That’s Oil, Folks!

Everyone said that the wildcatters of Midland had seen their last glory days, that the fields were dry, and that all the best new plays were offshore. But they didn’t count on an unorthodox drilling formula that would help unlock the hidden reserves of the Permian Basin—and give West Texas one more boom.

by Skip Hollandsworth

One autumn morning in 1998, a soft-spoken, ruddy-faced petroleum engineer named Dennis Phelps walked out of his office at the Atlantic Richfield Company in downtown Midland and drove a company car, a four-door Chevrolet, to M. T. Boultinghouse 11-7, an oil well that had just been drilled amid some cactus and a few scraggly mesquite trees twenty miles south of the city’s airport. He parked several yards from the wellhead and stepped inside a small RV that was outfitted with some tables and chairs, a computer, and a coffeepot. Taped to one wall was a long sheet of paper that looked like nothing but a series of squiggly lines: a seismic well log.

The RV was owned by BJ Services, a Midland firm that the Atlantic Richfield Company had hired to fracture, or “frac,” the well, a technique that involves pumping a sand-filled, gel-like fluid down the well’s pipe at high pressure. In a normal frac operation, the fluid shoots out through holes that have been bored into the pipe at certain depths, causing the adjoining rock to fracture, much as a car windshield splits into dozens of tiny cracks when struck by a hammer. The sand braces the fractures, most of them no wider than pencil lead, sort of the way timber props open a coal mine’s shafts. Then, hopefully, the oil that has been trapped in the rock flows through the fractures back to the well, seeps through the holes in the pipe, and is pumped to the earth’s surface.

In the Permian Basin, every oil well had to be fracked. It had been at least sixty years since a West Texas oilman had punched a hole into the 74,000-square-mile ancient seabed, heard a rumbling in the earth, and stood back to watch a geyser of black crude shoot into the air. In fact, by 1998, the Permian’s oil fields had been so heavily drilled that it was considered to be on its last legs. Sure, there was oil to be recovered, but it was a mere trickle compared with the glory days of the forties and fifties, when the region had the richest oil fields in the world, credited with fueling much of the Allied effort during World War II. Back then, a good Permian Basin well started out at six hundred or more barrels a day before leveling off within a couple years to one to two hundred. In the nineties, a typical well started off at forty to seventy barrels a day, then settled down to just five to fifteen.

And almost all of these Permian wells were being drilled in what is known as the Spraberry Trend, a 1.7-million-acre layer of silt and sandstone about a mile and a half underground. It was considered to be about the only place left where oilmen could count on hitting oil. Spraberry oil wasn’t difficult to find: Geologists knew the rock formations by heart, and petroleum engineers knew exactly how to frac those wells and keep them going for fifty years or more. But as one oilman put it, drilling a Spraberry well was “like watching paint dry. You know where to drill, you drill, you eventually get your ten or so barrels of oil a day, and then you drill another one.”

In 1995 the Atlantic Richfield Company, or ARCO, which was headquartered in Los Angeles, had decided to drill about three hundred Spraberry wells. According to the gossip at Midland’s Petroleum Club, ARCO was preparing to put itself up for sale, and the more oil reserves it could show on its books, the higher its value as a company would be. That’s where Dennis Phelps came in. His bosses had let him know in no uncertain terms that his job was to make sure those new wells hit oil. Phelps got the message. If he started drilling dry holes, chances were that he’d be in the next wave of ARCO layoffs.

An ARCO employee since 1970, the 52-year-old Phelps was then just one more petroleum engineer working the Permian Basin. He dressed in inexpensive button-down shirts, khakis, and loafers, and he spent most of his time in a small, spare office studying such subjects as “relative perm value,” “in situ proppant,” and “residual fracture aperture.” In his notebook, he scribbled down ideas about polymer concentrations in frac fluids. The blackboard in his office had phrases on it like “surface tilt fracture mapping.” As opposed to the swashbuckling Jett Rink-like wildcatters who had made Texas famous, Phelps had the charisma of an accountant.

All petroleum engineers, however, have a bit of a romantic streak in them. They love to spend their idle moments trying to devise some new technique that will pull more oil out of the ground. Phelps was no different. For years he had been wondering if there was a better way to frac what was known as the Wolfcamp, a layer of rock—mostly packed limestone—that ran directly below the Spraberry. Every now and then, an ambitious oilman would drill a little ways into the Wolfcamp, maybe a few hundred feet, and bore holes into his pipe because his well logs suggested there was oil lurking nearby. If he was lucky, he’d get a hundred or so barrels. But because the Wolfcamp’s limestone had such little permeability, the fracs never worked: The frac fluid simply bounced off the rock. “As far as we were concerned, the Wolfcamp was nothing but damn sorry rock,” said legendary Midland oilman Clayton Williams, who started drilling in the Permian Basin in 1957. “If you were lucky, you’d get a teaser well, but without a good frac, the oil quickly would dry up.”

