While OGE and PSO crews have come home from Puerto Rico where they helped restore electricity following the 2017 Hurricane Maria, hundreds of employees from another Oklahoma firm remain there.
Mammoth Energy originally sent more than 400 employees to the island but the number was expanded to 880 by January then up to 922 workers by March. And in late January, the Oklahoma City-based company’s original $200 million contract was expanded to nearly $445 million. But yet another expansion of the contract was announced recently. It expanded the contract’s value to nearly $945 million.
‘It really speaks to the severity of the storm and how bad it was,” Arty Strahela, Mammoth’s CEO told The Oklahoman.
As of early March, 22 percent of Puerto Rico’s residents still had no electrical power. And at least 14 percent of the country’s power generation had not been restored.
Mammoth announced Jan. 29, 2018 that it executed an amendment to the existing contract to help in the restoration of the utility infrastructure on Puerto Rico. As a result of the amended contract, the number of Mammoth workers sent to Puerto Rico went from 434 up to at least 880.
Straehla stated at the time, “We are proud that through our team’s hard work and professionalism PREPA has elected to increase the value of our contract. Our team is working closely with PREPA, FEMA, the US Army Corps of Engineers and other governmental agencies and, together, we are making significant progress to restore power to the affected areas in an orderly fashion.”
Equally as important, the contract was reviewed and approved by FEMA.
“In a letter dated December 23, 2017, FEMA determined that PREPA awarded our contract in compliance with emergency procurement provisions of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and Executive Orders issued as a result of the disaster, and also determined the costs under the contract to be reasonable.”