Field services by the numbers
A reference page of the figures FieldNews tracks for oilfield, pipeline and heavy construction contractors: fuel and commodity prices recorded daily from NYMEX futures via Yahoo Finance, and the weekly figures, crew market notes and regional tender counts published in The Field Report, with tender counts from CrewFinder. Every figure names its source and date, and the page changes only when that data does.
Last updated:
Fuel and commodity prices
Prices as of , in US dollars. Lines show the last 90 days (from Aug 10, 2026).
Diesel
$4.33/gal
Week: -$0.35 (-7.5%) since Oct 31, 2026
30 days: -$0.53 (-10.9%) since Oct 8, 2026
WTI crude
$90.83/bbl
Week: -$13.29 (-12.8%) since Oct 31, 2026
30 days: -$0.25 (-0.3%) since Oct 8, 2026
Natural gas
$3.00/MMBtu
Week: +$0.10 (+3.4%) since Oct 31, 2026
30 days: -$0.14 (-4.5%) since Oct 8, 2026
| Date | Diesel /gal | WTI /bbl | Nat gas /MMBtu |
|---|---|---|---|
| $4.33 | $90.83 | $3.00 | |
| $4.68 | $104.12 | $2.90 | |
| $4.79 | $103.27 | $3.05 | |
| $4.72 | $99.02 | $3.12 | |
| $4.74 | $91.85 | $3.22 | |
| $4.50 | $91.11 | $3.04 | |
| $4.46 | $92.41 | $3.23 | |
| $4.84 | $96.08 | $2.91 |
Sources: Diesel: NYMEX ULSD (heating oil) front-month futures, a wholesale diesel proxy, via Yahoo Finance (HO=F); WTI crude: NYMEX WTI crude oil front-month futures, via Yahoo Finance (CL=F); Natural gas: NYMEX Henry Hub natural gas front-month futures, via Yahoo Finance (NG=F). Diesel is a wholesale futures price, not a pump price.
The Number, week by week
One figure from each issue of The Field Report, newest first, last 26 weeks.
$78B
Caterpillar's Q3 order backlog is nearly double last year, led by data center demand for power generation gear. Power generation sales rose 30%, so electrical, rigging and crane subs should plan 2027 install capacity now.
Source: Construction Dive, citing Caterpillar's Q3 earnings
$383M
A federal judge upheld a verdict of nearly $383 million against Toshiba America Energy Systems over defective rehab work at Michigan's Ludington plant, on a job awarded under a $560 million contract in 2010. If you weld, fabricate, machine, install or inspect on aging generation assets, warranty exposure can outlast the contract by a decade.
Source: Engineering News-Record
27.6%
That is how much steel mill products rose, per AGC, and steel beam lead times are stretching into 2027. Price your bids with escalation in mind and lock supply early.
Source: AGC, via construction input cost report
$134.1M
That is the federal money TCEQ has to permanently plug marginal conventional wells in Texas. Eligible wells are vertical, onshore on non-federal land and make no more than 15 boed a year. Applications close Nov. 9.
Source: Permian Basin Oil & Gas Magazine
$15B
That's the combined value of the Fluor and JGC award for LNG Canada's Phase 2 at Kitimat, with each partner booking $7.5 billion. The award is firm, but how much goes to subs and when packages open hasn't been disclosed.
Source: Construction Dive, citing Fluor's news release
$26.8B
Four Pickering reactors are going offline to kick off a decade-long refurbishment, replacing 1,520 fuel channels and 48 boilers, locking in mechanical and E&I work well into the 2030s.
Source: Ontario Power Generation, via Daily Commercial News
595
US rig count just hit its highest level since May 2024, and it's the second straight week of gains. More rigs running means more completions, trucking and E&I work rolling downstream.
Source: Baker Hughes via Reuters/BOE Report
13.8 million b/d
EIA's record 2026 crude output forecast leans hard on the Permian, which alone is pegged at 6.8 million b/d. That's sustained rig and completions demand for anyone working West Texas.
Source: EIA / Oil & Gas Journal
1.75 million labor hours
The Blatnik Bridge replacement between Duluth and Superior alone could generate up to 1.75 million labor hours through 2031, a multiyear pipeline for iron workers, concrete crews and equipment operators.
Source: ENR
34,000
SpaceX's proposed Starbase Louisiana spaceport could generate over 34,000 construction jobs on Gulf Coast marshland, though no contractor is named yet.
