Does anyone have memories from the oil boom that you could share? I just finished reading Friday Night Lights not so long ago (I was a child when it was published) and the football parts were superfluous to the wild descriptions of life in the oil fields.

My husband is an independent oilman on Barnett Shale (and I work for him) so I’ve become attuned to the hydrocarbon culture, and I’m loving it. It’s the best, most entertaining job I’ll ever have. A lot of our more experienced employees come from those small, desolate, beautiful, little west Texas towns, and their stories are just off the wall!

I’m willing to bet that there are a few of you out there who might have done a tour as a roustabout, or floorhand. Maybe a right-of-way guy or a truck driver? Feel free and share with us your memories from that era.

also read

Chocolate Lizards by a guy named Thompson

a great life in the oil patch book

topspinner

You need to talk to Fossil Ag. See if you can get his attention, he might have some stories for you.

Hello Topspinner .... Congratulations on being a part of the state's latest oil boom in the ... Barnett Shale! I hope Devon gives enough room for the Independents to get their straws in for a sip of black gold.

I got to play a part in the Giddings Field (Austin Chalk) boom in the 70s-90s. Fasten your seat belt and be ready for a wild ride.

Best I can tell, the Barnett Shale is in many geologic ways similar to the Chalk, except that it covers a lot more country. The Austin Chalk had a beginning much like your Barnett, with abundant gas and oil ... just poke a vertical hole and let it flow. But our production began falling off in the 80s. Union Pacific brought it back in the 90s with horizontal drilling but after a brief peak in production, both oil and gas production declined quickly. Between 1995 and 2005 gas production fell 80% and oil dropped from 32 million barrels to 6 million barrels ... and that was after a boatload of water fracturing.

So our boom did not last nearly as long as we would have preferred, so my guess is that most refugees from the Giddings Field are now quite happy calling the Barnett Shale home. You are lucky because those from this area were praying fervently and nightly "Lord, give us one more Boom and we promise to not screw this one up." So I am sure those displaced Chalkies have repented of their past sins and will be good workers.

You are correct in saying that there are some good stories that have come out of the West Texas oil patch. I have accumulated a few of my own. You might check the thread about Strange West Texas Connections in this Forum ... I posted a few observations there that you might be interested in.

And the best feature of folks who ply the trades associated with satisfyng this country's thirst for hydrocarbons, I admire most that self-confidence that allows them to laugh at themselves and their occupation (every thing they touch in their day-to-day work is hot, heavy, dirty and likely to take life or limb if not careful.)

The most popular bumper sticker from the Austin Chalk Boom was: "If you see my Mama, don't tell her you saw me working in the Oil Patch ... She thinks I am a piano player in a Wh*re House."


[This message has been edited by fossil_ag (edited 7/17/2006 9:16p).]

[This message has been edited by fossil_ag (edited 7/17/2006 9:23p).]

For those of you West Texans who have been in a coma for the past 20 years ... or at least the ones who do not keep up with oil and gas news since the Bust in the 80s, The Barnett Shale activity is in a 17 county area in north Texas. (For starters, Jack, Wise, Denton, Collin, Palo Pinto, Tarrant, Dallas, etc.)

In the past five years it has shown itself to be a real honest to goodness BOOM in gas production. To date it has produced more than one Trillion cubic feet of gas and studies indicate several Trillion cubic feet of gas are in reserve.

Activity now centers on Wise and Denton counties with more than 2500 wells drilled so far, but more are forecast there and the only thing slowing down production in the remaining 15 counties is infrastructure and rigs/righands. For the doomsayers who kept saying that producers in the US had found, developed and pumped dry all hydrocarbon reservoirs in Texas and the rest of the US, the Barnett pay should inspire them to rethink.

