The uproar over Chinese drilling-rig workers in Colorado is much ado about very little, officials from the workers’ employers said Thursday.
Houston-based GTS Drilling Services Inc., importer of the first Chinese-made gas-drilling rig in Colorado, employs just two Chinese nationals at its site near Battlement Mesa in Garfield County.
The two Chinese engineers have worked at the site for two months to help get the rig started and will return to China next month.
Another oil and gas firm, Golden Bear Drilling & Services Corp. of Denver, plans to bring temporarily four or five Chinese workers to its new Chinese-built rig in Garfield County until the firm can train domestic workers to operate the unit.
The U.S. has a shortage of drilling rigs, and the importation of Chinese rigs and crews has generated media coverage over concern that U.S. jobs and equipment will be displaced.
“We’ve never really thought it was very big news,” said Bob Woodworth, a partner in Denver-based Western Energy Advisors, which helped Golden Bear acquire its Chinese rig.
“For every Chinese guy we have in the U.S., we probably have a thousand U.S. guys in China,” he said. “As we train our (local) people on the new rigs, we’ll need fewer of (the Chinese workers) to work on them.”
GTS plans to hold a news conference today in Parachute to discuss the new Chinese rig.
“This is a highly sophisticated, computer-controlled digital rig,” said GTS spokeswoman Jane Lea Hicks. “Working on this is not like getting on a bicycle.”
Staff writer Steve Raabe can be reached at 303-820-1948 or sraabe@denverpost.com.
