According to a recent Observer-Reporter piece, communities around the state are seeing tangible, positive changes in the oil and gas industry. These impacts are being felt up and down the supply chain; putting people back to work and enriching local economies.
Paul Battista, owner of Sunnyside Supply in Slovan, is a perfect example of this effect. According to the profile, Battista noted as he closed out the books on February, he recorded the first pick-up in business in 24 months. Of his top 25 customers last month, a dozen were new accounts, but 90 percent of the overall business was related to oil and gas industry orders. “We’ve hung in there,” Battista said. “We knew (the gas industry) was going to come back, we just didn’t know when.” For more from Battista, check out the video below.
Ed Brownlee of Avella-based Brownlee Trucking noted earlier this month that during the downturn of the past couple of years, the trucking company moved into the water storage tank business and has been supplying them to Range Resources. However now, he’s seeing drilling picking up in the Burgettstown area, adding the company also is hauling compressors, currently doing work on a compressor station project in West Virginia. “We definitely have seen a pick-up,” Brownlee said. “It’s not where it was, that’s for sure, but work seems to be picking up.”
The report specifically mentions the Mariner East projects, both in operation and under construction, as a direct factor to the economic turnaround in Pennsylvania. According to the Reporter, a “link to extern markets” and use of a cracker plant in Beaver County have contributed to a “brighter outlook.”
As PEIA has emphasized, the Mariner East projects will support economic growth for years to come. Mariner East 2 has just begun construction and already the future is looking bright!