The Barnett Shale had been known for years and a number of shallow straight holes had been punched into it. But the Barnett was a fooler ... in the first place, shale is not known as a reservoir rock for gas. It is dense and hard, and it kept its secret for years. A fellow Ag named George P. Mitchell ('40) and his Mitchell Energy Company had started probing it in the 80s, unsure at first that it held gas, and then kept working on it until he figured that, yes, it had gas and lots of it, and here is how you get it out. Mitchell sold his interests and his knowledge of the shale to Devon Energy in 2001 for a couple of billion bucks ... and that is when Barnett Shale gave it all up. Unlike the Austin Chalk that gave up its oil and gas fairly easily then declined, the Barnett Shale gave it up reluctantly and it appears that fears of a decline are out of the question.

You folks in West Texas who prospered all these many years from production from the Ellenberger Formation might be surprised to know that the bane of the Barnett Shale activity is the fear of the same Ellenberger that underlies the Barnett. In the north Texas 17 counties area, the deeper Ellenberger is a trapped sea. In the Barnett, if they accidently drill too deeply or fracture to much to break into the Ellenberger, the inflow of water kills the new well.

It is good news that Independent Oil and Gas Producers are getting into the action in the Barnett Shale. Those fellows took a beating in the 80s when Saudi Arabia opened all its flow valves and drove the price of oil to $10. With cheap oil and cheap gasoline no one in politics or the public complained or cared ... that the country was paying a large price of having its domestic oil/gas producion capacity wrecked ... they are paying for that greed now.

Good luck to you Topspinner. I understand the field in celebrating between 1 and 2 completions a day now. That is Boom Time.


Edit: A historical note: George Mitchell was not just searching for gas in the blind during the 80s and 90s in the north Texas Barnett Shale. Mitchell knew the history of the area. Clay County is the county just to the north of Jack County and Clay County is the home of Petrolia. Petrolia was a boom town in 1909 when a tremendous gas well was brought in. Lone Star Gas was formed to manage and distribute gas from the Petrolia Field and in 1913 that gas was piped to Ft Worth and Dallas to launch that company's business of providing natural gas to towns and cities throughout Texas. It was just an 80 year lapse before Mitchell discovered how to duplicate Petrolia's results in the counties to the south.

[This message has been edited by fossil_ag (edited 7/17/2006 9:36p).]

[This message has been edited by fossil_ag (edited 7/17/2006 9:38p).]

And watch for upcoming booms in the Barnett and Woodbine out near Pecos in Reeves, Brewster and Pecos counties. If you want to play oilfield, thats the next big deal to get in on.

The Barnett in north Texas makes a good point. Many of the older fields were written off as played out when production declined years ago. The thing that brought Barnett back to life was recent improvement in fracturing knowledge and technologies along with improved seismic capabilities and horizontal drilling methods. The gas in the north Texas Barnett was there 30-40 years ago but no one had discovered how to unscrew it. (Thanks to George.) Those early day Boom towns like Ranger, Corsicana, Borger, Snyder and even East Texas and the Permian Basin may be in for a second look. Even the Woodbine under Bryan, Tx may be in for a review ... were you aware that in the 70s and 80s more than 400 oilwells were drilled within the city limits of Bryan or very close to. Oil drilling stopped at the College Station city limits and to my knowledge only one well was drilled on TAMU property ... it will be interesting to see if Collin County (Plano, McKinney, Frisco, etc) are too snooty to allow smelly oil and gas production in their fair cities.)

they can put one in my front yard for all I care, I'd get up on the pump jack and ride it every day

Hi Fossil_Ag! I take it that you’re a rockhound? My husband is.

I recently moved up into Denton County and not a day goes by that I don’t pass by a huge shlumberger, bj, or weatherford convoys headed somewhere. Not so long ago I was down by Cleburne late one night and their was literally a bumper to bumper traffic jam headed down a narrow farm to market road, 18-wheeler, behind 18-wheeler, behind 18-wheeler, each stacked with oil field equipment. It was an impressive sight. Drilling rigs everywhere. And you can’t stop anywhere without seeing a couple of dirty guys in fire retardant coveralls, sipping cokes and coffee. The boom is most definitely on! I’m really enjoying my part in this!