Source: Engineering News-Record
$70B
Alberta's pre-bid power project pipeline just cleared $70 billion, led by a $40B nuclear plant and a $16.5B CCS pipeline network. That's years of civil, E&I and pipefitting work still in design phase for contractors positioning early.
Source: Daily Commercial News
69 GW
Siemens Energy's gas turbine backlog just hit 69 GW with lead times stretching past three years. If you install or wire turbines, this is multi-year work visibility, not a one-quarter blip.
Source: Siemens Energy
$41B
That's Enbridge's secured capital backlog for gas transmission projects, with $9 billion in newly sanctioned work already this year. If you're in pipeline construction, this is the pipeline of work, not just talk.
Source: Enbridge Inc. via Daily Commercial News
$100B
A former uranium enrichment site in Paducah, Kentucky is becoming a $100 billion power-and-compute campus pairing 4.6 GW of dedicated generation with 1.2 GW of compute capacity. That's years of civil, electrical, and mechanical subcontracting work lined up before full build-out in 2032.
Source: Rigzone
2,000
Alberta's newly approved Yellowhead pipeline puts 2,000 direct construction jobs on the board immediately, adding to a province already forecast for a decade of non-residential growth.
Source: Alberta Utilities Commission via Daily Commercial News
$50B
Meta's Richland Parish, Louisiana data center build is expected to support 7,500 peak construction jobs, with Turner, Mortenson and DPR running the buildout. That's the kind of number that turns a regional labor market overnight.
Source: Meta, via reporting on the Richland Parish project
$25B
Brookfield's fuel cell financing framework with Bloom Energy jumped from $5 billion to $25 billion in a matter of months, a sign that onsite generation is now the default power play for AI data centers, not the backup plan. That means more onsite power construction work outside the traditional grid interconnection queue.
Source: Power Engineering
1,700%
Canadian oil exports to Asia jumped from $500 million in 2023 to $9.3 billion in 2025, riding on Trans Mountain's expanded capacity. That kind of volume growth keeps west coast terminal and pipeline crews busy for years.
Source: Canadian Energy Centre / ATB Economics via BOE Report
Crew market
The labour figure from each issue of The Field Report, newest first, last 26 weeks.
Permian frac crews hit 106 as of Oct. 16, up from 93 a year earlier, while ConocoPhillips cut Canadian staff and contractors with no headcount disclosed.
Texas upstream employment slipped 500 to 196,400 in September, but TIPRO counted 12,719 job postings, with Houston at 3,216, Midland at 938 and Odessa at 583.
ATB Financial says Pacific Link and the Pathways carbon capture system could add up to 90,000 jobs from 2028 to 2036, and Western Canadian subs will chase the same limited pool of welders, pipefitters and electricians.
Bayer's New Albany, Ohio campus is expected to create about 1,500 construction jobs from mid-2027, while Doral's Mammoth Solar in Indiana peaked at about 1,800 workers on site.
Construction hourly pay is up 4.2% year over year to $41.69, and contractors laid off just 99,000 workers in August, a record low, with 251,000 jobs open.
Union and merit-shop wages are holding above 4% growth, with electricians and MEP trades seeing the sharpest gains as data centre demand keeps squeezing the construction labour pool.
H&MV Engineering plans to add 1,000 new high-voltage jobs across the US over five years as gigawatt-scale data center builds outpace skilled labor supply.
US oil and gas extraction jobs rose from 114,700 to 114,900 in August, a rare gain, while Canada's equipment dealers are short 1,263 technicians, draining CA$803M a year.
Construction job openings hit 326,000 in July, the highest in nearly two years, with data-center and power-related work driving the hiring push.
Fluor laid off 66 workers at Novelis' Bay Minette, Alabama plant as the $5B project shifts from construction to commissioning.
Amazon's third Shreveport, LA data center campus is expected to support up to 2,250 construction jobs as its regional investment climbs to $18B.
US oil and gas extraction employment fell to 114,600 in July, the lowest level nationwide since March 2022.
Open construction jobs hit 305,000 in June, up 36% year over year for a third straight month, even as spending fell, a clear skilled-labor shortage signal.
BuildForce Canada projects a construction labor gap of 34,000 workers by 2035, with retirements outpacing new entrants across the country.
Texas upstream employment rose 400 jobs in June, with oilfield services hiring up 1,300 offsetting a 900-job drop in extraction work, per TIPRO.
