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Pipeline Brings Jobs

01/08/10

PIPELINE PROJECT TO BRING HUNDREDS OF JOBS TO PONCA CITY


The Price Gregory Company and the Ponca City Development Authority, (PCDA) have reached an agreement for the massive Keystone Pipeline project to base it's regional construction operations in Ponca City. PCDA officials confirmed that while the final agreement is still being completed, the company will lease PCDA owned land north of the former Tyson facility for their regional construction center. The center will be the base for pipeline construction to South Central Kansas and North Central Oklahoma.

The pipeline project will also lease the former Airline Drive-In on Highland. Additional land for pipe storage at the southeast corner of Highland and Ranch Road has been leased by TransCanada, the company supplying the materials for the project. Construction at that site began earlier this fall.

According to PCDA Executive Director David Myers, the project will offer employment to hundreds of people from the Ponca City site. "They have indicated to us that they will bring approximately half of their workforce in and will hire about half locally," Myers said. When asked how many local people would be hired out of Ponca City, Myers would only say, "Several hundred."

PCDA estimates that the economic impact to the area will be significant. "The exact amount will depend upon the duration of the project here. The company estimates that work from the site will last between twelve and eighteen months. This will be a huge boost to area businesses and those seeking employment during the recession which hit us earlier this year," he said.

The specifics on how the company will hire are still being determined, Myers said. There are no applications available yet nor is there a waiting list being prepared. "The project is scheduled to commence April first and we probably won't have the process completed and information for job seekers available until February," he said.


The Keystone Pipeline will be one of the largest oil delivery systems in North America with the capacity to deliver 1.1 billion barrels of oil from Western Canada to refining markets in the United States. The 2,148 mile pipeline stretches from Hardisty, Alberta to the Kansas, Nebraska border where it forks into a Southern line to Cushing, with a planned expansion later to the Gulf Coast, and an eastern line to Illinois. Shipments of oil to the Eastern line are scheduled to begin in late 2010. Last August, the Keystone acquired the ConocoPhillips interest in the project.