Flint Hills contractors

Not everyone affected by the planned closing of Flint Hills Resources Odessa plant actually works for the Wichita, Kan.-based company.

Up to 200 contract workers also face unemployment when the facility is closed during the first half of 2009.

Ref-Chem L.P. has supplied maintenance and other workers to the plant since it was opened by a subsidiary of El Paso Natural Gas Co. in 1957. But Trey Myers, president and chief operating officer of Ref-Chem, said the company is no longer reliant on the facility.

Myers said Ref-Chem has adjusted its client base and the services it provides since Rexene Corp. sold the plant to Huntsman Corp. in 1997. He doesn't feel it will have a "large, direct economic impact."

"There might have been a time when it would have had a larger impact, but we have diversified," he said, "The community is probably going to feel the impact a lot more than we do."

Huntsman sold the facility to Flint Hills last year.

Myers said his company should be able to keep employees currently working with Flint Hills busy with other things.

"We have a good backlog of work," he said. "We'll just move them to other projects."

The workers will need help from their own companies. Katie Stavinoha, Flint Hills director of public affairs, said the plant's 150-to-200 contract workers would not be able to participate in job fairs and other events it may hold for its 395 company workers affected by the closing.

"We are focused on helping our own employees," she said Friday.

But Willie Taylor, executive director of Workforce Solutions Permian Basin, said his agency would offer contract workers the same services as Flint Hills employees. He advises them to visit the Workforce Network of Odessa office at 2626 JBS Parkway Blvd. There, they can get matched with jobs skills, work on resumes and meet potential employers.

"Everybody's welcome - and the services are free," he said. "By all means they are welcome to workforce services, just like the full-time employees are."

One man, who said he is a boilermaker for J.E. Jacobs, said he's been told all of that company's employees at Flint Hills will lose their jobs. The man declined to be identified.

A call to Jacobs' Dallas office was referred to company headquarters in Pasadena, Calif.

"As a publicly held firm, Jacobs is going to want to control the information that comes out," said Paul Maute in Jacobs' Dallas office.

Calls to the company's headquarters were not returned.