Oklahoma cable reels for oil field, wind and line crews

Where the empties come from

None of the makers whose location pages we checked lists a wire or cable plant in Oklahoma. So every reel here arrived full on a truck, mostly from North Texas, which is only a few hours down I-35, or from plants further east. The cable went into the ground, onto poles, into wells and into turbine strings. The reels stayed.

Four kinds of work leave most of them. Utility distribution and transmission crews use the large nailed reels. Oil and gas field electrical contractors use power and control cable on mid to large reels, often at lease sites far from town. Wind farm builders run collection cable between turbines across whole sections of land. Fiber builders, with BEAD money now flowing, use lighter reels in large numbers.

The utilities: OG&E, PSO and the public systems

EIA's 2024 table of Oklahoma's top five retailers is Oklahoma Gas and Electric, Public Service Company of Oklahoma, the Grand River Dam Authority, Oklahoma Electric Cooperative and the City of Edmond's utility. OG&E serves the Oklahoma City area and much of the state, PSO the Tulsa area and the east and southwest. GRDA is a state agency based in northeast Oklahoma. Oklahoma Electric Cooperative serves the suburbs south of Oklahoma City around Norman, and Edmond runs its own city system north of the capital.

Severe weather keeps these systems rebuilding. Spring tornadoes and winter ice storms take down poles and lines, and each rebuild empties reels. Suburban growth around Oklahoma City and Tulsa adds steady underground work.

Wind and oil field reels need sorting

Reels from a wind farm or a lease site are often bigger and heavier than those from town jobs. Collection cable between turbines and power cable to pumps and compressors can come on 72 to 96 inch reels. Some still have lagging boards or steel bands. They can be very good reels, built heavy, but they need the right equipment to load and the right buyer to want them.

Before you send a lot like that, sort the big reels from the rest and tell us how they will be lifted. A forklift with long forks, a loader with a boom pole through the arbor hole or a crane all work. A flatbed is usually better than a van for big reels, because they can be loaded from the side.

The flange ranges are typical of what turns up from each kind of work, not figures from any source.

Oklahoma's roads and what they mean for freight

Three interstates carry most of the state's freight. I-35 runs north and south through Oklahoma City, linking Dallas-Fort Worth with Wichita and Kansas City. I-40 crosses east and west through Oklahoma City, from Fort Smith toward Amarillo. I-44 runs diagonally from Wichita Falls through Lawton, Oklahoma City and Tulsa to Joplin and St. Louis, partly as the Turner and Will Rogers turnpikes. The state also has an extensive turnpike network of its own.

Oklahoma City and Tulsa are about 100 miles apart on I-44, so a trailer can collect from both on one run. The Panhandle is a different matter: Guymon is a long way from either city, and a lot there often pairs better with a buyer in the Texas Panhandle or southwest Kansas.

The Port of Catoosa near Tulsa, on the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System, makes the Tulsa area a freight hub, though reels themselves almost always move by truck.

• Central: Oklahoma City, Norman, Edmond, Moore
• Northeast: Tulsa, Broken Arrow, Muskogee, Bartlesville
• Southwest: Lawton, Duncan, Altus
• Northwest and Panhandle: Enid, Woodward, Guymon
• Southeast: McAlester, Durant, Ardmore

BEAD in Oklahoma

Oklahoma received $797,435,691.25 in NTIA's June 2023 BEAD allocation. The unserved areas are spread across the farm and ranch country of the west and the wooded hills of the southeast. Fiber builders there cover long distances between homes, and they need empty reels sized to their cable for re-spooling cut lengths and moving remnants.

A fiber staging yard at the end of a build is a good source of empties, mostly in the smaller sizes. A crew starting in the next county is a good buyer. We arrange the move between them.

Weather, ground and timing

Oklahoma's spring storm season and its winter ice can both delay a pickup. Red dirt lease roads turn to mud after rain and won't carry a loaded trailer. We confirm a pickup when the truck and the road are ready, not on a promise.

Heat and wind are easier on reels than standing water, but a pile of dry empty reels is still a fire risk in a drought summer, and some yards want them cleared for that reason.

1. 01

   Sort big from small

   Reels over 72 inches in one group; they load differently.

2. 02

   Count each size

   From the reel stencil or a tape: flange, traverse, drum.

3. 03

   Describe the site

   Town or nearest highway, road surface, gate and loading equipment.

4. 04

   Send photos

   The pile, a stencil per size and close-ups of any damage.