Weld County, CO (my home) is the 20th largest
petroleum and natural gas producer in the USA.
The oil production isn’t cheap as most of it is from
fracking shale. Already big players like Halliburton are laying off in mass.
As well as smaller operations.
It reaches across the board.
The bright spot seems to be, for the moment, natural gas.
The county is also a big in agriculture but the Wuhan virus
has shut down the large local packing plant.
Wind energy is in trouble and the county hosts a large
windmill company with operations in Brighton and Windsor.
I wouldn’t want to be a landlord right now. New apartments
are still under construction and the rents on existing apartments have been
jacked up beyond what a diminished economy will support.
The impact on local government will be significant as tax
revenue dries up.
On a personal level I may be busy as people fall behind on
their mortgages. That brings me no joy. It doesn’t bother me to contact fuck
ups living beyond their means. It does bother me to contact regular people
struggling with the economy in disarray.
Time will tell.
9 comments:
With West Texas Intermediate trading at -$40/barrel for May deliveries, I'd think that the oil industry in your part of Colorado is coming to a screeching halt. And they're not just 'jobs', they are well paying jobs. Jobs that support families with a lot of local spending that won't be happening as they all file for unemployment.
June WTI is $20, which means that the hope is that people start driving again after the Chinese Plague restrictions end. But even at $20, most fracking operations arn't profitable and the oil revenue won't be trickling down.
LL
You are right. Natural gas may soften the blow.
Another consideration down the road is the loss of skilled people if/when demand returns.
The loss of skilled people has always been a problem when things slow down. I've worked at companies that tried as hard as they could to keep their skilled employees during a downturn, only to have to let them go anyway. When things turned around they couldn't get those people back, and the company was never the same.
And telling people to "write it all down" before you show them the door usually has the opposite effect. I've seen skilled people stuffing the shredder before their last day to prevent their hard-won knowledge from "falling into enemy hands" as one old guy put it.
DrJim
That was the reason my master sales lead file was always in my personal vehicle. What I needed day to day in the store was always a copy. Only a few wiser heads understood why I never had a "demo".
Until I was moved into"management" 40-45% of my sales were to previous customers.
Treat your customers right, and they'll be back. And while my more cynical auto dealer friends were fond of saying "There's An Ass For Every Seat", even they had repeat customers because regardless of the dealer's opinion of some customers, they treated all of them the same; fairly and courteously.
It was only after the lights went out for the day that the humor and sarcasm came out.
WHAT?!? An HONEST auto dealership? Yep, some of them are out there, run by good, decent, HONEST, hard-working folks.
They might be assholes themselves, but they were honest assholes!
DrJim
I qualify as an honest asshole. I never, not once, lied to sell a vehicle. As a manager I didn't tolerate dishonesty in my crew.
One payoff was when we did offsite sales. We did something like 60 sales in 17+ towns around Colorado. We would rent a place, bring in 30-50 Kias, and use a motor home for an office. Our reputation for fair dealing made our efforts in places like Trinidad, Sterling, and Montrose had some locals thinking of us as locals. If not, they would travel to our stores in Grand Junction or Del Camino.
There were months we sold 500 new Kias between the stores and the "Roadshow".
WSF, I'd hate to be the guy that brings the bad news to families hit by this. I really would. But there it is. Hope LNG helps.
Maybe China needs to make reparations. Like no kidding.
Yep, things are going to get rough... And I don't know how long it is going to take to pull out of it. Best guess is 12-18 months. I think, sadly, you're going to be busy!
LSP
What I bring is bad news, but not unexpected news. In the package are solutions. The mortgagee may not like the solutions, but I don't do eviction notices.
OldNFO
I don't need to be busy. Still, I need to keep up cash flow and avoid dipping into reserve funds.
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