Washington, D.C.-based American Petroleum Institute said this week that U.S. petroleum demand – as measured by total domestic petroleum deliveries – increased by only 17,000 barrels per day in April compared to March (to 19.8 million b/d). But compared to April 2022, U.S. petroleum demand fell 0.8 percent – the fifth straight month of year-to-year […]
When It Hit Him In the Face
When he died at age 100—40 years ago this year—he was the last of the Spindletop oil pioneers. Curtis G. Hamill was a driller on the 1901 discovery well that launched the Texas oil industry. As his obituary stated, Hamill was standing on a derrick platform 40 feet off the ground Jan. 10, 1901, when […]
May Miscellany
It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got… good rocks. Four Colorful Figures The famous Four Sixes Ranch in West Texas was founded by a famed rancher, Burk Burnett, who later became a famed oilman (viz., the Burkburnett Oil Boom of the early 20th Century). But before his oil days, Burnett lived the […]
New And Noteworthy
RISING ABOVE THE DOWNFALL OF OIL Karmic Energy, innovators of the digital oilfield and environmentally friendly products, have worked busily over the past several months to position the company for future growth. Taking steps to ensure a strong corporate base, the company first began making internal changes. As a team—all the way from the top […]
Oil Patch Songs from the Permian Basin Part 3
Like Desperados Waiting on a Train Part 3 of 6 by Joe W. Specht The evocative lyric from Guy Clark’s classic song turns out to be, on deeper inspection, a tribute to the oil patch and one of its veterans. Explore this and more gems from the mostly unmined body of work that some call […]
Worth Celebrating
Public spiritedness–and cowboy hats–are never out of season. June 14 marks Flag Day, the day set aside for commemorating the adoption of the American Flag by the Second Continental Congress on that day in 1777. President Woodrow Wilson established the tradition in 1916. Texan in Transit In the accompanying photo (check out our digital edition, page […]
In Like a Lion
Never look back. Have the moxie to “let go of certainties.” Pull the tubing on that old well. Oh, and France wants you. With March at hand, winter’s all but whipped. All we need to worry about are rains, sleet, flareups of scorching heat, gale force winds, maybe record snow and bitter cold. Hmm. February […]
Keep Calm and…Smile
We take a page from the people at Easily Amused and try to find some levity in whatever comes our way. Plutonic Relationship: No, he wasn’t an oilman. But he was a New Mexican, and a famous one, and one who chose to live his life in (or very near, as in Las Cruces) the […]
Workovers
Be It Resolved January is the month of new beginnings and New Year’s Resolutions, and if you’re doing great with a resolution to stop smoking or lose weight, more power to you. Of course, logic dictates that those who make less lofty or less ambitious goals will be likelier to succeed. We found some of […]
Workovers: Worth Repeating
Those sagacious sayings, that is. A little trip down Memory Lane for fans of a classic western, and some collected wisdom, to boot. We were so taken with the colorful quotes from CUDD general manager Clint Walker that appear in our profile on him in this issue, that we just had to reflect on another […]