It just so happened that ARCO was using a rig for its new Spraberry project that drilled wells 10,000 feet deep, straight into the heart of the Wolfcamp. Phelps received permission from his bosses to try a few experiments. In one test, attempting to put cracks in the Wolfcamp, he sent the frac fluid at a much higher speed down a pipe that was five and a half inches in diameter instead of the usual four and a half. In another, he used a well pipe that had sixty holes bored into it, all a mere twenty feet apart from each other, near the bottom of the Wolfcamp. As soon as that frac was done, he blocked out those holes, bored sixty more in a higher zone of the Wolfcamp, and ordered another. Then he kept moving up the well, from one zone to the next, fracking the same way.

But thus far, Phelps had had only marginal success—certainly not the kind that covered the high costs of his experiments. Still, on this morning at M. T. Boultinghouse 11-7, he was ready to try again. He pulled out a sheet of paper with a formula he had first written on his office blackboard: “50 percent pad followed by 0.5#/gal20/40 sand slurry and a tail-in up to 2#/gal for the last 5% of the treatment volume.”

When BJ employees reporting to work at the trailer read his notes, they stared at Phelps. The formula was for what is known as a slick-water frac, in which water is given a special friction reducer that allows it to be pumped at a much higher pressure. Slick-water fracs were hardly new in the oil fields, but petroleum engineers had rarely, if ever, tried them in the Wolfcamp, their assumption being that the water would simply bounce off the limestone and come right back up, flooding out the well. Now Phelps was asking BJ to use far more water than what went into a standard slick-water frac, as well as only a minimal amount of gel and sand. “Dennis,” said one BJ guy, shaking his head, “aren’t you worried that ARCO is going to fire your ass?”

Phelps shrugged. “I want to see what happens.”

“It’s your money,” said the BJ supervisor as he and the others left the RV. They mixed up the frac fluid according to Phelps’s recipe and shot it down the hole. Three hours later, when they were finished, they packed up their equipment and drove away. It would take a week for the results to come in.

Heading down the highway back to his office, Phelps passed by a tableau of rusty tanks and worn-out pump jacks that were barely moving. In the oil field service yards just outside Midland, the drilling rigs were racked and stacked and the gang trucks were parked in rows, covered in dust. When he reached downtown, the streets were practically empty. In late 1998 the price of U.S. crude was at a measly $12 a barrel, which meant that almost all the independent oilmen of West Texas had cut their operations to the bone. Considering how little oil they were getting from their Permian Basin wells, there was no way they could drill with prices so low. ARCO was one of the few companies doing anything of significance, and frankly, Phelps wasn’t sure how long that was going to last. Back at his desk, he stared out the window and wondered what he would say to his wife if he got fired.

One week later, the ARCO pumper at M. T. Boultinghouse 11-7 called Phelps from the well shack. “Dennis, I don’t quite know how to explain this,” he said, “but the well is coming in at three hundred barrels.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Phelps said quietly.

The pumper repeated the number. He paused. He then said that most of the oil coming up was not the brownish color found in the Spraberry formation but a golden green color. “That’s Wolfcamp oil,” the pumper said. “I can’t explain that either.”

Phelps was not an emotional man. He did not do such things as shake his fists triumphantly in the air. He simply called his wife and said, “Honey, I don’t think I’m out of a job.”

Within two days, the well was down to one hundred barrels, but there it stayed for two more weeks. Then, over the next three months, it slowly declined to seventy barrels. Three months later, it was at sixty. In modern-day Permian Basin terms, the well was a gusher.

Phelps supervised the frac of another well near M. T. Boultinghouse 11-7, and it came in at more than 150 barrels a day. Two more wells drilled on the same lease brought in similar returns. Phelps had a meeting with his bosses. What exactly had happened? Had he come up with a formula that worked in the Wolfcamp? Or had those Boultinghouse wells been drilled, purely by chance, into a rare Wolfcamp sweet spot? Maybe the wells were, in oilman’s lingo, nothing more than “hallelujah wells,” the kind that an oilman hits by sheer luck just once in a lifetime.

