VIDALIA — The Miss-Lou’s oil industry is carrying around a few black eyes from the blows it took during the 2011 Mississippi River Flood, but the majority of the industry escaped without any damage.

Oil wells located outside the floodplain in both Adams County and Concordia Parish are sitting high and dry, while many of those located closer to the water flooded.

“Everything along the riverfront back to the bluffs went under,” WT Drilling Company Operations Manager Gary Parker said. “We are looking at another month to a month and a half until we get everything back to normal for the affected wells.”

Parker said that up to 80 of the thousands of wells in Adams County went underwater, all of which were located in low-lying areas.

And Joe Ring, president of Phoenix Energy Inc., said even one offline well can be costly.

“Even if you just have one well producing 10 barrels a day at $100 (a barrel), you are still losing $1,000 a day,” he said.

One of the wells that went under during the flood belonged to Ring, who said it will be 30 more days before his well is back in operation.

“We had a well south of Natchez that was completely inundated by the flood,” he said. “We were unable to produce because of that, but having looked at it since then there wasn’t that much damage done.”

Ring, who only owns one well in Natchez, said he noticed a change in his income.

“It wasn’t anything catastrophic, but we did not like having our income cut,” he said.

Parker said financial loss was unavoidable for those who had to secure their wells and ride out the flood.

“The producing wells were completely shut down, and they were for a couple of months,” he said. “Some of them are still down, and some of them we still can’t get too.”

WT Drilling employees saw that loss firsthand working as clean-up contractors for the owners of affected wells.

“I went around and saw a lot of wells from Rodney Island to the Louisiana line,” Parker said. “We saw a little bit of flooding in some of the wells there.”

Parker, whose company didn’t own any of the flooded wells, said many owners also lost their tanks by not properly securing them.

“The oil in the tanks makes them float, and while most of them stayed tied on, there were some instances to people losing their tanks down the river,” he said.

Parker also said many well owners just left their tanks higher up off the ground, not expecting the water to get as high as it did.

“No one built anything to handle 62 feet of water,” he said. “Some of the tanks higher up just got swept in with the water.”

Parker said thanks to experience dealing with floods in the past, disaster was avoided.

“Everything went almost exactly as we expected,” he said. “We have been through this with floods before, and while it was never this bad, we knew what to do.”

Crisis averted

Natchez Inc. Director Chandler Russ said any time wells are out of commission money is being lost from a very valuable industry.

“Because of (industries like oil) our economy receives millions of dollars and they employ thousands of people,” Russ said. “And we are grateful that they are a part of our regional economy.”

Concordia Parish Economic and Industrial Development District Executive Director Heather Malone said the industry is just as big of a factor on the other side of the river.

“The oil and gas industry is one of our major economic drivers in Concordia Parish,” she said. “In addition to drilling companies, Concordia has many industry suppliers that make up the parish’s business community.”

Thankfully, though, most local wells were not affected.

Energy Drilling General Manager Pat Burns Jr. was one of the safe ones.

“I know some existing wells were affected, and any wells that were already in the flooded area on both sides of the river would have had to shutdown operations for the most part,” he said. “We weren’t drilling any new wells or had any immediate plans to drill any new wells in the immediate flood area.”

During the close to two months of high water hysteria, Burns said his company also saw no financial loss related to the flood.

“Business stayed pretty consistent and usual,” he said.

Even with no wells in the flood area, Burns said the initial news of the flood brought some worry to Energy.

“It gave everybody a lot of concern,” he said. “The potential of the levee breaking would have really affected things in a bad way.”

Concordia Parish Police Jury President Melvin Ferrington said a levee break would have meant a more somber story.

“The levees really helped everything they were protecting, so there was nothing to worry about inside them,” he said

Ferrington said well owners with wells in the floodplain on both sides of the river worked to secure their wells before the flood got too high.

Some unprotected area wells lost their battle with the Mississippi River.

Ferrington said experience with flood conditions and the levees saved the parish from any additional damage.

Ferrington also said Concordia needs to work on improving the irreplaceable oil industry in the parish.

“Our wells are not producing like they have in the past,” he said. “It is a great industry benefit, and we get a lot of revenue through the different oil operations. We need some more wells.”

Ferrington said he hopes Concordia will continue to search for new oil prospects.