MUSINGS III
After 40 years or so of chasing the Secrets of the Deep and the Hordes of Darkness (oil and/or gas for those of you in Rio Linda), it has occurred to me how wonderful it all is. Passing 64 like a speeding train in the night, a thought accompanies; how is it that I am still as excited about this current idea as I was about the first idea I had in 1968 ? Or the big question I had as a junior regarding the size of rocks in the bottom of a stream?
I have tested the Rodessa at over 3000 lbs on top, blown 45 degree crude at 50 barrels an hour into 4-220s in eastern Tennessee, cored the Pettit reef for 30 feet of vugular porosity, tested a deep 200 foot Glen Rose sand at over 11,000 PSI, and watched my leases expire only to see the next owner succeed. There have been heartaches, disappointments, whoops of joy. Mud and rain have run down my brow at 3:00 a.m. on an icy catwalk, and I have fallen into the mud pit trying to stay awake. More times than I care to admit, my ideas which I esteemed as just short of Divine Revelation turned out to be so much blather. Once an e-log on a single dry hole, which was simply non-existent, suddenly turned up to condemn a 50,000 acre “basin” that was not there at all.
To paraphrase Einstein, “All the sense experiences we encounter require of the majority of us an explanation. That explanation is only that, an explanation; it is always subject to revision, to question, to probing. We will never ‘know’.” As it turns out, truer words were rarely spoken. What we do in the exploration for oil and gas is to offer up, for better or worse, an explanation for the will-of-the–wisp that lay 18,000’ below us.
But, but, but; I love it. Few endeavors offer a chance to create wealth, rather than just shuffle it around. True, there are charlatans, and liars, and cheats; many are all hat and no cattle; Little Caesars abound. Show me an endeavor that does not. Nonetheless, there still remains, albeit a declining population, a few that enjoy the thrill of the hunt, the joy of smelling the drilling mud, hearing the brakes scream, and love for the next foot to be drilled. Watching the log roll up on the Schlumberger screen makes the heart go wild, if it does not, you are in deep doo-doo.
If you want a taste of real life, go to the Petroleum Club in Midland, Texas, and listen to the oil octogenarians wax eloquent about their escapades in Ector County, or how many times they had gone broke, only to hit a year or two later. Listen to the strength in Tex Moncrief’s voice at 90 years plus to get a sound of what life is all about. Ah, but only a few ever experience any of that!! Want to know why ? –simple; there are only a few who will take a risk, or take a chance they will be humiliated; -better still, go broke trying. You see, the Brass Ring is not for everybody; it is reserved only for those willing to lose.
A sad day it has become to watch the generations that have followed play so close to the vest, and make their decisions based on dollars in and dollars back in a year. Worse yet, to lament at decisions made based on a color screen which has little if any connection to real data, much less, real life. PDC bits and Combo logs are not exploration…
May the oil get all over your clothes !!!