By Al Pickett, special contributor Eternal vigilance is, as the saying goes, the price of liberty, but it is the price of safety as well–especially in today’s hectic and fast-paced oilfield. Krisha Marker said she received a phone call recently that she called the “greatest Valentine’s Day gift a safety person could receive.” Marker is […]
To Keep Moving Forward
He took the name for his mechanic shop from a tool box, of all things, but then Mike Torres has been pulling answers out of tool boxes for a long time. Torres, the founder and operator of Stars and Stripes Rig Service of Denver City, Texas, is making a name for himself as a tackle-anything […]
Will Rising Regulations Sink Small Operators?
The office isn’t easy to find. It’s listed as Suite 204 on the ground floor directory, but none of the doors along the hallway lists a Suite 204. Finally, another tenant gives directions to go to the end of the hall (which appears to be a dead end), turn right, and look in the door […]
Well Servicing: A Trade in Transition
It is not surprising that well service companies consider hiring and housing as two of their top issues, as oil prices continue parked at just under $100 per barrel. The words used to relate the topic do open the eyes a bit. “Theft” was how Rich Fontenot described it. Fontenot, senior sales representative for Nabors […]
The Fast-Changing Frac Frontier
One of the exciting new developments in the production of both oil and natural is the ever-changing, always-evolving “Frac Frontier.” Hydraulic fracturing, the practice of pumping fluid and sand at high pressure to increase the flow of the hydrocarbons to the surface, has been credited, along with horizontal drilling, with bringing about the dramatic increase […]
Pipe Dreams: Smith Pipe of Abilene
ABILENE, TEXAS—Just four miles southwest of this town on Highway 277 South, the road that leads to San Angelo, is the community of Caps. For years, those driving down the highway barely encountered any indications that Caps even existed, except for a sign in front of the Caps Baptist Church and a highway sign that […]
Vital Independence Part III: Broad Vista
Big Oil is outside looking in. As the major oil companies return from offshore and overseas to American fields to grab a piece of the shale revolution, a revolutioncreated by independent oil and gas companies—largely in Texas and New Mexico—the Bigs find that the independents sit upon the leaseholds they (the majors) once controlled. And […]
A Different Kind of Liquids Play
The search for solutions to the Permian Basin’s water quandaries lead almost invariably to one destination: desalination. Anthony Smith claimed water treatment and re-use will be a critical focus going forward in the Permian Basin. “We have a big opportunity to treat and re-use flowback and produced water on daily basis,” offered Smith, the Permian […]
Seismic Shifts in the Seismic World
Whether you call it “seismic” or “geophysical,” this industry-within-an-industry keeps broadening its frontiers. On a hot day in June 1921 the first successful test of the reflection seismograph was completed north of Oklahoma City. “Here we are in 2013, less than a hundred years later, and a lot of exciting things are happening,” said Kevin […]
Sparklers, Oilfield Style
The Permian Basin Petroleum Museum unveiled some resplendent rocks in a dazzling exhibition, the Judson Mineral Gallery. The woman peered intently through the glass at each sparkling rock and finally commented, “This exhibit is as good as the one in Houston.” She was among the crowd attending a gala event at the Permian Basin Petroleum Museum in […]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- …
- 44
- Next Page »