Oil and natural gas aren’t the only commodities being buffeted by the world’s present economic situation.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=a0RBO0lik.T8&refer=energy

Eric’s Website

The decline of Cantarell, Mexico’s giant oil field, made front page news in a 2007 Wall Street Journal article.  The business daily reported that in just one year, the field has dropped from 2 million barrels of oil per day to 1.6 million barrels.  Here are some startling facts also reported in that article:

1.) Cantarell is the world’s second biggest oil field.

2.) 25% of the world’s daily oil production comes from just 20 oil fields.

3.) Prior to the 1970s, eight oil fields producing 500,000 to 1,000,000 BOPD were discovered.

4.) Only two such fields were found in the 70s and 80s.

5.) Only one field found since the 80s, the Kashagan in Kazakhstan, has the potential to easily top 500,000 BOPD.

6.) Two decades ago, there were about a dozen fields that could produce 1,000,000 BOPD while now there are only four.

7.) Ghawar, the world’s biggest oil field, was discovered more than 50 years ago.

8.) Prudhoe Bay, the largest domestic field, produces 900,000 BOPD, down from the 2,000,000 BOPD in 1988.

While the world has an abundance of heavy oil sand, oil shale and coal, the production of about 85 million BOPD has remained static for several years.  While there is still much oil yet to be produced, like Cantarell, there won’t be as much tomorrow as there was yesterday.

Eric’s Website

As a geology student at what was then Northeast Louisiana State College, I concentrated on partying as much as I did “cracking the books.”  Being a small department, all the professors and students knew each other and we all looked forward to the geology picnic held every spring at a camp on Lake Cheniere - hot dogs, hamburgers and a keg or two of beer provided the usual fare.

One memory I have of these seasonal events is witnessing a geology professor – goaded by several grad students – attempting to drink the last gallon from the keg.  He didn’t make it, and thank goodness final grades for the year were already posted.

The camp on Lake Cheniere was near a large gravel pit, a strip mining operation that had already removed tons of gravel for construction and road building.  The pit was a favorite with geology students because it was a virtual endless repository of what we called gravel fossils.  What kind of fossils?  Silicified, Paleozoic fossils of the marine variety – brachs, corals, bryozoans, cephalopods, etc.  Well, you get the picture.

How did these three hundred to five hundred million year old fossils end up populating geologically young Louisiana alluvium?  In the case of the gravel pits near Monroe, they were eroded and washed down dip from Paleozoic deposits in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas.

There were rumors that alluvial diamonds were also sometimes found in the gravel – rumors because I never talked to anyone that had actually found a diamond, or knew anyone that had.  Still, the possibility is legitimate since Murfreesboro in the Ouachita Mountains is the location of a known diamond deposit, with diamonds exposed at the surface of the earth there.

Is it possible that a large, undiscovered alluvial diamond deposit exists in north Louisiana?  Consider this – such a deposit is very real in South Africa where alluvial diamonds are found in gravel deposits, much like those in Louisiana.  From 1926 to 1984 over 667,000 carats were produced from this part of South Africa known as the Ventersdorp Alluvial Diamond District. 

Where would you look if you wanted to find this elusive north Louisiana diamond deposit?  That gravel pit near Lake Cheniere might be a good place to start.  Hey, and invite me along as I would love to find one of those elusive glitterers.

Eric’s Website 

If you are lucky enough to find a mayhaw bush loaded with luscious red berries, pick a batch of the very nicest ones.  Take them home and wash them up.  About six cups of water are needed to cover two quarts of mayhaws.

Put them in a large pot, add the water, bring to a boil and cook for thirty minutes, or so.  Press the berries in a colander using a big wooden spoon, and then strain the juice through damp cheesecloth.  Now you are ready to make the jelly.

5 cups of the mayhaw juice you just extracted

7 cups sugar, preferably cane

1 box of pectin, powered 

Mix the juice in a large saucepan with the pectin until it is completely dissolved then place on the fire.  When the juice reaches a rolling boil, add the sugar, return to a boil and continue boiling for five minutes.

Remove from heat and skim the foam with a metal spoon.  Skim again after placing juice in clean, sterilized jars.  Seal jars and place in boiling water for fifteen minutes.  When you finish, you will have eight or so jars of the best jelly you ever tasted.

Eric’s Website

Yes, there are new fields to be found, but they are not easy to find or inexpensive to develop.

Web Exclusive: Largest discovery ever in Barents Sea takes shape.

Eric’s Website

Gasoline stocks sink to lowest level in 41 years.

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

Eric’s Website

Just East of Eden is my book of stories published in 2007 by Gondwana Press.  Chicken Fries is one of the stories in the book and recounts an episodic ten days sitting a drilling oil well in Grant County, Oklahoma while staying in Wanda Jackson’s former RV.

Part of the story deals with the drilling of the well while another part expounds on many of the strange happenings going on in the area at the time – happenings that included cattle mutilations, crop circles and a County sheriff that seems to know all about it.

The story includes a midnight meeting with Ralph and Goldie, two people Anne and Eric suspect of Satanism.  The reality is something quite different but still quite unusual.  Here is an excerpt from the story Chicken Fries:

Hearing the throaty exhausts of a Harley pull to a stop outside the RV, we waited, listening to someone scrape their boots on the stair ramp leading up the door.  Then footsteps –

Anne made a face as I opened the RV’s door.  “Come in,” I said.

Ralph was not alone.  A woman he introduced as Goldie his soul mate accompanied him.

Goldie had long blonde hair decorated with pink, azure and purple beads, and had big expressive blue eyes.  She wore a leather-fringed jacket beaded with the same colors, along with American Indian totem signs.  She seemed like a sixties flower child that had put on twenty pounds in the seventies to become the quintessential earth mother.

