Lacy: Natural gas industry brings 2,000 jobs to county

Though Faulkner County wells currently produces less than a quarter of the natural gas White, Conway and Johnson counties do, Brad Lacy of the Conway Chamber of Commerce and Conway Development Corp. said he believes 2,000 Faulkner County jobs have been created as a result of the oil and gas industry.

"I think you can look at our job growth over the last two years and see the impact they've had," Lacy said.

According to discoverarkansas.net, an Arkansas labor market information source, about 45 Faulkner County jobs existed in the mining sector in both 2004 and 2005. In early 2006, this number jumped to over 300. The latest figure, taken in September, shows more than 630 jobs.

As the need for workers to operate drilling rigs grows, Faulkner County Judge Preston Scroggin said, the need for workers to perform the dozens of tasks related to the drilling, such as earthwork, rock fracturing and delivery of supplies, grows also.

And for all this, countless other purchases are made, Scroggin said. In Conway County, he said, it isn't uncommon for "mom and pop restaurants" to receive orders for 50 sandwiches or 50 pizzas.

"When I was in the legislature, we had a $14 or $15 billion state budget," he said, "and in the past two years you've got eight companies that invested $5 billion, and you've got two companies alone that are going to invest probably $2 or $3 billion in the last eight months, Southwestern and Chesapeake. When you've got that kind of investment, that's going to have an effect, and how many times is that dollar going to go through a community?

"And it just trickles down," he continued. "In every one of these metal buildings we're seeing everywhere, well, in there's a job for an electrician, and there's a job in there for the concrete boys; and if the interior needs finishing and furnishing, then there's jobs in there for that too and so on and so on." Lacy said the state has endeavored for years to attract "superprojects" that can employ 500 or more people. With all the people in Arkansas working jobs created by the oil and gas industry, directly or indirectly, and all the people that could be working these jobs if drilling activity continues to increase, Lacy said, "I would say that we have found six superprojects."

"That explains why we've had continued retail sales growth while other places haven't" he said. "And I think that explains why Conway isn't in a deficit in '07, like Little Rock."

Scroggin said that though the economic impact the county has received from oil and gas industry activity has been "a real blessing," like most things, "it isn't something for nothing."

"I've got some real concerns about our roads," he said.

With the price of a mile of chip-seal road currently at over $50,000 due to the price of oil, Scroggin said the oil and gas industry's heavy equipment has the potential do damage roads at a far faster pace than the county could repair them, both in terms of time and money. So far, he has said, the oil and gas industry has made good on the promises made to repair roads its activity damages, and he believes they will continue to do so, but in the meantime, he said, Faulkner County, like many other counties, is investigating ways to ensure the roads can be kept in good shape.

Scroggin said when the oil and gas industry "first darkened my door" he wasn't sure what to make of it, but now he sees it as "a blessing."

"We didn't now if this deal was for real," he said. "You've got a hundred salesmen that come by your door and sooner or later you get kind of cynical about it, but I believe this deal is for real. It's been great to see the impact it's had on local people and their lives. "You've got downsides to everything, like strain on your transportation infrastructure and increased traffic, but our whole area, these counties, we have kind of been blessed over the years, and this industry is a blessing too. I'd hate to see what we'd look like without them."

(Staff writer Joe Lamb can be reached by e-mail at joe.lamb@thecabin.net or by phone at 505-1238. Send us your news at www.thecabin.net/submit)