Crude prices below $80 a barrel will result in reduced supply, far below world demand.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=aYxEB4.6rulg&refer=energy

Eric’s Website

This is just a Twitter-type message to let you know that I am at the Oklahoma Oil and Gas Prospect Expo at the Meridian Convention Center in Oklahoma City.  The Oklahoma Geological Survey and the Oklahoma City Geological Society are hosting the event that features prospects all over the Mid-continent.

Pictures (hopefully, if my camera doesn’t fail me again) and story to follow.

Eric’s Website

Oil stocks rebound, along with the price of oil that has apparently found its bottom.

Oil stocks rise on broad market rally, strong earnings reports - MarketWatch.

Eric’s Website

This report states what everyone in the business of oil already knows: daily production remains constant at 85 million barrels a day, while demand continues to rise.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=adMJ0kccHGlk&refer=energy

Troubles in Russia overtake BP.

Chevron replaces BP as third-biggest oil major | Markets | Markets News | Reuters.

Eric’s Website

According to this article, the sell-off in the oil sector may be near an end.

What's Going On With Oil? - Rapid Recap - CNBC.com.

Eric’s Web

Is it possible?  A very interesting article.

Web Exclusive: Running on sugar – the move to sugarcane based ethanol.

Eric’s Web

Junior’s, in the basement of the Oil Center Building, is one of my favorite Oklahoma City restaurants.  They serve choice steaks and strong drinks.  Brandy Ice, one of their after dinner drinks, is a favorite of mine.  In a recent trip to Junior’s, a waitress gave Marilyn and me their recipe.  It’s simple but wonderful.

1 pint Vanell ice cream

¼ cup dark Crème de Cocoa

1/3 cup brandy

Blend in blender until smooth then serve in a brandy snifter

Eric’s Website

I had a dream the other night that while not disturbing was certainly thought provoking. I seldom remember dreams unless awakened during the course of one. This dream apparently startled me into awareness. Although I don’t recall the entire sequence, what I do remember went something like this:

I was at the sink in my kitchen and there was a woman with me. We were cleaning the dishes and both of us were smiling. I had a comfortable feeling that this was someone that I had known for a long time. Our arms touched briefly as we worked at the sink, the sensation of warm skin against my own very pleasurable and somehow soothing. When she spoke, I turned and looked at her.

"Eric, I’m going to help you clean up your life."

It wasn’t her words that caused me to awaken; it was the unexpected recognition when I stared into her eyes. I will call her Cicely. I had known her since the first grade. We had graduated from high school together.

While I had long known Cicely, we had never been close friends and certainly not lovers. We had never, in fact, had any kind of personal relationship, at least in this lifetime. Still, in my dream she felt like a trusted confidante. Should I call her, tell her about my dream and express the way I felt about her? I can’t. Cicely died of cancer this past summer.

This brings me back to pondering the dream’s meaning. Maybe it has no meaning. Maybe we are all destined to live parallel lives with many lovers and confidantes as the wheels of a giant life machine spins one slow story after the next. Maybe Shakespeare had it right when he said, "All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts."

My dream leaves me to wonder just how many parts I have played, and who were my fellow actors, and did all the stories end with song and dance on a festive summer night, or perhaps the sudden shock of unexpected pain?

Eric’s Website

Crude oil continues its precipitous drop in price with no bottom in sight.  Crippled energy sector almost sure to occur.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=aL7sq8rLAHcg&refer=energy

Eric’s Website

A few years ago I took a mineral lease not far from Lake Arcadia, Edmond’s water supply.  I wanted to get an oil well drilled at a location about two miles south of Route 66.  I got to know Carroll L, the mineral owner and one day, just before lunch, he showed up at my office.

“Let’s go to lunch,” he said.  “I’m buying.”

I had no other plans so we piled into his truck.  Instead of taking me to lunch, though, he had other plans.  We soon pulled up outside a house in Edmond.

“There’s someone here I want you to meet.  Her name is Nita.  She’s a seer and I’m going to have her read your cards.”