Ralph also wore a matching leather-fringed coat.  For the second time since meeting him, I saw him without a hat or helmet.  His dark hair was also long, draping almost to his shoulders and I could see that he was much younger than I had previously thought.  Pointing to the built-in seating around the stationary table, I invited the Sonny and Cher look-alikes to join us.

“Would anyone like a beer?” I asked.

Ralph and Goldie both nodded so I brought a round of Coors from the RV’s little refrigerator before sliding in beside Anne.  The lighting was dim.  When Goldie began rolling a joint on the table top, the atmosphere became suddenly surreal.

The hallucinatory odor of burning pot permeated the RV as Goldie lit the joint, took a deep drag and then handed it to Ralph.  After taking his own pull from the joint, he passed it to Anne.  She took a hesitant puff and quickly passed it back to Ralph.  Ralph shook his head and nodded in my direction. 

I’m a non-smoker and no fan of the effects of marijuana, but I could already see the big picture.  If Ralph and Goldie were going to impart their knowledge of Satanism and cattle mutilations to us, they first wanted us to join them in a simple illegal act.

Anne’s eyes grew large as I took the pencil-thin joint, drew a deep lungful of the smoke and held it for a long moment before blowing aromatic smoke rings toward the RV’s ceiling.

“Like it?” Goldie asked.  “Home-grown from our own private patch.”

Goldie was grinning, as was Ralph and Anne.  I soon realized that so was I.  When I arose to get us more beer from the refrigerator I almost fell on my face.

“Creeper weed,” Ralph said.  “It takes a while to catch up with you, but when it does –“

Anne lit a candle, put it in the center of the table and turned out the lights.  Along with the pungent odor of marijuana, rising smoke and flickering candle light, all we needed was a little heavy-metal music.  We made do with the chorus of crickets and tree frogs outside the RV.  Finally, Ralph spoke.

“Word is going around that you’re meddling in things that aren’t your business.”

“Is that why someone tried to kill me the other day?”

“No one tried to kill you.  That was an accident.”

It unnerved me that Ralph knew what I was talking about, even if it were an accident.  The pentagram and dead chicken weren’t accidents,” I said.

“The boys was just trying to warn you to mind your own business.”

“Or?”

“Or nothing.  They didn’t mean nothing by it,” Ralph said.

“We wouldn’t turn you in, even if you are Satanists,” Anne said.

Goldie laughed and rolled her eyes.  “We’re not Satanists,” she said.

“Sheriff Arch called you Satanists.  If he’s wrong about that, then what are you?” I asked.

“We worship the moon, the stars and the cycles of the earth and planets,” Goldie said.  “Some people call us pagans.”

“Pagans?” asked Anne.

Warming to the conversation, Goldie spoke up and said, “It’s the oldest religion in Oklahoma, and maybe the world.”

It was my turn to ask, “How could you possibly know that?”

“Because of the excavations at the Spiro Mound sites in southeastern Oklahoma.  The site was the hub of religion and government for prehistoric Indians for thousands of miles.  The religion is connected to the Druids and Stonehenge and is likely the world’s oldest religion.”

Ralph droned in.  “Like the people at Stonehenge and Spiro, we still celebrate the cycles of the earth and stars.”

“You worship cycles?” Anne asked.

“We worship the universal pulse that controls everything,” Goldie said.  “We call ourselves the Southern Death Cult, after one of Spiro’s branches.  Some of the followers are part of the Buzzard Cult.”

“How many followers are there?” asked Anne.

“Thousands likely,” Ralph answered.  “No one exactly knows but there are branches all over the world.”

“And what about cattle mutilations?” I asked.

“We naturally get blamed for lots of things we don’t do.  Sometimes coyotes kill cows in these parts.”

“What about the removal of udders and sexual parts with almost razor-like precision?  How could a coyote, or any other wild animal, do that?” I asked.

“Bacteria,” Ralph answered.  “It’s a proven fact that if you leave a carcass outside in these parts, bacteria will remove those parts in a matter of hours.”

Anne caused my heart to skip a beat when she asked, “Yeah, if you aren’t Satanists, then how do you explain your use of human sacrifice?”

The looks on both Ralph and Goldie’s faces told me that Anne had offended them.  Like experienced diplomats, they both took deep breaths before speaking.  Before answering, Goldie rolled another joint.

After making a production of lighting it, she took a deep drag before passing it to Ralph.  Ralph took his own deep drag and I could see by the expression in his dark eyes that Anne’s comment had not made him happy.  This time, when he passed the joint to Anne, she also took a long toke, as did I when she handed it to me.

As a Vietnam vet, I am far from a virgin when it comes to drugs.  I like beer, but that doesn’t mean that I have never sampled the weed.  This weed was different.  By my second puff I was stoned.  I stifled a giggle when I observed the hurt expressions on Ralph and Goldie’s faces.

“The Southern Death Cult doesn’t practice human sacrifice,” Ralph finally said.  He giggled himself when he added, “maybe a chicken or two, but nothing more.”

At this point, Anne began laughing uncontrollably and Goldie, Ralph and I soon joined her.  I staggered up to the refrigerator and got us more Coors.

When I returned with the beer I asked, “If you don’t practice human sacrifices then why have a name as ominous as the Southern Death Cult?”

“We couldn’t have made that one up if we’d tried.  Southern Death Cult is the original name the Indians used.  No one really knows why.”

“So why all the secrecy if you’re not really Satanists?”  Anne asked.

“Oklahoma is the hub of the Bible Belt.  The only Southern most of our neighbors understand is Baptist.  What we came to tell you is you got a problem with the well.”

“What kind of problem?”

“The spot you are drilling on is hallowed, an old Indian burial ground.”

