The Shale Industry Is Scrambling to Catch Up to Its Own Boom
- Activity in Permian Basin keeping services companies hopping
- ‘It’s like hanging a steak in front of starving people’
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Five years ago, the thought of $55-a-barrel oil would have given Piotr Galitzine heartburn. Now it’s keeping one of his steel-pipe shops in Houston open 24/7 and fueling a flurry of orders.
It’s stoking business for National Oilwell Varco Inc. too, with the oilfield-equipment giant for the first time in better than a decade selling more land-based than offshore gear. And it’s got Perry Taylor on the hunt for truckers to haul fracking sand. Even at $80,000 a year, jobs are hard to fill. “It’s tough,” said the chief executive officer of Agility Energy Inc. “We’ve got commitments that are very difficult to keep right now because we can’t get the drivers.”