Nita was apparently expecting us, quickly ushering us to a back room complete with a table and deck of Tarot cards.  She smiled and basked in the accolades as Carroll explained all the missing persons she had found for the police.

“I have a talent,” she admitted.

Nita was an attractive Oklahoma woman that in no way looked like a witch doctor or soothsayer, but she had a confident manner about her that caused me to trust her instantly. 

Carroll, apparently, was more interested in learning if she thought there was oil and gas under his property than in listening to my fortune.  Listen, though, he did because Nita dealt my cards and proceeded to predict my fate.  I don’t remember everything she said.  One thing I do.

“You ride a motorcycle, don’t you?” she asked.  When I admitted that I did and had two motorcycles, a grave expression appeared on her face.  Her next statement caused me grave concern.  “You’re going to have a motorcycle accident and you’re going to lose a leg.”

I was still reeling from Nita’s prediction when Carroll changed the subject to his minerals.  Nita thinks theres a wealth of oil and gas beneath my property, don’t you Nita?

There was a moment’s hesitation between Nita’s answer and the look of doubt in her eyes.  I knew right away that no matter what her lips professed about how much oil and gas we were going to find, her eyes were telling the truth that she believed.

We never made it to lunch that day, Carroll returning me to my office, confident that he would soon have a wonderful well drilled on his land.  After our meeting with Nita the seer, I was not so sure.  The meeting unnerved me to the point that I have never again ridden a motorcycle (well, okay, just once maybe.)

Despite Nita’s eyes, I was not persuaded that there was no oil or gas under Carroll’s property and it took the drilling of two dry holes to convince me otherwise.  While I don’t believe that Nita knew anymore about the oil and gas (or lack thereof) beneath Carroll’s property than I did, I’m still not going to run out and buy a new Harley.

Eric’s Website

Here is a very interesting graph published by the EIA showing recent growth in natural gas production.

Eric’s Website

Reality sinks in, along with the economy.

Credit Crunch May Hit Natural Gas Drilling: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance.

Eric’s Website

OPEC scrambles as oil prices plummet.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=as4nT9DmpweI&refer=energy

Eric’s Website

Keep your eyes on the bouncing ball.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=ak8RFl_5MTjk&refer=energy

Eric’s Website

A very interesting article with large implications.

Web Exclusive: How will nano materials change petroleum exploration & production?.

Eric’s Website

I have found New Orleans Recipes, a great old cookbook by Mary Moore Bremer.  The book I have is the Tenth Edition published in 1944.  Unlike most modern cookbooks, this one presents its recipes in a simple way that encourages intuitive cooking.  Here is Bremer’s recipe for Shrimp Arnaud.

Six tablespoons of olive oil, two tablespoons of vinegar and one tablespoon of paprika, one half teaspoon of white pepper, one half teaspoon of salt, four tablespoons of Creole mustard, on half heart of celery, chopped fine, one half white onion, chopped fine, and a little chopped parsley.

Mix well.  Chill; Serve on cold boiled shrimp, about twelve to a serving.

Enthrone on crisp, chopped lettuce.

Eric’s Website

I suspect even this estimate may be too low.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=a00prmC3Uz5U&refer=energy

Eric’s Website

The beginning of the heating season draws near, along with the possibility of a colder than normal winter.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=aKqAyMN1DltM&refer=energy

Eric’s Website

Here is an interesting graph published by the EIA showing household consumption of heating oil by quintile.

Eric’s Website

Crude oil prices near $75 a barrel.

Oil company stocks sink with crude oil prices: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance.

Eric’s Website

When I moved to Oklahoma City in 1973, the downtown area was already a victim of urban sprawl.  Many stores and businesses had moved out of the City’s original area for the more affluent outlying neighborhoods.  Downtown OKC had long since fallen into disarray and disrepair.  There was no new construction, no new businesses and little sentiment to revive this crumbling portion of Oklahoma City.

I left Texas Oil and Gas in 1978 and started an independent oil company with my best friend John.  Our first office was on the eighth floor of the Park Harvey Center and our office looked south at the massive urban renewal project underway in the City.

