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72 comments on How to address Contrarian Arguments - part II
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Apparently Dave Cohen does so as well (click to see Dave's post):
Merryl Streep, are you down here Merryl? Merryl Christmas to one and all :-)
My favorite aunt, Alda Passel, claimed to be able to use a dousing rod on oil, and used to get very angry that my Uncle Charles wouldn't spud any locations based on her methodology. He was a Geologist from the Abilene, Texas area and an excellent oil finder in the Ft. Worth Basin and Permian Basin areas of Texas. His main claim to fame is that he invented the Windchill Factor during the 1930's while working on his Masters in Geology in Antartica, and was honored for this at the Houston Museum of Natural Science about 15 years ago. Uncle Charles told me that if he just had a nickle for every time the Windchill factor was mentioned on TV he'd be richer than H.L. Hunt. They are both gone now to a Cemetary in Buffalo Gap with pumping units just over the fence in a mesquite patch.
Uncle Charles was a big believer in peak production, although he never described it in Hubbertian terms. He told me around the late 1970's that he'd rather go rabbit hunting than elephant hunting because there were a lot more rabbits than elephants left in the Ft. Worth Basin. I distictly remember his discussion of this with my father, an oil and gas lawyer in the mid or late 1970's after the Cub of Rome report. My father didn't have any faith in Alda's dousing abilities either.
Perhaps the greatest story of blind luck though is the story that the Abilene Petroleum Club set up an old cable tool rig to demonstrate to the youngsters how wells were drilled in the old days at the county fairgrounds. They started drilling, and made a well!
drilling a 1700' well in eastern Kentucky back in
1983. It was amazing how straight they were able
to drill the hole and how they bailed out the
cuttings. The rig was fairly new so someone was
making them til recent times; maybe they still
are. I remember a friend telling me about coming
up on a cable tool rig seemingly running by itself.
He looked around a bit and finally found the driller
and roustabout down by the creek fishing. Seems that
once line feedout was set, they would run themselves quite a while
til it was time to bailout cuttings. They were a very cheap way
to make hole, but there was no way to have any kind
of blowout prevention.
I worked for a few months this year at Seminole in Gaines County, about 70 miles north of Midland and 30 miles E. of Hobbes. There were several cable tool rigs around there too, a couple of reasonably modern vintage plus a city block of rental cable tools. The water used to irrigate is from the Ogallala, and the locals use the cable tool rigs for water wells and also for sometimes setting surface casing and drilling rat holes.
There's a cable tool rig exhibit at the Permian Basin Oil Museum in Midland with animated figures, and also some out behind the Odessa Convention Center.
There are a few cyprus tanks still in use there, plus used to be some at Batson and Saratoga in Hardin County in the Big Thicket, but I haven't looked for them in a few years. The old steam boilers for the old time rigs have become exceedingly rare. There used to be one at Damon Mound in an old operator's barn, Gordon Dement, but he died and his estate was auctioned off a couple of years ago. The steam boilers could use any kind of fuel, even wood, and were used on both rotary rigs and on cable tools as power. There also used to be one on Moonshine Hill in Humble, but its probably rusted away by now. I guess all that stuff would be industrial antiques if somebody cared to store it. There's quite a bit around the Permian Basin Museum.
For people in northern California who are interested in steam powered equipment (in this case mostly used for logging), there is a great display at the Mendocino County Museum in Willits, CA. It's run by a bunch of people who still love steam. One friend of mine who is involved even has a steam engine and about 1/2 mile of track at his home. To get an idea of what they have check out:
http://www.rootsofmotivepower.com
I did some work at the Sour Lake dome in Texas and also over at Ged Lake near Sulphur, La. back in the late 70's and found both of those places to be loaded with oilfield relics. After each boom came
a bust and everything was just left to rust. One story I heard about Sour Lake was
that during the original boom times they built a big hotel to house all of the workers but one night it sank into a big
sinkhole caused by all the drilling activity washing out a cavity in the salt.
If you ever get up to Kilgore, Texas be sure to through the East Texas Oil Museum. I partnered with a gentleman on a couple deals who actually was an oil scout during
the early days of the East Texas field. He
and I went through the museum and he showed
me his picture posted there in several places.
there's another one (oil field museum) in or near russel,ks right off i-70
I've got to go to Longview in the next couple of months to chase down a formerly producing mineral interest my grandfather bought around 1950. I've never seen that museum, but would love to. Who knows, maybe I'll even look up Hothgar.
One of my favorite people was a guy named LLoyd Butler in Houston. He was a 13 year old black kid in Kilgore, and used to make a living steering people to crooked card and dice games in Kilgore during the boom. LLoyd was a kind, honest, and gracious gentlemen who did a lot of community service in Houston. Times were really rough on black people in that red neck part of the world, but he really grew past his roots. I'll bet that the streets of Tashkent are just as wild today!
I like poking around old oil fields, a sort of reverse ecotourism. Sour Lake, Spindletop, Saratoga and Batson are all fun. The Spindletop museum is only O.K..I get more of the real flavor by looking at the hundred of thousands of broken pieces of whiskey bottle glass than the buildings erected by the city of Beaumont.The Big Thicket Museum at Saratoga has a bunch of great photographs. The old AAPG oilfield reports generally have a lot of history of the areas, but, like all technological history, its pretty obscure.
I've got to go to Longview in the next couple of months to chase down a formerly producing mineral interest my grandfather bought around 1950. I've never seen that museum, but would love to. Who knows, maybe I'll even look up Hothgar.
One of my favorite people was a guy named LLoyd Butler in Houston. He was a 13 year old black kid in Kilgore, and used to make a living steering people to crooked card and dice games in Kilgore during the boom. LLoyd was a kind, honest, and gracious gentlemen who did a lot of community service in Houston. Times were really rough on black people in that red neck part of the world, but he really grew past his roots. I'll bet that the streets of Tashkent are just as wild today!
I like poking around old oil fields, a sort of reverse ecotourism. Sour Lake, Spindletop, Saratoga and Batson are all fun. The Spindletop museum is only O.K..I get more of the real flavor by looking at the hundred of thousands of broken pieces of whiskey bottle glass than the buildings erected by the city of Beaumont.The Big Thicket Museum at Saratoga has a bunch of great photographs. The old AAPG oilfield reports generally have a lot of history of the areas, but, like all technological history, its pretty obscure.
"the greatest gamblers" by ruth sheldon knowles and "texas rich" by harry hurt III have a lot of information, stories and just plain bs about the hunts and early efforts in oil exploration