Staff-Reported

Halliburton Energy Services, a major drilling service company in the West Slope’s Piceance Basin, confirmed today that it has laid off workers, but declined to say how many employees were let go.

“It simply is not business as usual in the current economic environment and we continue to work hard to minimize personnel reductions; however, we can confirm, unfortunately, that there were some Halliburton personnel reductions in Grand Junction [Thursday],” said a statement from Larry Kent, Halliburton’s Grand Junction district manager, issued by the company.

“Halliburton remains committed to deliver exceptional solutions and services to our customers in the Grand Junction area as we have since 1996,” Kent continued.

According to the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel newspaper’s website, several Halliburton employees were told they were no longer needed when they arrived for work Thursday morning. Another local media outlet, Grand Junction television station KJCT-Channel 8’s website, quoted a Halliburton employee at the company’s Grand Junction building as saying longer-serving workers had been laid off.

Halliburton says it employs roughly 1,400 people in the state and that one of the company’s top priorities this year would be “reducing headcount in locations experiencing significant activity declines.”

Their approach is similar to other major energy players in the Piceance Basin, which has seen its recent oil and natural gas boom quickly deflate because of low commodity prices and the general economic malaise facing the country.

Oklahoma-based Williams Companies Inc., another large oil and
gas operator in the basin, is reducing the number of drilling
rigs it operates in the area from 21 last year to eight this year.

To put things in perspective, one need only compare the rig
activity last summer versus the first part of this year. At its
peak last August there were 75 drilling rigs operating in
Garfield County. As of the end of January, the figure had
fallen by 43 percent to 43 rigs, according to the Colorado Oil
& Gas Conservation Commission.