America’s shale energy revolution is creating and sustaining hundreds of thousands of jobs in diverse sectors of the economy that supply construction, equipment, supplies and services to shale energy operations, and it is making the U.S. manufacturing sector more competitive by reducing energy costs, the president and CEO of Energy Equipment and Infrastructure Alliance (EEIA), said Toby Mack.
Testifying before Congress, at a House Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee hearing, Mack said the shale supply chain is booming and has created more than 450,000 jobs since the energy revolution began less than a decade ago. New research conducted by IHS Global for EEIA indicates that this boom will generate consistently rapid growth over the next decade. By 2025, nearly 300,000 new jobs will be created, for a 64 percent increase over 2012 employment in the diverse shale supply chain industries.
EEIA represents the shale energy supply chain, which includes manufacturing and distribution companies, construction companies, material suppliers, service providers and organized labor, which provide equipment, construction, materials, services and workers for shale oil and gas exploration, production, transportation and processing.
The economic and job benefits of shale oil and gas development extend well beyond those states with major shale plays. The preliminary IHS Global findings indicate that by 2025 better than one out of every seven jobs in the supply chain industries, more than 126,000 in all, will be in non-energy producing states, according to Mack.
