Offshore oil and gas

News analysis: Bad news, good news for offshore

What’s up with offshore? The oil and gas industry employs nearly 1,800 people directly in the St. Mary region, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. And that doesn’t count the shipbuilders and other businesses whose well-being relies on work in the Gulf of Mexico.

When storms and rigs tangle

Nowadays there is a mass exodus out of the Gulf when tropical weather threatens, but that wasn’t always so. It took a little while, and a few bad experiences, for oilmen to begin to figure out how to handle hurricanes. They’re still working at it.