The City bought out all the little shops and cafes, eventually tearing them down.  One of my worst days was when they razed the downtown bookstore owned by my friend Carroll’s (fellow geologist) father.  He was famous when the local D.A. put him in jail overnight for selling Playboy.  In defiance, he never stopped selling the magazine.

Like other cities, OKC had its skid row.  In the seventies, and to a large extent today, beggars, panhandlers, winos, prostitutes and runaways congregated in an area near the downtown bus station.  Hotels, many built shortly after the beginning of the city, remained along the Reno Avenue corridor.  Most were run down, shabby, and homes for gamblers and prostitutes.  One of these hotels was the Tivoli Inn on W. Sheridan Avenue.

The Tivoli was built in 1922 as a grand hotel.  It went through several transformations but in October of 1972 it had degenerated into little more than a flophouse for transients taking a detour off I-40, one of the interstate highways that bisect the city.  On October 13, 1972, the desk clerk of the hotel met her untimely death.

I hadn’t yet moved to Oklahoma in 1972 but I remember hearing about the murder of Phyllis Jean Daves.  Daves, age 49, was the desk clerk at the Tivoli Inn the night of her death.  According to accounts in the Daily Oklahoman, she was beaten, robbed and strangled to death.

On October 13, 1972 (yes, it was Friday) she was dragged into the elevator and apparently still fighting for her life when she and her attacker reached the sixth floor.  Her nude body was found under a bed in room 607 and rape was likely attempted but never consummated.  Two former employees of the Tivoli Inn were suspected but later cleared of the crime when they failed to provide a match to bloody hand prints held as evidence.

I remember hearing stories of blood covering the lobby walls from the horrific struggle that ensued.  The crime remains cold, never solved.  Urban renewal of downtown Oklahoma City began in earnest during the latter seventies, the Tivoli Inn razed in 1979 to make room for the Myriad Gardens.

Nothing remains today of the old Tivoli Inn but memories and some old photographs. Most Oklahomans don’t even remember it, nor does anyone remember Phyllis Jean Daves, or worry much about who killed her, or why.

Eric’s Web

Natural gas and crude oil prices begin upward rise.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=aEgXdHC8j.uc&refer=energy

Eric’s Website

Junior’s is a restaurant in the basement of the Oil Center Building.  Junior’s was opened by legendary Oklahoma City restaurateur Junior Simon in 1973.  It soon became an oily hangout and more oil deals were likely consummated there than in any boardroom.

I ate at Junior’s for the first time in 1978, shortly after meeting my second wife Anne.  Anne was the accountant for a little oil company that had an office in the Oil Center.  She had once worked for Carl Swan, one of Junior’s original partners.

Junior’s, at the time, was a private club as Oklahoma had yet to pass a liquor-by-the-drink law.  You were supposed to have your own bottle (with your name on it!) to get a drink at a bar.  It was rarely required and you could get a strong drink almost anyplace, at least if someone there knew you.  The practice was known as liquor-by-the-wink.  You could also get a “roadie” (an alcoholic drink in a plastic go-cup) to tide you over on your trip home.

Junior not only knew every one of his clientele by their first names, he knew the names of their kids, friends, employers or employees.  I don’t recall ever seeing him without a smile on his face.

Since Junior’s was a club, Junior billed his members once a month.  I had a medium-sized oil company and often took clients there for drinks, and dinner and my monthly bill almost always ran into the thousands.  When my oil company went belly up, I owed Junior more than three thousand dollars.

“I’m broke,” I told him.  “But I’ll pay you a little every month until I get it whittled down.”

Junior smiled and put an understanding hand on my shoulder.  “Eric, I know you will.  Just do your best and I’ll understand.”

It took me more than two years to finish paying my Junior’s debt and I felt like a giant weight have been lifted off my soul when Anne and I finally did.  Junior didn’t make a big deal about it.  He just smiled, nodded and patted me on the shoulder.

I was in Junior’s the night Penn Square Bank went under, just one of my many memories of the super club that would fill a small book.  Mostly, I remember Junior Simon – the best restaurateur the State of Oklahoma has ever seen, and a fine gentleman to boot.