“Are you sure?  I never found anything in the literature.  How do you know?”

“It’s been passed down and there’s a curse against anyone ever making use of that spot of land.  You’re drilling almost the exact location.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and neither could Anne.  “What should we do?  We’ve spent too much money to quit now.”

“This ain’t about money. It’s about sacred land.  You got to make amends.”

“Or what?”

At this point, Goldie’s facial expression went from a pretty smile to an angry frown.  Standing from the table, she said, “Seems like we’ve done all we can, Ralph.  Let’s get the hell outa here.”

“Now wait a minute,” Anne said.  “My father was a Baptist minister.  You can’t just come in here and tell us that you’re members of a cult called Southern Death and that you are descended from Indians that believe in cycles of the universe and expect to convert us in one fell swoop!  Tell us what it is you want us to do.  At least respect us enough to give us a chance.”

Anne’s tirade caught them both by surprise, as well as me.  Goldie and Ralph exchanged glances and Goldie resumed her place at the table.  I went to the refrigerator and got us more beer.  Then I said, “Now, please tell us what to do.”

Ralph drank some beer and leaned forward in his seat.  “All right,” he said.  “If you’re really serious, this is what you need to know.”

I know now Ralph and Goldie aren’t Satanists, they’re Pagans.  Pagans exist everywhere, even here in Edmond.  It’s been a lot of years but, since it’s autumn again, a mystical time of the year, maybe I’ll just take a drive to Blackwell and see if they’re still around since I haven’t seen Raph on a drilling oil well lately.

Eric’s Website

The Government releases storage figures today.

Energy futures rise ahead of U.S. petroleum inventories data - MarketWatch.

Eric’s Website

While a geology student at Northeast Louisiana (now University of Louisiana Monroe) I attended a Geological Society of America convention in New Orleans.  The St. Charles Hotel was the convention headquarters.  When we arrived, I learned the hotel had lost my reservation.

It was an earlier place and time.  Instead of turning me away to seek lodging some other place, they erected a cot for me in a large towel closet (I kid you not!) and I spent the night there.  It was only for one night because they found a room for me the next day.

The original St. Charles Hotel burned in 1841.  It was reconstructed and burned again in the 1890’s.  The hotel where I stayed was built on the original site and it was razed in the 1970’s.  It was already fairly seedy when I stayed there but the original St. Charles Hotel was widely accepted as the most regal hotel on earth at the time.

The original St. Charles Hotel was a meeting place for wealthy Americans.  The St. Louis Hotel, equally regal, was built by the French.  Like many historical places, they had their dark sides.  Stocks stood inside both hotels for the purpose of selling slaves.  Here is a compelling excerpt from an account of the everyday slave trade as told by Harnett T. Kane in his book Queen New Orleans – City by the River published in 1949 by William Morrow & Company.

The two hotels shared a sight that made certain visitors, Southern as well as Northern, wince.  Here stood blocks on which human beings were auctioned.  From one point of view it was merely a sale of property, no different from that of a horse or a table.  From another – but let us watch such an event as eyewitnesses reported it.

An elderly dark woman, sunken –chested, is helped up to stand on the block. The auctioneer starts briskly: “Now, gentlemen, here’s Mary.  Clever house-servant, excellent cook.  Only one fault, shamming sick.  Nothing wrong with her any more than with me.  Put her up, gentlemen.  A hundred dollars to begin?”

Several men reach over and prod Mary in the ribs.  “Are you well?” one asks.

“No, very sick.”  The words are strained.  “Bad cough, pain in my side, suh.”

The auctioneer interrupts: “Gentlemen, I told you she’s a shammer.  Damn her humbug!  Give her a touch or two of the cowhide, and she’ll do your work.  Speak, gentlemen.  Seventy dollars only?  Going, going, gone!”

Nobody is much interested.  “Lots of skin and bone,” a younger man comments, and his neighbor chuckles loudly:  “Guess that ‘ere woman will soon be food for the land crabs.”  Amid general laughter, the sick slave is led away.

A bright-eyed youth steps up.  The auctioneer praises his intelligence.  Neither he nor any of the others would be for sale, the man says, if their master were not in financial trouble.  Several growers escort the boy to a side room to strip him for sores or other imperfections.  A high price.  Next!

A smile on her lips, a pert mulattress glides over.  A stout man opens her mouth to examine the gums.  He and several others make a motion to the auctioneer and take her away, as in the previous case, for private examination.  A yet higher bid, a lively raising of it while the girl’s smile widens proudly.  Sold!

A middle-aged woman takes the block, her eyes somber, in her arms a sleeping child.  “How much/” The auctioneer describes her training at length.  Not once does she raise her eyes from her baby.  He tells of her experience, what her masters have said of her dependability.  She still stares down.  Sold!  Next –

The planters stroll about, bored.  “Not much left, eh?”

“Have to hurry home, anyway.”

They throw on their top coats.  Tonight they will be back, a few feet from this spot, sipping wine, dancing.  And the cadence of the music will rise where Negro men and women have been whispering together, and the dancers’ feet will slide across a polished floor where slave people shuffled to the block and off it again.”

Hey, the book is great and there are many compelling stories about New Orleans that are impossible to put down.  Grab a copy and read it if you get a chance.

There were no slave blocks in the lobby when I stayed at the hotel, only friendly people trying hard to accommodate a young geologist wanna-be.  Still, I palpably felt the specter of the slaves as they dragged their shackles down the hall - that night long ago spent in the towel closet of the St. Charles Hotel.

Eric’s Website 

With the end of the month approaching, traders weigh whether to buy or sell.

Crude futures rally as traders weigh bailout plan - MarketWatch.

