OILFIELD JOB OPENINGS SOAR, AS WELL AS WORKERS' SALARIES

The ongoing energy boom — coupled with a continuing worker shortage — is
causing Oklahoma's drillers a withering combination of staffing problems,
from soaring wages to competitors hiring away crew workers.

What's more, drillers said, it is particularly difficult to staff up
because a high percentage of applicants are failing drug-screening tests.

"We're having a hard time finding guys who can pass the drug test," said
Tony Porter, contracts and marketing manager for the Oklahoma City office
of Patterson Drilling, second-largest U.S. domestic drilling company with
152 rigs.

Porter spoke of one drilling job in western Oklahoma where a crew quit
because of traveling distance. Rig operation was hindered for six days as
the company screened 22 job prospects to find another five-member crew.

"If we didn't drug test, we'd be crewed up all the time, but our accident
rate would be ungodly," he said.

Test results reveal a pharmacopoeia of substance abuse, including cocaine,
marijuana, stimulants, depressants and high alcohol levels, he said.

Patterson also uses random drug tests to cull problem workers. Still, the
company strives to be fair, Porter said. If a worker flunks a drug test, he
gets a 30-day layoff period to clean up.

At Nabors Drilling USA, the biggest drilling operation in the lower 48
states and the most active in Oklahoma, drug tests of prospective oil-field
workers come back positive up to 50 percent of the time, said Denny Smith,
director of corporate development for Nabors Industries, the Houston-based
the parent company.

"We have to do pre-employment drug screening," Smith said. "This is a
business where people have to be on their toes."

As a result, he claimed, Nabors' accident rate is a quarter of the industry
average.

But positive drug tests aren't the only problems troubling drillers. Take
wages, for example. Nabors competes with such industries as construction
for the semi-skilled workers who take roughneck jobs, he said. Nabors has
seen two pay hikes this year.

"Our wage scale is up 25 percent this year," Smith said.

Like other companies, Patterson has increased its wages to keep employees.
A rig worker now gets $16 an hour, while the drillers who manage a crew get
close to $20.

"We're doing all we can do" to keep workers happy, Porter said. "If you
treat them right, they stay with you."

At Oklahoma City-based Bison Drilling, a three-rig company with 48
employees, manager Steve Hale said he's seen three "hefty" pay increases
since December. Wages run about half of the amount he bills the oil
companies that contract Bison's services, he said.

"There are so few of us (drilling contractors) left that I pretty much know
what everybody is paying because my workers tell me," Hale said. When
competitors increase pay, "we just up our wages, too."

Nabors' Smith said that finding workers, especially skilled workers, is a
challenge.

Nabors has more than 200 rigs running now in the lower 48, Smith said, down
from a low of 77 in second quarter 1999. But the company still has some 180
rigs in storage. Nabors is refurbishing its stacked rigs as fast as it can,
and expects to have another 25 rigs operating in January, he said.

"We're running out of skilled supervisors and technical people, and the
economy is booming so there's a lot of competition (for all workers),"
Smith said.

Oil-field reports show that drilling is indeed expanding statewide. The
total number of rigs drilling in Oklahoma increased to 131 last week, up
nine from the previous week and up from a mere 82 a year ago, according to
Baker Hughes Inc.

Meantime, government figures indicate the worker crunch hasn't let up. In
October, the total number of Oklahoma oil-field workers was 25,500,
according to a state Bureau of Labor Statistics estimate. The reported
total in June was 25,800. In early 1998, the total was more than 30,000.

Patterson's Porter, who is Oklahoma chapter chairman of the International
Association of Drilling Contractors, has another complaint often heard from
oil-patch managers: other companies that try to hire away workers or entire
crews.

He tells of particular problems with another major drilling company. "They
have a recruiter who finds out who's working on a rig, then he'll call the
house and try to hire them away."