Romania has a rich and colorful  oil history; it is believed some of the first  wells ever dug, little more than  earthen pits, recovered crude oil in Romania  as early as the year 1440. The first known commercial oil well was drilled in Romania in 1855,...

I put this together in 2003 and used film shot mostly on cameras that was then loaded to DVD's and later re-mixed digitally. I also used the old H&P Movie Maker software which was a piece of crap to work with; the  quality is not every good, sadly. It showed well on bi...

On the left is the giant, Maersk Intrepid in a christening ceremony in Singapore in 2014. She has legs that are 658 feet long and can drill in water up to 500 feet deep. She was designed specifically for drilling on the Norwegian shelf of the North Sea and is believed...

Melrose, Louisiana; circ. 1952

Melrose in on the Cane River, SE of Shreveport. Its beautiful country with lots of very old, very fertile plantations along river bottoms. This area is out of the Haynesville shale gas fairway but there were a number of shallow Cretaceous...

This weeks cartoon offers an opportunity to remind everyone in America that the price of oil you see  on TV, or hear on Bloomberg Radio, or read about on MSN, is NOT what unhedged oil producers in our country are actually getting paid  at the well head. No "bottom" has...

Every photograph tells a story.

This is Red; I am guessing sometime in the late 60's or early 70's. Its cold and he is wearing insulated coveralls; I have no idea where the job was. I think that's Coots up head;  he just looks thick because of the cold weather gear  but...

Another image from the famous Atlantic No. 3 blowout near Leduc, Alberta; 1947.  The standard derrick is down in this photo and the levee is built around the burning well. Rig boilers can be seen on the left  and are probably still being used to keep things cool, or to...

I'm reporting it.

The American shale oil industry is whining about Russia and OPEC "dumping" crude oil on the world market below its extraction costs, calling it blatantly unfair. The  Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), much like the API, represents th...

If Coots called you 'pods,' you were his buddy. He had a lot of buddies. He was kind and compassionate but at the same a no nonsense, tough sumbitch. I loved him; he was my hero. 

I was roughnecking on a Harken Drilling rig long ago  down in the valley somewhere; i...

In an incredible show of strength and leadership from the 3rd largest oil producing country in the world, facing the probability of sub $20 oil prices for the next two years, the Texas Railroad Commission decided today to defer a decision on proration until next month....

Proration, or production "quotas," of Texas oil wells worked very well for 43 years; the Texas Railroad Commission controlled the price of worldwide oil by managing supply that was commensurate with demand.  There was little resource waste during this period, we preser...

...