Eric’s Website

Marilyn did it again.  She found a magnificent old cookbook filled with wonderful recipes.  The name of the book is New Orleans Creole Recipes, written by Mary Moore Bremer.  The original was published in 1932.

The copy we have is the nineteenth edition published in 1962.  Our initial browsing of the book revealed an appetizing dessert called Pecan Charmante and Marilyn couldn’t resist whipping up a batch.  If I’m any judge, the final product was awesome and reminded me of what an early-day candy bar probably tasted like.

Ideafinder.com defines a candy bar as “A confection made with sugar and often flavoring and filling with a shape that is longer than it is wide.”  If this is so, Pecan Charmante should have become a famous candy bar.  It didn’t, as far as I know, but here is your chance to taste it anyway.  In my mind, it’s a scrumptious delight.

Pecan Charmante

Cream one cup of sugar with one stick of butter.  Spread this over fifteen large graham crackers; sprinkle on this one cup of chopped pecan nuts.  Put in moderate oven and bake for eleven minutes.

Hey, I said it was simple!

Eric’s Website

Here is an interesting illustration that I found on the Mineral Management’s website.  It shows the location of offshore platforms.

Eric’s Website

Marilyn and I were taking my Dad to lunch on Sunday when she pointed out to me a bushy tree loaded with small reddish-orange fruit.  “Do you know what it is?” she asked.  She went on to explain that it was a sand plum bush, the fruit of which produced her mother Joy’s second favorite jelly; blackberry was her first.

Sand plums grow wild in parts of Kansas and Oklahoma and served as an important food source for the native indians and early settlers.  Joy isn’t around to make us any sand plum jelly and the last jar we had we purchased in Guthrie, Oklahoma while shopping for souvenirs.  

Marilyn and I agreed that we would find a sand plum bush and plant it in our yard.  Maybe then she will take a stab at Joy’s simple recipe.

Wild Sand Plum Jelly

4 c. wild sand plum juice

4 c. cane sugar

1 tbsp. butter 

Wash well and barely cover with water both ripe red wild sand plums and partially ripe pink plums. Boil until fruit is soft and liquid is bright red. Cool until warm only and strain through cheese cloth to obtain clear pulp free juice.  

Make jelly in proportion listed above. Bring strained juice to a boil, stir in butter to keep juice from boiling over sides of pan. Slowly stir in sugar, stirring constantly until mixture reaches 220 degrees on candy thermometer. Remove from heat immediately and pour into dry, warm sterilized 1/2 pint jelly jars, leaving approximately 1/2 inch at top of jar for expansion when jelled. Seal jars tightly. 

Wild plums contain natural pectin. Do not over cook because jelly will continue to jell while cooling in the jars

Yields approximately 8 to 10 jars.

Eric’s Website

Crude oil, again over $100 a barrel, is already rising.

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

Eric’s Website

After returning from Vietnam I entered the master’s program at the University of Arkansas.  Gail and I both had part-time jobs; I was on the GI Bill and had a quarter-time assistant-ship.  Altogether we were raking in well over a thousand dollars a month.  Since we had no debt and little overhead, I probably had as much money at that time as I ever have in my life.

My quarter-time assistantship consisted of work at the University of Arkansas Museum located then on the fourth floor of the Old Main Building, the oldest building at the University.  When I wasn’t giving guided tours to grades one through three, I was unwrapping rocks, bones and other artifacts.  There seemed to be at least ten times more material in the back than there was in the actual museum and most was still packed in the same boxes as when it came to the University.

It was sort of creepy working late in the old museum because there were rows and rows of human bones and complete skeletons, mostly stacked unceremoniously on the various shelves.  The rock, mineral and ore specimens were wrapped in old newspapers, most very old.  I spent half my time, it seems, reading old newspaper stories.

One of the museum’s greatest treasures, at least in my mind, was the giant quartz crystals donated by geologist Hugh D. Miser.  Some of the crystals weighed a thousand pounds or more.  They are not only rare, they are irreplaceable.

I loved leading tours through the little museum and seeing the eyes of the young people, all agog with discovery.  It struck me that all kids of this age are filled with enthusiasm and desire to absorb knowledge.  Most of this desire and enthusiasm is eventually blunted, it seems, by less than professional teachers that will make up the answer to a question asked them rather than admitting that they don’t know.

Yes, I had a canned spiel that I used on all age groups.  I usually ended at the quartz crystal display where I attributed the collection to Hugh D. Miser, Arkansas’ greatest geologist ever.  One day, a group of adults followed along as I conducted my tour.  When I concluded, the teachers and kids thanked me and departed.  One of the women listening to my conducted tour approached me.

“Excuse me, but you said that a man named Miser was Arkansas’ greatest geologist.  I beg to differ.  It was my father John Branner.”

I know my mouth must have dropped as this unknown woman invoked the name of the first Arkansas State Geologist.  I took a breath and said, “Your Dad was truly a great geologist and did so much for Arkansas.  He and Miser were both great men and I was judgmental to say Miser was the greatest.  It is only because I’m a mineralogist and he donated those beautiful crystals that I admire so much to the State.  I apologize if I offended you because your father was truly a great man.”

The lady must have accepted my apology because she smiled, shook my hand and thanked me.  She and her party departed with smiles on their faces, leaving me with a rapidly beating heart and a greater understanding about blanket endorsements.

My thesis advisor, Dr. K almost busted a gut laughing when I conveyed the story to him.  Finally he shook his head and said, “Wilder, you may never make it as a geologist but you have the best line of bulls—t of any student I’ve ever had.”

Eric’s Website

Refinery storage down 6.3 million barrels of oil in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike.

