News

Natural gas workers know the ‘drill’: They have to work holidays away from their families, but plan well-wishes and get-togethers on other dates.

December 25, 2009

Energy for Christmas

Working on Christmas is one thing. Doing so thousands of miles away from family and knowing a homecoming is perhaps weeks away is quite another.

The workers drilling for natural gas in the region make the sacrifice, though, because they know it’s making the day more special, and they’ll hear about it in a few weeks.

Besides, they don’t really have a choice.

“Where I come from, you don’t have no holidays. You work a schedule: 14 (days on the job), 14 (off). If you work during the holiday, you work,” said Mark Neal, a drilling consultant from Jena, La., working for Cabot Oil and Gas on a rig in Susquehanna County.

“We’re human beings; we’ve got families. We do have a heart. We miss our families … but this puts food on the table. That comes first.”

Neal said he arrived at the Chudleigh 2V well pad near Montrose on Dec. 16 and won’t go home until Dec. 30, but he said it’s a minor adjustment.

“It’s a holiday, but I do our holidays before I leave or when I get home,” he said. “It may be a little early or a little late, but it’s all good.”

In fact, his family – including his wife of 28 years, two children and two grandchildren – grew up with it. “My daughter, she was 14 before I had a Christmas off and a Thanksgiving,” said Neal, who began working in the oil and gas fields at age 16.

The wait is even longer for Dave Moore, who lives in central California. He works a three-week-on, three-week-off schedule as a drilling supervisor, meaning he won’t be leaving the Hibbard 4H pad near Dimock Township until early January.

His family of a wife, four sons and 10 grandchildren has a big reunion meal planned for the following Saturday.

Cell phones, however, allow all rig workers to wish their families a Merry Christmas today. “They all call home probably early morning and late in the evening,” Moore said.

Roughnecks don’t have to forsake all holiday traditions. Moore, who’s been working on rigs since 1966, said he and several of the other rig managers use their on-site cooking facilities to whip up – “to the best of our man abilities” – a holiday feast.

“We each cook a portion of the meal and then put it out here for the men,” he said. “We try to have a traditional holiday dinner here on location when the men get off of shift, turkey or ham, you know … to make them think of home.”

Crews work 12-hour shifts on the sixes, so one crew eats before its shift and the other eats after.

The same is going on at Neal’s rig. “We’re going to have some turkey and some ham and some cranberry sauce just like everybody else.”

Then, there are the grateful residents. Neal and Moore said people stop in daily and, according to Moore, “bring us Christmas cards and all kinds of sweet goodies that we shouldn’t have.”

“It made me feel like I was at home,” Neal said. “I’ve never been anywheres in my career where there haven’t been good people.”

But the goal is always to get home, and the on-or-off schedule suits Neal fine.

“I work half my life. I’m retired the other half,” he said. “I probably see more of family than people who work every day.”

And that goes for holidays, too.

“My kids always wonder why Santa comes two weeks early,” he said, but they certainly don’t mind. “They were riding their bikes and (stuff) before everybody else got theirs.”

Rory Sweeney, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 970-7418.

Were you interviewed for this story? If so, please fill out our accuracy form

Send Question/Comment to the Publisher