The boom was and is good for all, but the side I enjoyed being a part of was the front end dirt work. We sold explosives to the dirt contractors for blowing the mud pits, etc. We made our money whether they were building a road to a dry hole or a free flowing hole. Serviced the 75 mile radius around Angelo. Lots of work on the Glass ranch in Sterling Co.

Only problem was it is back breaking work losding and unloading the trucks and since the roads weren't built yet, it was interesting following directions!

The rules/laws are so much different now than in the late '70s and early '80s with the ATF. It was always amazing that the contractors that survived took the locations that were easier to get to and the ones that went belly up usually took the extreme locations. I know the drilling companies realized that there would always be another company to that the last ones place.

It was a fun time!



[This message has been edited by EMc77 (edited 7/20/2006 7:14p).]

[This message has been edited by EMc77 (edited 7/20/2006 7:15p).]

EMc77

I probably drove on some of your roads. I remember a location on top of a mountain that we had to put a rig on. About half way between Sterling City and San Angelo. We had to be pulled up and down the winding road by a bulldozer. My favorite part was the large cement water trough near the front gate that we all swam in at the end of the day.

The fun part was giving directions to a truck driver to a rig location on a ranch that had been relayed to you through two or three other parties.

"You will come to a white fence on the right side of the road and continue on to the second cattle guard going into the pasture on the left, and you wind around a mile or so and come to a Y and you stay straight on til the lane turns left and you turn right and go on til you pass a big old tree and you should see the rig from there."

And better yet was when your trucks went through two or three cattle guards that were unlocked when they drove in but were padlocked when the trucks tried to come out. (My trucks were equipped with a 3-pound combination lock picker.)

Fun times.

Topspinner's original post indicated an interest in early day tales from West Texas oilfields. Certainly there are a million to pick from starting from the first well in Corsicana in the 1890s through the Permian Basin boom towns from the 1920s through the 50s, and continuing today in North Texas' Barnett Shale.

My favorite tales came from my uncle who left his home on a farm near Haskell 1918 to join in the excitement of the oil boom at Ranger. He was 18, a stout country kid ready for a cash paying job. His description of life in an early day boom town led one to readily understand why his stay in the Ranger area was a short one, and why farm life was not that bad after all. Work was plentiful and pay was good ... but he could not get used to renting a cot that some other worker had just gotten out of, or the atrocious food to choose from, or the drunken brawls in the muddy streets. And the dangers of rig work were a constant worry. One of his more spectacular descriptions that remained with me was about the Nitroglycerine shooters who were the experts in stimulating wells to give up their oil.

Now Oil Well Shooting with Nitroglycerine was a practice in North, Central and West Texas up until the 1950s. I have seen their trucks rolling down the highways with white lettering on the side proclaiming NITROGLYCERINE, and I can assure you those fellows got the right of way and the entire road if they wanted it. And they did not have escort vehicles fore and aft as would be required today.

Now Nitroglycerine is an explosive liquid that can just about be made in a bathtub with only three ingredients ... but it is extremely volitile and can be set off in an enormous explosion if its temperature is too high, it is jarred, or if it leaks and is exposed to friction or other stimulation ... handling and transporting Nitro was a very delicate proposition.

In those early days when the oil bearing formation was low permeability such as limestone or shale, etc., some means was necessary to stimulate the flow of oil to the well bore by enlarging the cavity at the bottom of the hole and fracturing the formation in the area to create fissures which would be a pathway for the oil. This was done by the expert in such matters, the Oil Well Shooter. It was done by the shooter, usually working alone as the rig hands scattered to safety, filled tin cylinders with so many quarts of Nitroglycerine and gently lowered it into the hole. In earliest days this charge was set off when the Nitro can was at the bottom by dropping a metal weight into the hole ... later a copper wire was attached to the can and an electrical charge was applied to blow the charge. (Beginning in the 50s folks learned to fracture formations with acid or other chemicals or by injecting water under very high pressure.)

In the 40s the term for this charge most commonly heard was a "Torpedo." Some companies simply called their rigging a "Bomb."
Those of you who read the post on West Texas Connections may recall a thread about the Zebco Fishing Reels and the Zero Hour Bomb Company ... Zero Hour Bomb company manufactured these things and the Zero Hour came from their timing device that had a Zero at the top of its face instead of the usual 12.