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/twip/twip.asp

Eric’s Website

I’ve chronicled my summer job in New Orleans many times.  I worked for a now defunct geophysical company named GTS Corp.  They had an office on St. Charles Avenue, near Jackson Circle.  The seedy front door opened into a modern office that employed at least a hundred professionals and technicians.  Many of the characters in my French Quarter mystery Big Easy were developed during that summer in New Orleans.

I lived in a broken down wood framed building in Arabi, a little town located between the Lower Ninth Ward and Chalmette.  All three areas were decimated by Hurricane Katrina.  My rent was only seventy-five bucks a month but there was no air conditioning and someone should have paid me to stay there.

I lived across the street from a convent of cloistered Catholic nuns and the entire time I never saw a single occupant of the large building.  I generally walked the half mile, or so, to St. Bernard Avenue, the road leading to downtown New Orleans, and took the bus to work.  I usually slept all the way there and all the way home.  This practice got me into trouble on more than one occasion.

The worst situation occurred at the Arabi Station.  I awoke to find the bus deserted except for me, the lady sitting next to me, and a desperate-looking man brandishing a pistol.  I grabbed the woman’s shoulders and pulled her down behind the seat, the crazy man’s pistol pointed right at us.  We held our breaths, hoping like hell that he didn’t unload the pistol in our direction, even though I knew that the ricochet of a single bullet would probably get both of us more than once.

Instead of shooting us, the loony fellow ran out of the bus where he was immediately apprehended by police officers that had him disarmed and sprawled on the sidewalk with his hands behind his back in a heartbeat.  Cops are often hard asses but considering the service they perform for the public and the constant danger they are in, I can only commend them for their almost daily acts of bravery that rarely earns them an atta boy.

I didn’t make much money at GTS, even in those days, but I spent what I earned having fun in the Big Easy.  All the fun and work left little time for sleep and I –like I said – spent lots of time sleeping on the bus.  One way from the bus stop on Canal, next to the old Saenger Theatre, took about forty minutes.  More than once I awoke about two hours after boarding the bus and finding myself in the same spot where I had started.  When this happened, I usually felt newly invigorated and simply headed for an evening on Bourbon Street.

Growing up in the little town of Vivian, I was familiar with many poor people but I had never seen the masses of derelict winos such as those that populated St. Charles Avenue.  I’ve since seen many others since in Boston, New York, Oklahoma City and even Amarillo but that summer in New Orleans was my first day end, day out experience with humans little more alive than voodoo zombies.  Hmmm!  Sounds like the makings of a suspenseful murder mystery novel.

Eric’s Website

Huge Hurricane Ike didn’t miss every platform in the Gulf.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=aObMFzsCU_7w&refer=energy

Eric’s Website

How low will it go?  With financial markets in a turmoil, traders dump riskiest investments.

Crude-oil futures extend sharp losses - MarketWatch.

Eric’s Website

Natural gas in storage won’t come close to last year’s record amount, despite increased production.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=a0uAqeI7p5bg&refer=energy

Eric’s Website

I am a fiction writer but I am blessed, or perhaps cursed by also being a scientist of the Earth.  Years ago I visited a road cut in Arkansas near the tiny town of Caddo Gap.  What I witnessed that day truly blew me away, both metaphorically and metaphysically.  I stood on the side of the road, staring for what must have been many minutes, or perhaps hours, at what could only be described as a visual slice of the Earth’s core.  It called to me with its siren’s song as I stared in lust at its naked earthen breasts.

As a geologist I may never again experience such a visceral feeling as I did that day, but three destinations beckon to me and I hope to visit each one before I die.  They are: Iceland, a land created by sea-floor spreading, dominated by geysers and ice floes; the Afar Triangle, a place in southern Africa that is the site of a triple juncture, a spot where three plates intersect and truly one of the rarest geologic places; Jamaica, an island I believe is Atlantis reborn – perhaps the most exotic geologic location on earth.

I’ve never visited any of these places.  The closest I have come is Nassau in the Bahamas.  I was there years ago with my deceased wife Anne and friends Ray and Kathy.  We hailed a cab and had our cabbie, an islander name King, drive us around and show us the sights.  King was quite the character – loud, direct, friendly and informative.  He took us to a little café beneath a bridge where only the locals ate.

“Mon, you have to try the conch fritters,” he told us.

We tried them and they were wonderful.  I have no recipe for conch fritters for you tonight but I wish I did.  I guess my mind was somewhere else.  While the Bahamas isn’t Jamaica I was in the Caribbean and the bowels of the earth were calling to me.  And yes, it was nothing short of visceral!

Eric’s Website

My partner Ray and I recently hired Shu Chen to do our accounting.  This week she gave Marilyn and me a box of moon cakes and told me the story of the Moon Goddess, Chang O, a young woman banned to the moon after taking an immortality pill meant for her husband, the archer that had saved Earth by shooting out the extra suns.

Asians all over the world celebrate Moon Festival, sometimes called the Autumn Festival of the Moon, or the Moon Cake Festival.  The date of the festival traditionally falls on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month.  The moon is the brightest of the year during this day and Asians gather with their friends; they feast and drink, and often stay up all night enjoying the moon and reveling in old stories.

I checked out recipes for moon cake on the internet and found several variations, all too difficult for anyone without perseverance as well as great cooking skills.  The cake is round and has a filling and a yolk.  I know there is symbolism here – the earth, circles, core, egg, life, yolk – but I didn’t find it discussed anywhere on the net.

The festival is the second biggest Asian holiday of the year, just behind the Asian New Year.  I must have been Asian in another life because I’ve always had an affinity for this particular time of year.

Shu Chen is from Taiwan and has lived in the States for several years, settling for Vietnamese moon cakes (not her favorite) until this year.  This year she found a bakery on the internet that cooked moon cakes just the way she likes them and she bought plenty for herself and all her friends.

