Western Pennsylvania Firefighters Trained in Natural-Gas Blazes

- Western Pennsylvania Firefighters Trained in Natural-Gas Blazes

Monday, May 16, 2011
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
by Craig Smith, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

When it comes to natural-gas fires, what lies beneath worries firefighters.

"It's what you can't see," said New Castle fire Chief Thomas A. Maciarello.

More than 50 firefighters from 16 Western Pennsylvania fire departments recently completed specialized training on battling natural-gas fires, such as the one that ignited in February at a Marcellus shale drilling site in Washington County.

"It's essential firefighters understand how to respond to a natural-gas fire because many times they are the first at the scene," said Carol Fox, president of Columbia Gas of Pennsylvania, which conducted the training at company facilities in Ellwood City in Lawrence County and Waynesburg in Greene County.

Fire departments don't often practice responding to such fires because they occur so infrequently, Maciarello and Mt. Lebanon fire Chief Nicholas Sohyda said.

"We have several gas transmission lines, underground vaults, brick gas houses, some near schools," Sohyda said. "It's not a high-frequency event. ... But there is the potential to have a little bit more significant incident."

The training "gives us an idea of what we can do," Maciarello said.

In addition to well fires, firefighters were trained in extinguishing fires caused by natural gas migrating to the surface; fires at an above-ground regulator station or meter; and fires in excavation pits.

Columbia Gas, with local headquarters in Canonsburg, serves about 400,000 customers in 26 counties. It is one of the 10 energy-distribution companies of NiSource Inc., which serves 3.8 million natural-gas and electric customers in nine states.

This fall, Columbia Gas will provide similar training to fire departments in eastern and central Pennsylvania.

Copyright (c) 2011, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

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Gas Jobs Await Trained Work Force

Gas Jobs Await Trained Work Force

Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
by Laura Legere, The Times-Tribune, Scranton, Pa.

The list of want ads is long.

Project engineer, gas marketing administrator, landman, heavy equipment operator, compressor technician, business development director, regulatory clerk, petrophysicist.

In late March, the member companies of the Marcellus Shale Coalition advertised hundreds of open positions they want to fill in Pennsylvania or just over the border in New York. Three years into the gas-drilling boom, the job listings testify to the continued need for workers with a variety of skills to propel the growing industry.

Researchers with the Marcellus Shale Education and Training Center estimate shale drilling will require between 3,700 and 15,000 direct jobs in central and northern Pennsylvania by 2013 and an additional 8,100 to 13,500 direct jobs in southwestern Pennsylvania by 2014.

About 75 percent of the jobs will be blue-collar work, said the study's author, James Ladlee, director of Penn State Cooperative Extension in Clinton County. A significant amount, 20 percent, of the jobs can be characterized as general office work -- everything from information technology to receptionists.

"People think about the workers on the drilling rig and they think those are the only jobs out there," he said. "There are a whole bunch of people that are backing them up in a variety of ways to make sure that they are able to do their jobs out in the field."

The Education and Training Center, based at Pennsylvania College of Technology in Williamsport, has continued to adapt to the industry's work force needs, but the basic framework for many of the skills necessary for industry jobs are already available in general skills courses at most technical schools.

For example, many of the skills learned in a diesel mechanics course will apply to the diesel compressors used to push gas from wells into pipelines, Mr. Ladlee said.

Some higher-paying jobs will require more education. Engineers, a real need for the industry, will need four or more years of college education to acquire the necessary skills.

Larry Milliken, director of energy programs at Lackawanna College, said a certified pipeline welder can make more than $100,000 anywhere in the country because they are in such high demand.

"You can't get that skill in a year, but you can develop that skill in four years," he said. "And most of that is paid, on-the-job training after you get a two-year technical degree."

Prospective employees will need to accept a demanding schedule if they want to work in the gas industry, Mr. Milliken said. It is a hard truth he reiterates to the 50 students in the college's natural-gas technology program.

"A lot of people want to work an eight-hour day, go home, not work holidays or weekends and never be interrupted on their personal schedule. That's not the oil and gas business," he said.

"It's a 24-hours-a-day business. It is demanding. You've got to be available when the job calls."