US energy services jobs dipped to 627,259 in June from 633,115 in May, with Texas falling to 305,653 from 308,519, a pullback after three straight months of gains.
McCarthy projects a Midwest shortage of roughly 10,000 electricians and pipefitters within 18 months as data center and power generation work surges.
Construction job openings hit a 10-month high of 298,000 in May, but the hiring rate matched an all-time low of 3.5%, a sign firms want crews faster than they can land them.
Where the work was, by week
Public tenders and project starts counted by CrewFinder over the 7 days to the Week of October 26, 2026 issue. Each regional group is counted separately; a tender listed in two regions counts in both, so the groups are not added together.
Rest of US
27 public tenders · 6 project starts
- Tender · Pipeline Construction · Florida · Oct 29
- Cannon Falls City Council approves final plat for data center development - Cannon Falls Beacon · Oct 28
- AWS plans to expand data center footprint in Montgomery County, Missouri · Oct 26
Appalachia & Northeast
22 public tenders · 9 project starts
- NEQ Operating Staffs Up with Ex-Devon Execs – Eyeing the Marcellus? · Oct 28
- Rhode Island Energy Swaps 65 Wood Structures for Steel in $8.2M Job · Oct 27
- EQT's acquisition of Range underscores race to dominate US natgas market · Oct 28
Rockies & Plains
25 public tenders · 3 project starts
- Tender · Remediation & Cleanup · Utah · Oct 30
- Ur-Energy Announces 120-Hole Drill Program to Unlock Growth Potential at Lost Creek South, Wyoming · Oct 29
- Oklahoma smelter construction targeted for 2027 · Oct 27
Texas & Gulf Coast
16 public tenders · 7 project starts
- Expand Energy Pulls Third Permit to Test Western Haynesville · Oct 29
- EQT's acquisition of Range underscores race to dominate US natgas market · Oct 28
- Tender · Plumbing & Pipefitting · Texas · Oct 30
West Coast
16 public tenders · 1 project start
- Tender · Road Construction · Washington · Oct 30
- Construction Of Military Data Center On Maui Alarms Residents · Oct 28
- 88 Energy lines up partner for Augusta-1 exploration well on Alaska's North Slope · Oct 28
Eastern Canada
6 public tenders · 5 project starts
- Ottawa matches $1B Ring of Fire funds · Oct 28
- Tender · Ontario · Oct 28
- XXIX Metal launches largest drilling campaign in its history · Oct 28
Western Canada
3 public tenders · 7 project starts
- Ovintiv Acquires Montney Neighbor Logan · Oct 27
- AER well abandoned: Enercapita Energy Ltd. near Viking (01-15-048-13W4) · Oct 22
- Tender · Geotechnical Engineering · Yukon · Oct 28
Right now
Live from CrewFinder, last 30 days. These numbers change through the day and are not part of the dated record above.
About these numbers
How often is this page updated?
Fuel and commodity prices are recorded once a day and the page keeps the most recent 90 days. The Number, Crew market and the regional work counts come from The Field Report, our weekly newsletter, and are added each Sunday when an issue is sent. The "Last updated" date at the top is the newest date in that data, not the time the page was built.
Where do the diesel, WTI and natural gas figures come from?
All three are front-month NYMEX futures prices read from Yahoo Finance in US dollars: diesel is the ULSD (heating oil) contract, HO=F, quoted per gallon as a wholesale proxy, so it is not a retail pump price and excludes taxes; WTI crude is CL=F, per barrel; natural gas is Henry Hub, NG=F, per million British thermal units (MMBtu).
How are the weekly and 30-day changes calculated?
Each change compares the newest daily price with the most recent price recorded 7 to 10 days earlier (weekly) or 30 to 34 days earlier (30-day). Percentages are rounded to one decimal place, and the comparison date is shown beside each change. If no price exists in that window, the change is left out rather than estimated.
What counts as a public tender or a project start?
Both are counted by CrewFinder, the contractor directory that FieldNews works with. A public tender is a publicly posted bid opportunity; we list it by service, region and date only, never by buyer or title. A project start is a new capital project, mobilization, turnaround or permit. Counts are per regional group and are never added together, because a tender that covers two regions counts in both.
Where do The Number and the Crew market lines come from?
Each is written for that week's issue of The Field Report from the articles FieldNews published that week, and names the original source. Follow the issue link beside any figure to read it in context.
How to cite
FieldNews, Field services by the numbers, https://fieldnews.net/numbers/, accessed [date].