I ate one yesterday morning with my coffee and found it a little too sweet for my taste – I know, Shu Chen told me to eat it with tea or wine.  That’s all right.  I’ll have another one today (maybe with tea this time) and another beneath the light of the moon while I’m pecking out a story for Musings.  Happy Moon Cake Festival!

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Marilyn and I collect old New Orleans cook books and this week she found Creole Feast – 15 Master Chefs of New Orleans Reveal Their Secrets.  This extraordinary cookbook was published in 1978 and written by Nathaniel Burton and Rudolph Lombard.  It features a recipe of one of my favorite desserts, one I always order whenever visiting the Crescent City.

This recipe is by Austin Leslie, master chef and one-time owner of Chez Helene, a wonderful New Orleans restaurant no longer in business.  Leslie died in September, 2005 after being trapped in an attic for two days by Hurricane Katrina.  He was the first person to be honored by a jazz funeral after Katrina in what was then a largely deserted Big Easy.

Austin Leslie was the inspiration for the short-lived television show Frank’s Place.  He was also known as the Godfather of Fried Chicken and if you are like me, an aficionado of that particular dish, you really should read the book, if only for his personal description of the absolute best way to cut up a chicken and fry it

Chicken wasn’t the only thing Austin Leslie knew how to cook, he could also prepare absolutely wonderful deserts.  I’ve published other bread pudding recipes and every one is slightly different.  If you enjoy bread pudding as much as I, give this one a try because it is a good one.

Bread Pudding with Rum Sauce

1 loaf stale French bread                                   ¼ can evaporated milk

1 pound butter                                                  1 ¼ cups sugar

¼ pound raisins                                                1 small can crush pineapple

3 eggs, beaten                                                  3 tablespoons vanilla extract

¼ cup brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Wet the bread and squeeze the water out of it.  Melt the butter and mix with all other ingredients.  Pour mixture into a well-greased 4 x 10-inch baking pan.  Bake for 2 ½ hours.  The pudding will rise in the first hour.  After an hour, remove pan from oven and stir the mixture to tighten it.  Return to the oven for the second hour of cooking.

Rum Sauce

¼ stick butter, melted                                       1 cup sugar

1 cup flour                                                        ½ cup rum

Place all ingredients in double boiler and cook for 10 minutes.  Beat until fluffy.  Serves 10

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“Gas is starting to form a bit of a base at $7. The shorts are just getting less comfortable,'' Tom Orr, director of research at Weeden & Co. in Greenwich, Connecticut, said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=aPBVPezvFb6E&refer=energy

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Texas braces as September brings yet another killer hurricane.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26637482

Eric’s Website

"It's a strange, strange world here," Kloza said. "You might see an extraordinary thing — you may see crude oil less than $100 and retail gasoline more than $4 a gallon."

Gasoline prices spike as Ike heads toward Texas - Yahoo! News.

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An interesting yet disturbing story in today’s Daily Oklahoman.

US oilfield deaths rise sharply | NewsOK.com.

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Oil and natural gas prices decline, even in the face of continued Gulf of Mexico production interruptions.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=a35w1dMta.r8&refer=energy

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Iran, according to the EIA, is now a net importer of oil despite the fact that it is the World’s number four producer of crude oil.

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/twip/twip.asp

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Is the production of ethanol part of the answer to weaning the U.S. of its growing dependence on foreign oil? Apparently Congress thinks so because it’s newly revamped energy bill calls for the U.S. to nearly double its usage of ethanol to 7.5 billion gallons by 2012, and provides tax incentives for the creation of ethanol plants.

Will the extra 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol produced in 2012 reduce our dependence on foreign oil by 7.5 billion gallons? The answer is a resounding no.

Ethanol is a product produced from corn. To grow corn, or any other crop, energy must be consumed. Tractors and farm equipment used to till the fields run on gasoline or diesel. The machines used to harvest the crops run on gasoline or diesel. During the growing period, crops must be fertilized. Fertilizer created from natural gas and other hydrocarbon products are most often used. After the corn is harvested, it takes energy, usually supplied by natural gas or coal, to distill the corn into ethanol.

In 2001, David Pimentel, a professor at Cornell University, wrote in the Encyclopedia of Physical Sciences and Technology that when you add up all the energy costs, making a gallon of ethanol takes 70 percent more energy than the finished product contains. His conclusion is that the production of gasohol is actually hastening the depletion of nonrenewable resources.

Pimentel’s conclusion is hotly debated. In a recent USDA report, researchers estimate the production of ethanol results in a 34% net gain above the amount of fossil fuel required to produce it. What does this really mean?

If we use the most optimistic report generated by the Department of Agriculture, the 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol produced in 2012 will only decrease our need for foreign oil by 2.55 billion gallons of gasoline. A refined barrel of oil produces 0.52 barrels of gasoline, or about 22 gallons.

Using the best case scenario, ethanol will only reduce our dependence on foreign oil in 2012 by about 116 million barrels of oil. Even at today’s daily rate of consumption of around 25 million barrels of oil per day, a figure almost certain to increase, ethanol would only substitute for five days of imported oil.

The second argument for the use of ethanol is that it burns cleaner than gasoline and will result in less greenhouse gases. Ethanol does raise the octane of gasoline and does result in a cleaner burning mixture. When you factor in the fact that fossil fuels must be employed to create ethanol, however, the resulting gain is negligible and this argument is largely moot.

Lastly, the use of a food staple to create ethanol has resulted in higher food prices around the world.  This unexpected result has caused even greater havoc in third world countries where it has greatly affected the very poor.

