According to a new “Bloomberg News” report, Texas truckers are receiving $5,000 signing bonuses from energy companies drilling in the western portion of the state. City officials say Odessa is becoming so populated because of the oil boom that school districts are putting deposits down on apartments to ensure teachers have a place to live.
Union Pacific Corp. is also adding tracks and facilities to help trains handle manage the surplus of drilling supplies coming in, as well as the amount of crude oil coming out. Experts say the rising amount is a result of new extraction technologies and hydraulic fracking advancements.
As the business continues to expand, city officials are expecting to add 13 hotels, 2,500 houses, industrial parks and the first set of new apartments in more than a decade. The city’s economy is also expected to grow by 9.7 percent this year, more than five times the average U.S. metropolitan growth rate. Furthermore, the mayor of Odessa says in the last decade the city’s economy has more than doubled; property tax rates have also been cut in the last eight of his 11 years in office.
Drilling is also helping reduce the city’s unemployment rate. In June, Odessa has the second-lowest unemployment rate in the city (4.9 percent) Oil companies are still expected to bring in hundreds of employees to work the fields; the city will also hire hundreds more to staff hotels and meet the demand of workers.
The state of Texas has seen tax revenue shoot up 14 percent to $36.4 billion through June, compared with the same time period one year ago. Taxes from oil and gas extraction have increased 49 percent, while the number of drilling rigs has jumped by 500. So far, the industry accounts for 17 percent of the state’s economic activity.