A new source of jobs in the energy sector is about to hit the Casper, Wyoming, area.
Mesa Solutions is growing its manufacturing base in Evansville, planning to consolidate its two existing buildings into one new and significantly larger facility.
The company builds commercial and industrial power generators, including an oil and gas generation series that can convert flared gas into reliable energy while conforming with EPA standards.
Until now, the company has had two lots in Evansville, one along Baker Drive and the other at the Cole Creek Industrial Park. One facility built its engines, while the other manufactured generators to house those engines.
Mesa’s new factory will be 220,000 square feet, according to records with the city of Evansville’s planning department.
The new plant will not only have ample room for the existing two buildings the company had, it includes significant growing room. The company has told the Wyoming Business Council, which provided an almost $9 million grant for infrastructure to support the project, that once it has its new plant the company will expand the workforce there by somewhere around 260 jobs.
The construction timeline calls for work to begin in January 2025, finishing up sometime in summer 2026.
It’s not known when the company would begin the hiring process for the new positions, or exactly how many new positions will be available. Mesa Solutions would not respond to Cowboy State Daily’s inquiries about the expansion.
“At this moment, Mesa is not offering any information until after the first of the year,” Mesa Marketing Team Lead Amber Poth told Cowboy State Daily. “Thank you for your patience as we work through the rest of 2024.”
A Triple Win For Oil And Gas
The idea of putting flared gas on well sites to work is one that has been gaining steam in the oil and gas sector.
Flaring has been a lightning rod for criticism from people on both sides of the political aisle. On the one hand, it’s an irreversible loss of a valuable resource that would otherwise be subject to royalties. On the other hand, it’s seen as contributing to things like air pollution and climate change.
Putting flares to work as a power source not only satisfies some of the critics, but it is also generating low-cost power that can be put to work on a well site or sold back to the power grid for a revenue stream. It can also be used to power scalable, energy-intensive computing infrastructure — otherwise known as artificial intelligence — which is a rapidly growing sector.
Mesa’s website says that its gas generators have already mitigated 1.2 million tons of flared gas, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by a corresponding 30%.
Mesa Solutions has grown quickly since it began in 2019, spreading to 27 locations across the state and setting up field offices in a variety of oil and gas plays, including North Dakota’s Bakken and the Eagle Ford and Permian basins in Texas.
They employ 700 people company wide and have a Glassdoor rating of close to 70%. Reviewers highlighted its work-life balance and its compensation and benefits as positives, but many also said it can be a fast-paced environment requiring a lot of outside work.
Doubleheader For Wyoming
Wyoming Business Council decided to invest in the project because it’s a little bit of a doubleheader for its money.
“All of our money will go to the community, to help it build infrastructure that the community owns,” Wyoming Business Council CEO Josh Dorrell told Cowboy State Daily. “The money we’re putting in does help Mesa Solutions to expand their business and build a great facility, and I think they’re investing about $80 million into that building.
“Our $9 million unlocks their ability to do that, but it also unlocks a 200-acre parcel in Evansville that they will now be able to develop around Mesa.”
Dorrell estimates the $9 million grant will unlock a $20 million a year economic impact for Natrona County.
“The rest of that park can be used for further development,” Dorrell said. “So other vendors to Mesa, or other businesses that need space, now have a place to go. And that’s what we like to do is unlock potential in a community and create more jobs. In this case, we got to do both, so it was kind of a two-for-one, if not more than two-for-one, deal.”
Dorrell said he was told by the company it wants to expand the Casper office because it sees Wyoming as a really good place to grow.
“Without this investment, Mesa might have considered moving somewhere else, and not being there in Evanston,” Dorrell said.
The overall development will also help to unlock a future revenue stream that Evansville can use for economic development, making it more self-sufficient in the future when it comes to diversifying its own economy.
Those are the kinds of economic investments, where multiple objectives are achieved and greater self-sufficiency is reached, that Dorrell said the Wyoming Business Council wants to prioritize going forward.
“We want to make sure that we’re not just sort of sprinkling (state funds) around and everybody gets a little bit,” he said. “We’re trying to really concentrate on unlocking big chunks of land or unlocking capabilities in communities that they don’t have today.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