What is the conclusion and what do all these facts mean? Unfortunately, the outlook for the increasing use of ethanol is not positive. Even employing the report of a source highly biased toward using ethanol, the corn-generated fuel will never even make a dent in our dependence on foreign oil, and its resultant use in diminishing greenhouse gases is all but negligible, and the result to our food supply harmful for the world.

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There is much confusion about the concept of peak oil.  The term peak oil was derived from the Hubbert peak theory.  M. King Hubbert, an American geophysicist, proposed the theory in a paper presented at a meeting of the American Petroleum Institute in 1956.  He factored in the world’s proven reserves and his best guess at future discoveries.  Using this information he determined that U.S. oil would peak between 1965 and world oil in 2000.

The definition of peak oil is the point in time when an oil reservoir can no longer produce as much as it did the prior day.  Every petroleum geologist and engineer is intimately familiar with the principle of decline.  An oil horizon never makes as much the second month as it did the first.  To understand this principle, imagine an above-ground swimming pool filled with water.

The swimming pool holds a finite amount of water, say 1,000 gallons. The walls of the pool trap the water and keep it contained.  At least until you open the drain.   When the pool’s drain is opened, water flows out on the ground until the pool is empty.  Oil reservoirs are also finite pools – in this case oil instead of water – trapped because of various structural and stratigraphic reasons.  When these zones are perforated and treated – the same as opening the drain in a pool – the oil flows or is pumped to the surface until, like the pool with an opened drain, the reservoir is empty.  This is called depletion.

There are no great open caverns filled with oil in the subsurface.  Oil, gas and water are trapped in tiny pore spaces, sometimes smaller than a pinhead, or fractures found in the rock.  As anyone that has studied a road cut knows, rock formations are anything but homogeneous.  They change from foot to foot.  Because of the tiny pores and non-homogeneity of the rock in which oil is trapped, it is extremely difficult to predict how much is present.  Moreover, it is even harder when you consider that as much as 1/3 of all the oil in place is unrecoverable because of such things as surface tension, gravity, etc.

Petroleum geologists and engineers have found another way to predict how much recoverable oil an oil horizon contains.  They plot decline curves.  A oil well starts to decline almost immediately after it begins production.  It isn’t a straight line decline but rather a hyperbolic curve.  This means that the greatest decline occurs during the first few months or, in the case of more long-lived reservoirs, a few years.  After that the curve flattens and may continue with little perceptible decline for many years.  Still, with enough well information, it is possible to accurately predict how much an individual oil horizon will ultimately produce.

One thing is certain, all oil horizons eventually deplete — even those in Saudi Arabia.  Sometimes the depletion is hard to calculate because you are looking at a very large producing horizon with an extremely small drain hole.  When I was in the Army in the jungles of Vietnam we got our water from large rubber containers that could be carried by a helicopter and survive a drop to the earth below.

These containers held 500 gallons or so of water.  If you opened up their spigot they might take an hour to drain.  If you drained the same container with a hole the size of a pin it might take a month to drain.  The same is true of an oil reservoir.  One well would never drain most reservoirs.  A thousand wells could do the job and do it much faster.  Well, you get the picture.

The reservoir beneath Saudi Arabia is massive but it is also finite.  How much remains?  Good question.  Only the Saudis know for sure and they aren’t telling.  One tell-tale indicator of depletion is an increase in the amount of salt water a well produces every day.   Oil declines as a well is produced and the former oil production is often replaced with salt water.

Say a horizon begins producing 100 barrels of fluid per day at a ratio of 98% oil and 2% salt water.  After a year the ratio has changed.  Now the horizon is producing less oil and more salt water.  The zone, possibly, is now producing 75 barrels of oil and 25 barrels of salt water.  This decline in oil and increase in salt water will continue until an oil horizon is producing little more than salt water.  In Saudi Arabia the oil wells are now producing significant amounts of salt water.

Peak oil theory is based on mathematics and is very real.  If you don’t believe it, consider this: oil production peaked in Oklahoma in the 1920s – this is a fact and not speculation – and oil production peaked in the U.S. in 1971 – again a fact and not speculation.

World oil production has either peaked or is close to it.  One thing is certain – world demand for oil is far from peaking.  From this point on, oil will become increasingly harder and more expensive to find.  Supply will decrease and demand will increase.  At least until another viable form of energy is found.  That’s a fact and not speculation.

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70% of Gulf production remains shut-in as Ike moves over Cuba in a pathway toward the Gulf of Mexico.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=apDfK5LBtWAQ&refer=energy

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How will the markets react tomorrow?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080907/ap_on_re_us/ike_gulf

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 I was in Logan County today, looking at some wells when I came upon this scene.  The old truck sits as it was abandoned, left to the elements.

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Marilyn and I are both avid collectors of old books, especially cookbooks.  Miss M recently found an old cookbook on eBay titled New Orleans Creole Recipes by author Mary Moore Bremer.  The book was first published in 1932 by Dorothea Thompson of Waveland, Mississippi.  I could find nothing on the internet about the author but the book is a culinary treasure.  If you can find a copy, buy it!  Here is just one of its wonderful recipes.  Here is an original recipe straight from the book.

Pommes de Terres Soufflé

This famous dish is difficult for any but a professional chef.  All authorities agree that the kind of potatoes used is of great importance.  I would suggest the use of a starchy potato.

Peel, cut square, and trim off corners. The pieces should be absolutely even, not thicker than a silver dollar, and cut lengthwise of the potato.

They are hard to cut.  Do not soak.  Wipe each slice dry.  Have two pots of lard.  Pot number one must be warm.  Put in ten or twelve slices at a time.  Let them cook slowly until soft and nearly done, then take out and cool.

Heat second pot of grease quite hot, but not smoking.  Have the frying pan hot so as not to chill the grease.