Oil Well Shooters were a unique breed inhabiting the early day oilfields and their story deserves to be passed along (since the unfortunate ones left no mortal remains to be passed along.)

The best description I have run across is linked below. I guarantee if you have connections to the oil fields you will get a kick out of the story.

http://www.texancultures.utsa.edu/hiddenhistory/Pages1/OilenOilShooter.htm

[This message has been edited by fossil_ag (edited 7/23/2006 12:17a).]

The petroleum museum in midland has a great well shooting exhibit. These days when wire line shows up, you have to turn off your cell phones and all other electronic devices while they perforate. If you’re caught doing otherwise, you’ll be in big trouble. Speaking of dangerous, on Thursday, I heard two explosions coming from the vicinity of where a frac crew was working. I asked the lady at the allsup what had happened and she told me that they were breaking in a rookie engineer who had done something wrong, and caused a chemical fire.

It’s getting really hot out there. I hope those guys stay safe.

Another interesting aspect of the oil bidness were the casing pulling companies. I sold more explosives to a company in Albany than any other company casing pulling customer we had. And they used 100% OWE, not the normal 60% w/ primacord and Am. nitrate.Think their name was Schkade. They picked it up in her Lincoln towncar. Them trunks were big in the 70's!


They didn't do the volume of Keyno or the other large Angelo companies, but they used the high stength stuff :0

Just some more ramblings.

The Schkade brothers (Scoddy)

Oscar and I can't remember the other one, and Oscar's son Brent. Old time oil men. They punched a lot of holes in this part of the world and found lots of oil.

^
|
|

That is exactly who I was thinking of.

O.E. Schkade (Mr. to me!) was who I had to fill out the ATF 4710 forms for.

I know folks don't like the price to fill the Suburbans, but it sure is good for WT.

Also, where were those folks when the bottom dropped and we had $10 oil. My brother used to be downtown sales for Cont. Emsco in Midland and got killed in the crash. (Talk about a cush job!) Took him 15 years to get back on his feet........ Whole career change along with so many others.

Gentlemen...This one may dwarf all of them:

San Angelo Standard-Times

URL: http://www.sanangelostandardtimes.com/sast/news_columnists/article/0,1897,SAST_4955_4591409,00.html

Texas' next big boom

Marfa Basin could produce oil or gas

By Perry Flippin, editor emeritus, pflippin@sastandard times.com or 659-8217
April 3, 2006

Wildcatters are chasing the next great natural gas bonanza - this time in the Big Bend region. Early signs suggest the untapped Marfa Basin could dwarf the huge Barnett Shale play around Fort Worth.

The Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates oil and gas production, reported that a small, McKinney-based company - Ascent Operating LP - has begun drilling a 5,610-foot well 10.5 miles northeast of Alpine.

A commission spokeswoman described the well as a wildcat, which means the operators don't know whether they'll hit oil or gas. Wildcats are outside of any producing field.

Another small company, The Exploration Company (TXCO) of San Antonio, has leased 140,000 acres of ranchland across eastern Presidio County and western Brewster County.

TXCO's president and CEO, James E. Sigmon, told investors last month that logs from deeper wells drilled in the Marfa Basin during the 1950s show the presence of natural gas in formations from 400 to 1,200 feet thick.

''These rocks look exactly like the Barnett Shale - except thicker,'' he said. Thicker formations signify greater production potential.

''It remains to be seen whether this will be as prolific as the Fort Worth basin.

''However, everything you've got today looks very, very promising.''

TXCO plans to spend about $50 million this year exploring for gas - 40 percent more than it spent last year. Wells, costing about $1 million each, will be drilled to about 17,000 feet.

In buying a $4.5 million drilling rig, he described TXCO as a small company that is poised to grow rapidly in the next few years.

Back in January, Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson announced that oil and gas firms paid almost $22 million to lease about 43,000 acres of public land. The $510-per-acre average was the highest in Texas history.

