Word: patching
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...that powerful flash is but a weak flicker. The fallout from collapsing energy prices can be seen throughout the oil patch: in empty office towers, foreclosed homes, shuttered stores and the swelling ranks of unemployed. Auctions of everything from furniture to oil-field equipment are increasingly common. Banks are saddled with sour energy loans, and state governments are strapped for funds. In Texas, for example, each $1-per-bbl. drop in oil prices means a loss of 25,000 jobs and $100 million worth of state revenues...
Unemployment is rising inexorably throughout the oil patch. Louisiana's 13.2% jobless rate is the highest in the U.S. Last week 600 workers turned up at a Marathon Petroleum plant in Garyville, La., responding to the company's advertisement to fill five jobs. In Texas, where the unemployment rate has reached 8.4%, Paul Rogers six weeks ago lost his job as an oil pipe fitter. Says he: "I'm 21 years old and have 44 years of this left. What will...
...those citizens of the oil patch with long memories, boom and bust cycles are as natural as Texas tumbleweeds and summer windstorms. What is different about the current collapse, though, is the speed with which it struck. Says Historian Fehrenbach: "Nothing in the past has come on as fast as this." For the moment, then, people can do little more than hold on, hoping that the cycle will one day turn again...
...sore spot as well. The oil-patch states of Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana have been so severely affected that their troubles could spoil the rest of the country's party, at least in the short run. Bankruptcies and layoffs plague the oil business and nearly every industry connected with it. Though the Labor Department announced last week that U.S. unemployment dipped to 7.2% in March, down a notch from 7.3% in February, the jobless rate has stayed unexpectedly high at least partly because of the oil- patch slump. Unemployment in Louisiana has reached...
...anticipated U.S. growth spurt may be delayed for several months while / the economy absorbs the oil-patch troubles. The beleaguered economies of Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma, which account for 10% of total U.S. goods and services, are large enough to create a drag on the rest of the country. Major American oil companies have made billions of dollars in budget cutbacks, and that will at least temporarily offset the increased spending by other firms preparing for the good times ahead...