Put into it not more than six slices at a time for the same reason.  Turn on a fierce heat and fry until they puff and become slightly amber in color.  Keep slices turning constantly.

If they do not puff in a moment, they will never do so.

The exact temperature of fat depends upon the quantity of fat and the texture of the potatoes; so accurate directions are impossible.

I would not advise one unskilled to try this for the first time when strangers are invited to dine; but anyone that likes to experiment might get great pleasure in mastering this dish.  It is quite a feat, and puts one in a class with professionals.  Besides, it is ever so nice.

The puffs may be served on a napkin and hurried to the table, having been salted first.  One may get them in New Orleans, served most beautifully, sometimes in a hot basket made of pastry, tinted in various colors.

When you eat them, be sure to appreciate the one behind the scenes who prepared them, and say with the colored folk, “Ain’t dat sumpin?”

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Here is a current activity report for energy exploration in the Gulf of Mexico.

http://www.mms.gov/ooc/press/2008/press0905.htm

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 Here is a pic taken yesterday in Cleveland County, Oklahoma.

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A year ago, Tropical Storm Erin tracked across Texas, and then finally into Oklahoma.  I wrote about the storm in a piece titled Hurricane Oklahoma.  Here is the report I filed:

“I somehow managed to sleep through a storm Sunday night that can only be described as Hurricane Oklahoma.  Radar images from the Oklahoma Mesonet revealed a picture of a storm unlike any other that has ever occurred, not just in the United States but anyplace in the world.  Re-enervated Tropical Storm Erin was to blame.  Winds reached near-hurricane proportions and the storm dropped twelve inches of rain, flooding and causing major destruction from Piedmont to Kingfisher.

The yearly rainfall in Oklahoma is already more than twenty inches over average.  Erin preceded Hurricane Dean, the first major storm of the year in the Gulf of Mexico.  Dean, a category five hurricane, is on a direct course to ravish the Yucatan Peninsula within the next few hours.  Following less than two years after the massive destruction of Rita and Katrina, Dean is a but a harbinger of the tremendous climate changes being seen around the world, and during the world-class storm felt Sunday right here in Oklahoma.”

My house flooded and amazingly, I even received help from FEMA (I’m not making this up!) to repair the damage.  Tonight, the remnant of Hurricane Gustav is bearing down on Edmond after pummeling Louisiana for the past two days.  The rain has already begun in warm, fat drops.  Yet another storm that began weeks ago on the west coast of Africa is preparing to drop bucket loads of rain on Oklahoma; and with all the forethought of the school dunce, even after last years disaster I still didn’t bother getting flood insurance.

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As the figures show, it takes a while to get back to normal even if there is little or no damage.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=auOb9wX8JP7I&refer=energy

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Hugo Chavez requests U.S. assistance.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=azcaS6Il50M8&refer=energy

Eric’s Website

Hugo Chavez requests U.S. assistance.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=azcaS6Il50M8&refer=energy

Eric’s Website

My friend Mickey and I attended the North American Prospect Expo at the George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston.  We had an exhibition booth, number 2828 that we got when we arrived.  It was the last booth rented and with little space left to situate and extra one, the NAPE people placed it in the lounge area.  That’s okay because attendees were asking us how we managed to obtain such a great location.

“We had to pay double for it,” Mickey and I would quip.

It was a great booth, right next to the cocktail party held for the attendees after five every day.

Mickey and I know a drilling and completion engineer that we called the first night to go to dinner with us.  Hurricane Gustav is in the Caribbean and Scott, a Texas Aggie, was told to stay in Houston as his drilling platform was busy buttoning everything down in anticipation of the impending storm and evacuating everyone back to shore.  We ate at the Houston Club.  I had steak and enchiladas and I have to say that they were the best enchiladas I have ever eaten.  The steak wasn’t bad either.  I’m trying to get the recipe.  Any help out there?

I have two aunts, Marquerite and Dot that live in Houston and Katy.  I regretted not having the time to visit either of them but there is nothing as hectic as a NAPE prospect fair – literally 2828 companies exhibiting prospects from Iceland to Iowa, and everything in between.

The newest buzz phase this year is shale gas and I overheard and attendee saying, “I figured out right away that if you don’t have a shale deal then you don’t have sh--!”  It reminded me of Bubba in the movie Forrest Gump.  There were Barnett, Haynesville, Bossier, Woodford, Bakken and Marcellus Shale deals available.  One of any flavor you might choose.

I met many new and interesting people, including several writers, and renewed some old acquaintances.  Mickey and I remained sober, for the most part, and had a great but extremely tiring time.  I’m glad to have survived.

Eric’s Website

Louisiana Governor Jindal says Louisiana refineries have only three days of supplies left.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=a4qhYoISW0Dw&refer=energy

Eric’s Website

With New Orleans again in the bull’s eye of an approaching hurricane, it is important to remember what a national treasure the city is.  Although founded by the French, many other nationalities have combined to shape the Big Easy’s diverse culture.  I’m not going out on a limb when I say that no other geographical setting has influenced the cuisine of the Nation, and the world as has New Orleans.

Cuisine isn’t the only remarkable aspect of New Orleans.  No other location in our nation has experienced such a diverse combination of cultures as has the Crescent City and this has resulted in an extraordinary mixture of language, art, music, literature, and architecture.

Truly the jewel of the Gulf Coast, New Orleans is in a broad region that is critically important to the rest of the nation because of proximity to this country’s largest single source of oil and gas, along with its tourism, shipping and it refining.

Almost three years ago to the day Hurricane Katrina critically injured New Orleans.  Many parts of the City remain much as they were days after that horrible storm.  It is sad that few of the problems exposed by Katrina and Rita – primarily a sadly deficient levee system – remain uncorrected in the face of yet another killer hurricane.

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