Quicksilver Resources Issues Layoff Notices

All of Quicksilver’s employees will get layoff notices because of sale

Quicksilver Resources issued layoff notices last week to all its domestic employees after a bankruptcy judge approved its sale of U.S. assets to Tulsa-based BlueStone Natural Resources II.

In an official notice filed with the Texas Workforce Commission on Monday, the company said that 164 employees would be laid off as of April 1 — 116 at the downtown Fort Worth headquarters and at an office on Eagle Parkway, and 48 in Glen Rose.

The company told its employees about the layoffs on Jan. 26, David Erdman, a Quicksilver spokesman, said.

BlueStone, which has about 70 employees, told Quicksilver its employees would be interviewed soon to see who would be retained. BlueStone officials were not available to comment Monday.

A federal bankruptcy judge in Delaware approved BlueStone’s purchase of Quicksilver on Thursday. BlueStone is paying $240 million in cash for Quicksilver’s Barnett Shale natural gas assets, which include acreage near Alliance Airport and Texas Motor Speedway. Another $5 million will be paid for oil-rich property in the Delaware Basin in West Texas.

Other energy companies also have filed layoff notices with the state.

Southwestern Energy in Spring, one of the nation’s largest producers of natural gas, said Monday that it planned to lay off 376 employees by March 22. In an earlier filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said 1,100 jobs would be cut because of “anticipated lower drilling activity.”

National Oilwell Varco in Houston, an oilfield equipment supplier, reported that it would lay off 129 employees by May 31 at its Air Center Boulevard location.

Plummeting oil prices may result in 20,000 additional oil-field-related job losses in Texas by the middle of the year, according to Karr Ingham, an Amarillo-based economist who works for the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers. If his prediction holds true, the oil and gas field and related industries will have lost 80,000 jobs from January 2015 to June 2016.

Source: Star-Telegram