2011 North Slope Borough
The North Slope Borough (NSB) is the inverse of the Mat-Su Borough: a large number of people work there, but very few of those people live there. Almost 7,000 people live in the borough, most of them in Barrow, but the greatest impact the oil and gas industry has on them is through oil-related property tax revenues. The North Slope oil industry infrastructure and work sites are self-contained and hundreds of miles away from most of the borough’s resident population.
Prudhoe Bay, the largest oilfield in North America, is the hub for most oil and gas related activity in the borough. About 20 percent of the jobs in Prudhoe Bay are provided by oil producers and about 65 percent are provided by oil support services companies. The remaining 20 percent are categorized in other industries, but directly tied to Prudhoe Bay or other area oil operations (construction, transportation, or professional services, for example).
Key Findings
- Primary Companies and oil and gas support services companies with operations in the NSB provided 8,260 jobs and accounted for $850 million in annual payroll, by place of work.
- By place of residence, 20 annualized jobs were held by NSB residents who work for Primary Companies or oil and gas support services companies. Wages for those jobs equaled $1.8 million.
- Including all direct, indirect, and induced effects, the oil and gas industry generated 1,500 jobs held by residents in the NSB and total annual payroll of $100 million, almost all related to taxes paid by the oil industry.
- Local oil-related property taxes totaled $271 million in 2010, 98 percent of the Borough’s total property tax revenue.
Direct Employment and Payroll
Primary Company employment (by place of work) in the NSB averaged 1,959 in 2010, with total annual payroll of $231 million. The number of Primary Company jobs held by North Slope residents, however, was 5, with total annual payroll of $0.5 million.
Indirect and Total Oil and Gas Industry Related Employment
Primary Company activity generates three categories of indirect and induced employment and payroll. The first is the group of companies categorized in government statistics as oil and gas support services. A total of 15 North Slope residents worked in these companies and received annual payroll of $1.3 million in 2010.
There were another 150 jobs and $12 million in payroll paid to North Slope residents working for firms that directly provided goods and services to the Primary Companies but were categorized in sectors other than oil and gas support services (e.g., transportation, construction, and professional and business services).
Most importantly, oil-related tax revenue, as well as spending by the North Slope residents who work for the Primary Companies or companies that benefit from their activity, generated 1,330 jobs and $86 million in payroll. Combining the direct, indirect, and induced effects, the oil and gas industry generated 1,500 jobs and $100 million in payroll for borough residents.
The $100 million attributed to the oil and gas industry equals roughly 28 percent of all NSB employment-related income. That number is conservative considering that 98 percent of local government revenue comes from oil and gas property taxes, which in turn generates a significant portion of local government jobs and spending throughout the borough.
Oil and Gas Jobs in NSB by Place of Work and Place of Residence
The following table illustrates two different aspects of the oil and gas industry’s employment impact on NSB: employment by place of work and employment by place of residence.
NSB’s Largest Employers
All of the top ten private sector employers in NSB are oil and gas companies of one form or the other. The largest in the third quarter of 2010 was ASRC Energy Services with more than 1,000 jobs.
