Shale drilling may still be banned in New York, but the number of vendors and job seekers at the first shale gas jobs expo held in Binghamton Wednesday told a more economically uplifting story.
The list of 45 vendors lining the Broome Community College Center included Payne’s Cranes, Inc. of Bainbridge and FS Lopke Rock Products, which operates a gravel bed in Oxford. Other vendors with close ties to Chenango County were the Leatherstocking Gas Company, LLC and the Joint Landowners Coalition of New York (JLCNY).
A handful of local natural gas development proponents attended the event to share business contacts, including Bryant La Tourette of Rapid Reproductions in Oxford, founding member of the Oxford Landowner’s Group, which later merged with the Central New York Landowners Coalition and is now part of the JLCNY; Chenango County Natural Gas Consultant Steven Palmatier and Cliff Tamsett of Norwich, who is a consultant with GasTem USA, the company currently developing a conventional sandstone well site in Guilford.
For most of the afternoon, a line of about 40 to 50 people long waited to submit their resumes to a representative of Chesapeake Energy. The large conglomerate holds hundreds of leases in Chenango County from which it hopes to one day drill for gas within the Marcellus and Utica shales. The booth for Cabot Oil & Gas of Pennsylvania was also a hotbed of activity.
Payne’s Cranes currently has job openings for truck drivers and crane operators, said Vice President Gregg Eldridge. The licensing process requires three years of on the job training followed by two state-administered exams, one written on safety and one a practical, hands-on test in the field. The process could take six years, depending on test scheduling.
Participants attended seminars on jobs associated with pipelines and natural gas exploration, from inspection, permitting, agency consultation and field surveys. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s 2012 budget doesn’t allow for any new positions, but if new regulations for hydraulic fracturing are released, the former mineral resources director said he anticipated between 50 to 100 jobs from geologists and engineers to technicians.
“You can find a great job in the oil and gas industry if you are willing to work,” said Gregory Sovas of XRM Environmental Consulting. Sovas spent 30 years at the DEC, including 22 years as director of the Division of Mineral Resources, where he managed the Oil and Gas Regulatory Program. He suggested that applicants stay up to date on www.cs.ny.gov website for civil service testing dates.
If the DEC’s Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement is approved, Solvas said the economic impact could become “the greatest opportunity in depressed areas of the state that we will see in our generation.”