Jobs in the Lafayette area’s oil and gas industry continue to feel the pains from the downward trend in oil prices that have yet to relent since the start of 2015, with the most recent casualty coming in an announcement this week by an oil and gas equipment plant in Broussard.
News of the latest job casualties came Tuesday in an announcement issued by Exterran as part of the layoff notifications requirements of the Louisiana Workforce Commission.
According to the notice, the company is planning to close its Production Equipment Manufacturing facility in Broussard in two phases, starting with a first-round of layoffs on Aug. 28. Forty-six employees will be impacted in the initial downsizing. The next wave will come a couple months later, either in November or December when the plant is closed for good, according to correspondence submitted to LWC by Chris Michel, senior vice president for global human resources at Houston-based Exterran Holdings — a company that operates in more than 30 countries and employs about 10,000. The layoffs, according to Michel, will be permanent.
In all, the Broussard plant closure will claim 76 jobs.
Exterran’s announcement marks just one in a series of layoffs or closures in the oil and gas industry so far this year, both locally and statewide.
According to this report from The Advocate, Exterran was preceded by seven other companies to have issued similar notifications to LWC. In all, the reported statewide layoffs — the majority happening between Dec. 31 and February — are between 770 and 1,017 for jobs in the oilfield services. Much of this has hit this area, with the Lafayette Metropolitan Statistical Area hit with losses of about 1,000 jobs in the mining and logging sectors for 2015 alone.
From The Advocate’s article:
Baker Hughes announced in February that its Houma office would fire 60 oilfield workers.
Parker Drilling reported the same month that its New Iberia office would dismiss between 50 and 297 oilfield workers by March 18.
Helmerich & Payne Inc., of Tulsa, Oklahoma, said March 4 that it would fire 76 oilfield workers in Louisiana by March 15.
In Shreveport, Enable Midstream officials said March 11 that they would lay off 109 oilfield workers between May 11 and Dec. 31.
In Amelia, Bollinger Marine and Fabrication announced March 26 that it would fire 275 oilfield/fabrication workers between April 17 and July 22.
Houston officials of Tenaris Hydril said April 6 that the firm’s Westwego office would terminate 88 oilfield workers by June 5.
BP Biofuels officials in Jennings said May 4 that they would lay off 56 oilfield employees by July 3.
Read the Advocate story here.