Fort Worth-based oilfield servicing company says it may lay off about 1,400 employees
A Fort Worth-headquartered oilfield service company that has filed for bankruptcy protection twice in five years has suggested that it may cut the jobs of about 1,400 employees who work in three states.
Basic Energy Services, Inc. wrote in an advisory that 120 of the employees whose jobs may end work at its Burnett Plaza tower office. About 375 of the employees work elsewhere in Texas, in Big Spring, Andrews, Denver City and Kenedy. The largest share of the company’s cuts could come in Bakersfield, California, where about 775 jobs may be lost. The positions of about 75 employees in Artesia, New Mexico, are also in peril.
The mass layoff advisory is required by the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act, and it was released by the Texas Workforce Commission. The layoffs may occur in mid or late October.
Basic on Aug. 17 filed a voluntary Chapter 11 petition in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas. The company wrote in the WARN Act notice that it had entered into asset purchase agreements with Berry Corporation, Axis Energy Services Holdings, LLC and Select Energy Services, Inc.
Basic wrote that it did “not know whether the sales of its businesses will be completed, or whether any purchaser of the company’s businesses will make an offer of employment to any or all of the company’s employees after the closing of a sale transaction.
“If the company does not enter into such sale transactions, the company currently expects that it will be forced to wind down its operations and conduct reductions-in-force.”
In 2012, Basic moved its headquarters from Midland to downtown Fort Worth, where it leased about 50,000 square feet of office space.
At the time the company referred to itself the third-largest oil and gas well servicing company in the United States. It was founded in 1992 and went public in 2005.
Nearly half of Basic’s business at the time of the headquarters move came from completion services, including hydraulic fracturing and well cementing. Water hauling and disposal and well work-overs and servicing each accounted for about 25 percent, and contract drilling provided the rest of the revenue.
Basic completed in December 2016 a restructuring and recapitalization plan and emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after the company reached a deal with creditors on a prepackaged reorganization to reduce its debt.
Basic divided among several investors about $800 million of unsecured debt, including accrued interest, in the restructuring. It also eliminated about $60 million in annual cash interest and raised $125 million of new capital, according to the company.
This story was originally published September 1, 2021 at 7:28 PM.