Eric’s Website

If you’re exploring Route 66 and stop for lunch at a café in some small Oklahoma town, you are apt to learn that chicken-fried steak is the specialty of the house.  Since you are on the “Mother Road” you’re already looking for adventure, so point to the picture on the plastic menu and tell the homey waitress that you’re having the chicken fry.

When I returned home from work, I learned Marilyn had prepared chicken-fried steak for me.  It was, she said, the first time she had cooked chicken fries in more than twenty years.  The meal was delicious, served with mashed potatoes and cream gravy.

“Just the way my mother Joy used to do it,” she said.  “Well, almost.  Mama would buy a round steak big enough to feed eight of us and then she’d pound it out with a hammer until it was tender.  I did it the easy way and had the butcher do the trimming and tenderizing for me.”

Here is Joy and Marilyn’s method of cooking a yummy chicken-fried steak:

Take two pans.  Combine an egg and a little buttermilk in one of the pans.  Put some flour in the other pan and add salt and pepper to taste.  Salt and pepper the meat and then, using tongs, dredge both sides of the steak in the flour.  Dip the floured steak into the egg and buttermilk mixture and coat both sides.  Coat the steak a second time in the flour.

Heat about half an inch of oil in a frying pan (Joy always used a cast-iron skillet) and place the floured steaks into the pan once the oil is hot.  Cook until the bottom and edges are golden brown then turn the steak to finish browning.  Blot additional oil with paper towels after both sides finish cooking.

That’s how you do it.  Try it sometime if you can’t actually make it to that little roadside café in Oklahoma.

Eric’s Website

Today is the beginning of the latest OU, Texas weekend.  Both teams are undefeated and anticipation has already reached a fevered pitch here in Oklahoma.  I have never attended an OU-Texas game in Dallas but I have seen OU play many times in Norman, and I well remember one game in particular.

There are many details about that game I can no longer remember (like OU’s opponent and the outcome of the game, etc.) but I remember vividly many of the day’s events.  Lan (an Oklahoma State graduate), Kat (an Oklahoma graduate), Anne (an Oklahoma graduate) and I headed for Norman around nine in the morning.  We steeled ourselves against the early hour with a gallon of bloody Marys, completely consumed before we reached the Norman city limits.

We soon found a parking space and made our way through about a million students and football fans to a bar near the stadium named O’Connell’s.  Hundreds of fans congregated outside the Irish bar, drinking beer and conversing about how we were about to annihilate our opponent.  Lan, Kat, Anne and I joined in.

The game started around 11:30 am and to say that we were drunk by that time wouldn’t be the total truth.  We were snockered, but had sobered up by half time.  OU was so far ahead that half the occupants of the stadium poured out and returned to O’Connell’s.

Lan and Kat married later, as did Anne and I, but none of us were even betrothed at the time – a situation both Lan and I rued before the day ended.  It began when we reached O’Connell’s.

Anne and Kat went inside to use the facilities while Lan and I remained outside to kibbutz with the fans, many of whom we knew, and consume more beer.  It soon became apparent to both Lan and me, despite our alcoholic proclivities that Kat and Anne had been inside O’Connell’s for a lengthy time without rejoining us.  Excusing ourselves from our group of friends, we pushed through the crowded fray blocking the door of the Irish bar. We soon found Anne and Kat.

They were sitting in a booth with a couple of obviously enamored college boys.  Lan and I practically had to start a fight – to the delight of both Kat and Anne – to get them to abandon the two college boys and rejoin us.

We didn’t bother returning to the stadium.  When OU is rolling, no one can beat them, and that’s a fact.  Like many occasions, this particular game was a runaway.  It was getting dark when, feeling somewhat sober, we headed toward Oklahoma City.

We weren’t done yet and decided to have dinner at Junior’s, a restaurant in the basement of the Oil Center Building.  Junior’s is an institution in OKC with its flocked red wallpaper and red carpeting that gives it the look and feel of a French whorehouse.  We ordered strong drinks (that goes without saying at Junior’s!) and a chicken liver appetizer.  After ordering our main course, Lan didn’t make it much longer.

“I’m feeling a little sick,” he said.  “I’m going to lie down in the car.”

