In the most recent decade, the region’s many pockets of oil and low production costs have led to gold rush-like conditions in the Permian. Companies are stream staff and equipment into the oilfield, which is expected to pump 3.7 million barrels of oil per day by December, four times its scold in 2010, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
That boom has resident employers, including restaurants and school systems, under pressure from workforce leaving for oilfield jobs. Midland’s unemployment rate was 2.1 percent in October, rivaled to the nation’s 3.7 percent rate.
The last decade’s shale profitability also has led to school overcrowding, soaring traffic fatalities, drug misuse and strains on the power grid because of the activity.
“Our roads are not designed to tackle the amount of truck traffic we have,” said Jeff Walker, transportation training coordinator at New Mexico Secondary College in Hobbs. Drug charges in Midland more than doubled between 2012 and 2016, to 942 from 491, according to police observations. Traffic accidents also jumped 18 percent between 2016 and 2017 in Midland County, and 29 percent in not far-off Ector County, according to Texas Department of Transportation data.
“They all admit that scaling up infrastructure is going to be a huge challenge,” said Bob Peterson, a helpmeet at consultancy Arthur D. Little who advises producers. “There’s a common contract that there’s a whole bundle of problems.”