Proceeds finance the state's public schools.

''The Texas oil and gas business is in overdrive,'' Patterson said, noting that some of the highest bids involve leases in Reeves and Culberson counties, 300 miles west of San Angelo.

For the first time in many years, upland leases brought much more revenue than offshore leases.

Robert Hatter, director of mineral leasing in the General Land Office, told me some Loving County leases went for $2,500 per acre. Comparable leases in the San Angelo area go for about $65 per acre.

''We're getting phenomenally high bonuses,'' he said, noting that most of a million acres in Culberson County have been leased, and most of a half-million acres in Reeves County.

''The big news is this Barnett Shale play,'' Hatter continued, explaining that operators are being secretive about details.

Despite Hollywood myths perpetuated in movies such as ''Giant,'' the region around Marfa has never produced much oil or gas. Rail commission records show that Presidio County produced only 11 barrels of oil in 2001. Since 1993, the county produced 2,406 barrels of oil.

In the same period, Brewster and Jeff Davis counties produced no oil or natural gas. Furthermore, the region lacks pipelines and other infrastructure to gather and transport gas to consumers. If the wells become producers, lots of labor and capital will be needed to install a pipeline network.

Now, with oil prices exceeding $60 a barrel and natural gas approaching $7 per thousand cubic feet, wildcatters are scrambling to the Big Bend region for another look.

''It's still very early in the game,'' said Paul Hart, TXCO's communications manager. ''It's definitely not a sure thing. We won't know until we drill.''

Hatter said that the oil and gas formations being explored are part of the Ouachita Overthrust, a 1,500-mile arc from Mexico, across Texas, eastern Oklahoma, and western Arkansas, to Mississippi and Alabama. The overthrust formed when tectonic plates collided at least 260 million years ago. That collision created the Permian basin.

The eastern end of the overthrust has produced prolific amounts of natural gas.

''Shale is a funny rock,'' Hatter said, noting that it must have porousness and permeability to be commercially developed. The Fort Worth basin required years to develop artificial fracturing techniques that enable gas to flow through the fissures.

Operators such as Anadarko and Chesapeake already have producing wells in the Atoka and Wolfcamp formations, which are shallower than the Barnett Shale.

''The Barnett Shale play is more risky,'' Hatter continued, describing southwestern trends in Reeves, Culberson and Hudspeth counties.

In Presidio County, ''Nobody is sure what those guys are looking at, but we assume a shale play in the Marfa basin,'' he added. ''It's going to be deep. Nobody knows how deep it's going to be.''

TXCO's Hart told me, ''What we're looking at is probably an initial exploration development program that would get under way in the second half of 2006.

''We feel this area has a lot of potential like the Maverick Basin did (near Del Rio).

''It plays to our strength of going to an unexplored area and using new technology to develop it.''




"And the Gates of Hell Shall Not Prevail Against It...."

texag_89

texag_89 ..... That is a good report and it has a lot more information on Big Bend developments than I have been able to forage through other sources. I hope it comes to pass for those ranchers in that area ... in the past they had to make do running one cow to 40 acres ... maybe soon they can enjoy one humongous gas well on that same 40 acres.

Let's see now ... the Barnett Shale in North Texas is now producing about a Billion cubic feet of gas a day. If the North Texas production strategy works in the Big Bend shale, that can produce a tidy sum of money ... and school tax revenue.

EMc77 - Do you live near Sterling Co? I know the Glass family very well.

I work for Weatherford in the geoscience center and have been seeing a lot of this influx from the Barnett Shale and actually saw the data logged for Ascent out in the Marfa Basin. Pretty interesting stuff going on.

quote:

---

Sensei John Kreese
posted 4:15p, 08/10/06



EMc77 - Do you live near Sterling Co? I know the Glass family very well.

---

Sorry, I hadn't gone back to this thread in awhile.

No, I used to live in Angelo. Was there from 67-94. Did the explosives deal from '72-82. The Glass family used to trade at my Father-in-Law's north Angelo hardware store.