Yesterday, I had the opportunity to attend the 2007 Fayetteville Shale Symposium. If you are not familiar with the Fayetteville Shale play, Arkansas Business, the symposium organizer has all of the details you need – they will also have the symposium presentation outlines posted online soon. The shale play provides a tremendous opportunity for new job creation. For example, Southwestern Energy, just one of the companies involved in the Fayetteville Shale play currently has thirty job postings in Conway alone. These jobs include some advanced technical and administrative roles. Several accounting positions are also posted with Southwestern.
Some additional reflections on the symposium:
-The extraction of natural gas from the Fayetteville shale offers great economic opportunity to the area and the state through economic investment, community patronage, and the potential for new, high-paying jobs.
-There are also important environmental concerns and the state environmental agency (ADEQ) is working to make sure there is minimal environmental impact.
- From the company, investment, and legal speakers, I gathered that the enthusiasm for these opportunities should be tempered with realistic expectations: There will be declining values from drilling operations, the operations basically only offset traditional vertical drilling of the past, and energy prices will determine whether continued and expanded operations are economically feasible.
Comments or Questions?