America’s hottest oil industry boom just needs a few thousand truckers

When the price of oil collapsed in 2014 and disrupted drilling operations all across Texas’s massive Permian Basin shale formation, truckers were among those hardest hit. Rendered unnecessary by the slump in output, they were fired in scores.

Now, three years later, with oil prices inching back higher and production in the Permian soaring once again, the drillers want the truckers back.

The feeling, though, isn’t mutual. The pain of the 2014 bust remains fresh for many who went on to find driving gigs in other industries.

The result is a growing trucker shortage that threatens to limit just how high drillers can push production.

The problem is most acute in the western fringe of the Permian — known as the Delaware Basin — where shale companies are moving back into aggressively as prices climb.

Permian production is surging, thanks to improving oil prices. Explorers are tapping oil in the furthest regions of the field, which extends from West Texas across into New Mexico.

Output may reach 2.79 million barrels a day January, 30 percent higher from the year before, according to latest government forecast.

Led by Permian growth, total U.S. oil output is set to surpass 10 million barrels a day in June 2018, potentially eclipsing OPEC’s Saudi Arabia.

About 3,000 oil truckers are hauling oil around the Permian, more than the 2,000 to 2,500 just before the 2014 price bust, Willie Taylor, chief executive officer for Permian Basin Workforce Board in Midland, Texas, said.