Pandemic rocks Permian Basin as wells, rigs idled and workers laid off

Santa Fe New Mexican ^ | 4/18/20 | Jens Gould

[brownwill6767]

Seth Aldridge was at the tail end of a 12-hour night shift when he got the call at 6 a.m.

The voice on the other end said he had just lost his job as an oil field pumper for Occidental Petroleum in the Permian Basin.

“It was a shock to get the call, for sure,” said Aldridge, a 34-year-old resident of Lea County. “You see it coming, but you never really think … or you hope it’s not you that gets that ax.”

The ax is falling throughout energy-rich southeastern New Mexico as crude prices have plummeted amid the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s a swift and stunning reversal for an area of the state that until last month had been riding high on the greatest oil boom in its history.

[Svartalfiar]

Yes. But the $20 oil is a direct result of the pandemic.

Maybe a little bit. But the big influencer on oil prices has been the Russia/OPEC fight.