Oily Stuff

For a very long time America was energy independent; we were prudent about how we developed our hydrocarbon resources and conservative in their use. Cheap, abundant crude oil allowed the United States to become the greatest economic powerhouse in the world; we fought a...

Blowouts in the early 1900's were always hard on the equipment. Two things were going to happen just about every time; a.) your wooden derrick would get burned up like a camp fire on a cold night or b.) your wooden derrick was going to get blown into splinters, like th...

396,000 marginal stripper oil wells produced 284 million barrels of oil in 2016 in the United States. 

So who really gives a rats ass, right? All of the US shale oil industry, from floor hand to CEO, thinks their shit doesn't stink and shale oil is America's future. The...

Decorating your wooden or standard derricks in the early 1900's with signs of your company, or the name of your well, appears to be sort of a California thing. I suspect this was partially due to the shear number of wells in urban areas like Huntington Beach, Signal Hi...

This was a good well for my dad. It was an open hole completion and it would slough and sand up all the time. We'd wash it out, gravel pack it, run screens in it, pack it with pea gravel, then wash all that shit out of the hole again and start over; we are always worki...

It will take 15 minutes of your busy day to watch this film but it is well worth it, trust me. 

This is some unusually good quality 8MM film shot in the Ahwas region of SW Persia (Iran) in 1951. This is a very big blowout. The work done on this well and shown in this fi...

Martin Kelly, kneeling, and Danny Strong;  Burgan Field. Water from a monitor is cooling the situation and reducing risk. Martin was a neat freak and didn't see the point in standing up to your knees in nasty shit. The bolts have all been broken out of this well head a...

After last night's debate it's time to get off the fence and behind the next president of the United States, Mickey Mouse. He's the leader of our gang, now, clearly. He's got a cool car, a nice, outspoken wife and a really neat dog. He's a hand too...always has his wor...

Click to enlarge all charts, please. Courtesy shaleprofile.com 

Sixty two percent (62%) of all DUC's in the Permian Basin are located in just four counties in the Delaware Basin. Whazzup with that ? 

One of the reasons might be that  the average gas to oil ratio in...

This is a Halliburton external, abrasive jet cutter that has just come out of a fire in West Texas.  Its mounted on the end of an  athey wagon boom and has just been "seared,  the asbestos wrapping around hoses still in tact. Those are 3/16ths nozzles  and the pressure...

In Texas, flaring natural gas is really  stupid. It's not Siberia we live in. The Permian Basin is over 100 years old and there is oil and gas gathering infrastructure all over West Texas; that basin is only 500 miles from the largest refinery capacity in the entire wo...

This is a photograph of one of three, 3,000 foot drilling rigs designed and built by National Supply  and staffed by Noble Drilling and Fain-Porter Drilling  hands from Oklahoma, working in Eakring Field in England at the height of  World War II.  A fourth rig was ship...

Okeedokee; there were several  "joints"  along main street in Desdemona in North Central Texas in  1917; The Gusher looks to be the best spot. That's my kinda joint because a feller could walk right off the rig floor after his hitch and straight into the...

The Photography of Mike Rasco 

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Almost 39 years ago to the day this little girl got her first overriding royalty interest in a producing oil and natural gas lease; the first of many in fact. She went on to become a doctor.

Twenty  months ago this little girl got her first overriding royalty inter...