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This is Fred Ball for Zions Bank, speaking on business.
My recent visit to Westroc Oilfield Service in Vernal helped give me a crash course in the extensive work required to service the oil and gas industry. I had no idea the logistics for aiding the drilling companies were so complicated, labor intensive and critical!
Westroc has been an integral part of the industry for more than 28 years. Weston Serrano told me about the business and explained how the company operates. Without companies such as Westroc, gas and oil would never get out of the ground. The business has an extensive trucking operation with specialized equipment such as huge tractors and trailers used to move the large rigs and drills from location to location. I saw a photograph of equipment with two truck tractors, one on each end of a huge load. One tractor was moving forward, the other was moving in reverse to manipulate the giant rig to a new position.
Westroc prepares drilling locations before and after rigs arrive and leave. It provides roustabouts who operate fork lifts, backhoes, light and heavy trucking, pipeline construction, pit liners, welding with portable welding rigs, various kinds and sizes of winches. They also build compressors to move gas along the line.
Many of the 220 employees have been with Westroc for more than 25 years. A roustabout is not just a job—it is a career and those in the position have tremendous loyalty to Weston, his family and the company. Employees enjoy generous 401(k) benefits and the company covers 100 percent of medical care costs. This is most unusual in today's market. Westona Horrocks, one of Weston's daughters, says that the benefits and the employees' dedication are what make Westroc so successful.
Costs are escalating because of fuel and tire expenses, but Weston, who does the job bidding, is so knowledgeable about the time and equipment required for each job, that the company remains profitable and extremely competitive.
The economy is booming in the Uintah Basin, and Westroc Oilfield Service is an integral part of the positive business climate.
For Zions Bank, I'm Fred Ball. I'm speaking on business.
