Oil prices have continued their months-long freefall.
And as Stephanie Joyce reports for Inside Energy, those lower prices are starting to take a toll in energy-producing states.
Cyclone Drilling is one of the largest drilling contractors in Wyoming. Manager Patrick Hladky says if prices don’t rebound quickly, he’s expecting to idle at least two of the company’s 27 rigs by the end of the month and even more in the first quarter of next year.
“I don’t know what tomorrow brings, it could be a 25 percent reduction, it could be a 50 percent reduction, it could be back to ‘08 numbers, where we see up to an 80 percent reduction in fleet.”
Hladky says Cyclone is well-positioned to weather a downturn. But not everyone is. Analysts expect that many small companies who borrowed heavily to fund their drilling in recent years will be hard-hit by the downturn, which is widely expected to last through 2015.
