HOUSTON- A new report says the worst of the oil bust may be over for Houston. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas published the report, it oversees Texas.
"I think it's true that the worst is over, that doesn't mean we don't have a long way to go," said Cole Vanya, owner of Landwise Consulting.
In 2014 when oil was booming, Cole Vanya started Landwise Consulting. He specializes in drilling fluids management on oil and gas rigs and horizontal directional drilling. However, since then he's seen lot of ups and downs.
"The winter of this year is when it really got slow, obviously due to the oil prices being in the $20s at that time, everything was slow," said Vanya.
With the drop in prices went jobs across the industry.
"Every time you have to go out to a rig to tell someone you are not going to have a job anymore it hurts," said Vanya.
However, Vanya is starting to see signs of progress.
"What we've been seeing is there's been a lot more activity as far as requests for pricing, I have people that are getting ready to start drilling, so it's on the verge of picking up," he said.
Although Vanya says the recovery maybe slow, it's good news for Houston.
"We can start breathing a little easier, the oil and gas industry is still one of the major backbones of our city and so to have that come back will be a major boom to everything," he said.
When you look at the rig count numbers, you can see how far we've come. Back in 2012, the count in Texas was 877. It held relatively steady for three years. Then, last year there was a dramatic drop to 363 and it continued into this year where we sit at 244.