In many ways, the story of drilling is the story of the drill bit. As that device has changed, so has the entire enterprise of making hole. by Bobby Weaver In today’s world the speed and efficiency of drilling oil wells has reached a level undreamed of by early day oilmen. The evolution of […]
Lighter Than Air: A History of the Helium Industry in the Permian
by Bobby Weaver The oil and gas industry produces many products ranging from fuel to plastics, but few are aware that the extraction of rare gases are an important, albeit a small, part of that activity. Perhaps the most important of those gases is helium. When the term helium is mentioned, the vision that comes […]
Oilfield Culture
Who are those people and why do they act that way? By Bobby Weaver No matter where they may roam, be it in oilfields in exotic places like the Middle East, South America, Africa, or even North Dakota, oilfield people maintain a certain persona. That persona derives from a close identification with the industry […]
Back In The Day: Telling a Story
Telling a Story The fine photography collected, as well as (often) shot, by oilfield photographer Mitch Mayborn in middle-to-later 20th Century, working for Drilling Magazine, holds up as documentary imagery of that day, and as a nice primer to the various components of the patch.
Company Town
There are stories aplenty of “company towns” built by oil companies in oil’s early 20th century heyday, but no company town fit the mold better than a Basin town, Texon, that endured for generations. by Bobby Weaver Back in 1955 Tennessee Ernie Ford had a hit song entitled “Sixteen Tons” concerning the travails of a […]
From Fresnos to Caterpillars
Dirt Work is the oilfield’s under-appreciated trade, and yet nothing gets done in the Patch until the dirt’s been worked. by Bobby Weaver I’ll never forget the first time I went out on a tanking job. It happened early in the summer of ’55, when we contracted to build a battery of two hi-fives in […]
Oil Scouts and Landmen: Perceptive, Perspicacious, and Persuasive
Oil scouts and land men have a history that intertwines—and skills sets that have some things in common. by Bobby Weaver The oil and gas industry has always been an extremely competitive field. From its very beginning in Pennsylvania in the 1850s, it was an industry whose practitioners found it necessary to know what the […]
Holding Stuff Together
Welding transformed the oil and gas industry. Electric arc welding and oxy-acetylene have been tools for shaping a world. by Bobby Weaver Welding is one of those trades necessary for the operation of today’s petroleum industry. It is hard to imagine almost any type of oilfield equipment that does not involve welding in one […]
Seventy Years of Burmass History
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the introduction of the Burmass Directory. An article from a generation ago tells the tale of the directory, also known as the Bible of the Basin, and tells it better than any living individual could. Much has changed, and yet so much remains the same. The story of […]
Boom First, Borough Later
The journey from boom towns to urbanization has not been a straight-line progression for oil country, but it’s been a progression nonetheless, and one that has brought with it an ever-finer standard of life. by Bobby Weaver The residents of Texas oil towns are proud of the accomplishments and contributions of their respective communities, […]