Aiming at easing the personal pain involved in the oil and gasindustry downturn, the Texas Independent Producers &amp RoyaltyOwners Association (TIPRO) has instituted an Oil and Gas Job Bankat its website www.energyconnect.com.

TIPRO pointed to the “staggering 304% increase” in theindustry’s unemployment insurance claims since January of 1998, thebeginning of the present price collapse. Claims in the “mining”industry (which is 95% oil and gas) increased from 1,171 claims to4,730, according to a TIPRO review of recent Texas WorkforceCommission statistics. TIPRO’s no-cost Internet job bank attemptsto place unemployed oil and gas workers with employers that havehigh paying field and office jobs.

“The Baker Hughes rig count hit an all time low last week. Thatdoesn’t happen without massive lay-offs. Lay-offs are personal andwe want to do something to help the affected families,” said ScottAnderson, Executive Vice President of TIPRO.

“If unemployment quadrupled last year, it could do the samething again this year. That’s scary,” Anderson said. He saidsurprisingly he has begun to get some genuine interest in theproblem from some liberal Democratic and environmental lobbyinggroups. “Environmental groups are beginning to worry if they loseoil, they also will lose gas, the bridge fuel to the next century.”A Mexican-American group has contacted him and he said he had heardCommon Cause was considering endorsing removal of severance taxesas regressive.

“The response to the Oil and Gas Job Bank was immediate. Withinminutes of its initiation, we were contacted by Olsten FinancialStaffing, an oil industry placement firm, which has somespecialized personnel needs,” Anderson said. Within 15 minutes ofits opening, before it was even publicized, it received its firstresume.

The Energy Connection is an outgrowth of the TIPRO TechnologyTransfer program. Developed in 1995, the Energy Connection issupported by private industry funds, the Petroleum TechnologyTransfer Council and the U.S. Dept. of Energy. It integrates andlinks multiple oil and gas websites. including oil and gasassociations, producing company homepages, and oil patch servicecompanies. www.energyconnect.com also links to energy industrysites that are not part of its particular on-line community.

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