Kat, Anne and I ate our dinners – after many more drinks - and had Lan’s packed to go.  Lan slept in the back seat all the way back to his house without awakening, farting every thirty seconds or so along the way.  Despite the gas attack, we all survived and, some twelve hours after leaving home, Anne and I dropped Lan and Kat safely at their house.

We had, amazingly, gotten drunk and sobered up at least three times that day.  Yes, I know driving and drinking is wrong and I don’t do it any more (though it took a little time in County Jail to convince me).  Still, as the OU-Texas weekend approaches, I remember portions of that particular football weekend well and am glad to lie on my sofa and watch OU-Texas on TV.

Eric’s Website

Devon’s management may be thinking about their own situation.

Devon Energy expects mergers among mid-size rivals | Markets | Markets News | Reuters.

Eric’s Website

If you’re interested in the 80s oil bust in Oklahoma City, I recommend this site.  As I read through the many threads, old memories poured forth, some bad but many that reminded me what a colorful era I had lived through.

Any Penn Square Bank War Stories? Patterson, Jennings,Carl Swan,Hefner etc - OU Insider Forums.

Eric’s Website

Exploration companies pare back their drilling budgets as oil and natural gas prices plummet.

http://www.fool.com/investing/value/2008/10/07/more-drilling-budgets-heading-down.aspx

Eric’s Website

Increased natural gas production due to shale exploration may keep U.S. gas prices well below gas prices for the rest of the world.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=a1UajAiAGCwE&refer=energy

Eric’s Web

North Sea crude oil production continues decline.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=a.IT2UTevr2c&refer=energy

Eric’s Web

I became an independent oil man during the late seventies, just as Oklahoma City began urban renewal of its downtown area.  My partner John and I had an office on the eighth floor of the Park Harvey Center and we watched and listened as construction went on across the street.  We soon heard rumors that the crews had discovered a maze of underground rooms, halls and passageways dug by former Chinese residents of the city.

The rumors were true.  People of Chinese origin began arriving in Oklahoma City shortly after the Land Run.  The Daily Oklahoman reported in 1969 that Underground Chinatown extended from the North Canadian River to Northwest 17^th and Classen.  If this is true, the “City” encompassed an area of several square miles.

According to eyewitness accounts, the tunnel system had a low ceiling and connected both large community rooms to tiny apartments where the residents of the underground city lived.  Chinese writing covered the walls, including the words, “come gamble” at the entrance of one of the community rooms.

The underground city lay below restaurants and establishments owned by legal Chinese-Americans that likely took advantage of the cheap labor available from the illegal Chinese immigrants, afraid of deportation.  Oklahoma City Fathers elected not to save the underground city and it was bulldozed in the name of Urban Renewal.

Like many of the historic Oklahoma City buildings destroyed during Urban Renewal, Underground Chinatown is now little more than a memory; all that remains are a few eyewitness accounts and the ghostly reek of opium often whiffed late at night in downtown OKC.

Eric’s Web

Oil has yet to find its floor.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ts/081006/10440947.html?.v=1

Eric’s Website

Oil and natural gas futures continue their precipitous decline.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=a.wUFKX.mlVg&refer=energy

Eric’s Website

This Country’s present financial crisis should strike fear in my heart because, in 1984, the day before Thanksgiving, my little oil company was placed into involuntary bankruptcy.  The bankruptcy was cleared after several years but there was nothing left of the company but an empty shell.  There is no fear in my heart because of today’s financial – quite the contrary.

My wife Anne and I lost everything we owned in the eighties bankruptcy and it could have been our ultimate undoing.  It wasn’t.  Before the bankruptcy I was suffering from stress, overweight and probably on my way to a heart attack, or stroke.  When I finally accepted my fate and the stress lifted off my shoulders, I began jogging and eventually returned to my former good health.

I also began writing again after a hiatus of more than a decade.

I am a much older person now and will probably never be as rich as I was in my thirties – well, at least money-wise.  Money doesn’t make people happy; they can only achieve that for themselves, in their own minds.  My life isn’t perfect – far from it, but there is no doubt that I am a richer person now than I ever was then.

