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Oil and gas field south of Carlsbad
Photo: Eddie Moore / ZUMA PRESS / imago images
Keith Freeman is still there, but most of the others are gone.
"At the beginning of the year everything was full here," says Freeman, 34. The large caravan park on the outskirts on which his camper is parked is almost empty.
Freeman's job is to lay oil and gas pipelines on the endless plains around Carlsbad, New Mexico, in the hot, desolate southwestern United States.
The wandering oil workers, thousands of them, soldiers of fortune like the gold prospectors on the Klondike River, have at times more than doubled the population of the area in the Chihuahua Desert.
Now they are gone.
What remains are dozens of empty barracks, called "man camps", and hundreds of idle oil and gas drilling sites around the city.
The coronavirus has infected the US economy and the price of oil.
In the once booming city of Carlsbad, visitors can see the gaps that are being torn by the dwindling demand for black gold.
Externally, Carlsbad is devoid of beauty.
Burger stalls, Walmart and Pizza Hut line up on Highway 285, with suppliers for the oil and gas industry in between, entire parks with cranes and compressors, spare parts dealers, pick-up sellers, and here and there a brothel.
It's strangely quiet, as if someone has turned off the engine.
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