In John Lennon’s words, “Life is what happens to you while you’re making plans.”

Eric’s Website

During the almost six months that I spent in the boonies of Vietnam, I ate many C-Ration meals.  Most of the foods, contained in small, Army green tin cans, were very forgettable.  There were only two entrées that could even remotely be described as “good” - the peaches and the pound cake.  Unfortunately, they were in short supply and never came in the same box.

I still love both peaches and pound cake and recently found a wonderful recipe that includes one of these ingredients.  It’s in a cookbook called Recipes from an Old New Orleans Kitchen by Suzanne Ormond, published in 1988 by Pelican Publishing Company, Inc.  Here is Suzanne’s recipe for Peaches in Champagne.

6 large fresh peaches                            24 whole cloves

1 cup sugar                                           1 bottle chilled champagne

Water                                                   6 sherbet glasses

½ cup Napoleon Brandy

Peel peaches and leave them whole.  Press 4 cloves into each peach.  Place peaches in a large saucepan.  Pour sugar over them and cover them with water.  Bring peaches to a boil.  Add brandy.  Lower heat and simmer until peaches are tender to a fork.  Drain peaches and remove cloves.  Put peaches in covered bowl and refrigerate for 4 to 6 hours.  Place peaches in a sherbet glass and fill glass with chilled champagne.  Serve with cookies.  Serves 6.

Eric’s Website 

Sale reflects different exploration philosophies of companies.

Harding and ExxonMobil sell Barnett Shale assets to Chesepeake.

Eric’s Website

Company will use geophysics to help locate an expedition missing for 220 years.  A very interesting story.

Web Exclusive: CGGVeritas joins the 2008 Lapérouse Expedition.

Eric’s Website

I may have already told this tale but that’s okay.  A story is never really complete until it’s been embellished and retold at least twice.

This story happened during the time I spent in the boonies with the First Cav.  We were patrolling the Jolly Trail System near the Cambodian border when we happened upon a freshly deserted North Vietnamese bunker complex.  After a nervous couple of hours deciding if the NVA were truly gone, or set up to ambush us, we decided on the former and established a base camp, sending out several patrols to see if we could find out which direction the enemy had gone.  I was one of the lucky ones that remained at the base camp.

I have always been enamored by buried treasure and soon I had myself and everyone else convinced that there was probably a fortune in gold buried somewhere within the perimeter of the bunker complex.  This was not such a far-fetched idea as the NVA were known to carry large amounts of money and gold to trade with the locals.

Since they had abandoned the complex in such a hurry, perhaps they had forgotten to take the treasure.  Before long, practically everyone left at the base camp was poking around with trenching devices (military shovels).  As luck would have it, I was the first one to find something.

“It’s here,” I said, beginning to dig feverishly over a spot of loose earth.

I was quickly joined by others and we soon had a large hole in the ground.  I soon became apparent that what we had found was not a treasure trove – well, unless you were a maggot.  The bunker complex, it seemed, was a well-established stop along the trail from North Vietnam, our covered treasure no more than a buried latrine.  The other soldiers were soon shaking their heads and looking at me as if I were freshly escaped from a loony bin.

“Hey, I’ll bet the treasure’s in the latrine.  No one would think to look there.”

The other men didn’t buy my argument and, since I couldn’t convince anyone else to poke around in the smelly remains of an NVA latrine, I decided that even if there were treasure a few feet from where I stood that it wasn’t worth digging through the sh-t for.

No, I didn’t find any buried treasure during my tour of Vietnam.  Come to think of it, I don’t recall ever seeing a single rock during the entire time I was there.  As a geologist, you’d think I would have noticed.

Eric’s Website

 Here is a pic of the Wild Mary spewing flames across the reserve pit.

Eric’s Website

Natural gas is the newest “hot commodity.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=azOhe.UGNErE&refer=energy

Eric’s Website

It’s not enough just to find natural gas, you sometimes also have to secure a market.

Chesapeake Energy Corporation Secures Transportation Capacity for Growing Fayetteville Shale Production: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance.

Eric’s Website