Read the Full Article at http://www.texasmonthly.com/2010-09-01/feature4-2.php

How to Get Rid of Discrimination in the Office

Posted on 8th September 2010 by Michael Gabriel in Articles

An employer should be very concerned about discrimination. After all, this is not just a personal issue. In legal perspective, anyone who is caught discriminating individuals in whatever form can be held criminally liable. It is also not good for your business or even your own reputation as a person.

Getting rid of discrimination in the office is a tough job to take, especially in the employee-to-employee level. You can read the following tips to make this daunting task easier for you:

1. Provide clear-cut policies on discrimination.
Define “discrimination,” enumerate cases, and determine the best course of action should an employee discriminates someone. The retribution could be suspension, termination, or demotion. To make sure you don’t go overboard with the penalties, you can discuss your options with a lawyer or a labor expert.

2. Educate employees about the negative effects of discrimination.
Not all cases of discrimination are deliberate. It is possible both parties, the victim and the discriminator, are not fully aware of certain types of discrimination. You can lessen the possibilities of this incidence by coming up with seminars about the subject. You can also discuss to your employees the legal impediments of discriminating someone in the office.

3. Maintain an open-door policy.
Open-door policies can gap communication and hierarchal problems within an organization. As the boss, you should never prevent any person from approaching you whenever he or she has concerns. An open-door policy works very well if you have few employees. If you have plenty, however, consider having assemblies or allocate a certain time for you to hear out work-related grievances. This way, you can lessen the incidents of office discrimination.

4. Develop team-building activities.
Avoid awkwardness and allow individuals to get to know each other a lot better through team-building activities. These activities don’t have to be extravagant. In fact, they do not have to last the entire day. The most important thing here is your staff will end up more bonded with one another. More bonding time, less discrimination.

5. Resolve office conflicts immediately.
One of the leading causes of discrimination is the conflict among employees. Disagreements, arguments, and quarrels are pretty common especially if you have more than a hundred workers. When these things happen, resolve it at once. Don’t let the tension escalate. Be very attentive on any signs of conflict within your organization. You can reinforce the “open-door policy” mentioned above to encourage parties to speak out.

6. Investigate cases right away.
Those who feel discriminated will be in a worse situation if you don’t immediately act on their complaints. It does not matter if the grievances are small or serious. You need to investigate them before the employee gets disappointed and report you to the state.

When you probe, ensure that you can establish fairness and accuracy. Get as many facts as you can. Document every step you’ve made. Come up with a report, and do not forget to file the case. As the boss or the HR Manager, it’s your responsibility to do all these.

Leadership often involves negotiating very tough deals, or handling strong objections, or getting a reluctant team to agree to some difficult course of action. To accomplish such things, we employ all the verbal means at our disposal. We argue, we reason, we cajole, we promise, we wheedle, we make deals. A lot of verbal heavy lifting.

Yet most of us give little thought to our nonverbal actions while these verbal activities are going on. We may consciously raise our voice, or use anger to try to carry the day, or even stand up to physically dominate the room. But beyond that, we're clueless about nonverbal means of persuasion.

Here are three basic steps for winning the nonverbal argument when emotions are running high. All must be done so subtly they are not consciously noticed.

First, mirror your adversary. Mirroring builds agreement; you can often head off potential trouble by establishing a strong basis of nonverbal agreement before the real negotiating begins. But you mustn't be obvious. The idea is simple enough: When the other party adopts a certain seated or standing position, try to adopt a similar one yourself. You want to move slowly until you more or less match the other person's stance.

The idea is to take some time standing or sitting in roughly the same position as the other person. That will send an unconscious message to the person that you are on an equal level and generally in agreement with them. They will begin to trust you. But remember not to be obvious about it.

If they start arguing, heckling, or violently disagreeing with you, don't mirror; align. Often strong verbal argument comes from a desire to be heard and acknowledged. If you align yourself with the person--that is, sit or stand facing in the same direction--you'll be surprised how often all protest will cease. Alignment looks and feels different from mirroring. With alignment, you stand shoulder to shoulder with someone, looking in the same direction.

This action can be quite difficult to undertake; your natural instinct is to back away from anyone who is heckling you--or move in very close to pick a direct fight. But try alignment and watch the confrontation fizzle.

If tension still remains high, use the hands-down gesture to dampen it. When tempers flare and feelings run high, spread your hands out, palms down, at about waist height, and gently push them down a couple of inches. If you're sitting at a table, you'll have to bring your hands above the horizontal plane of the tabletop. Again, this must be done so subtly that it probably isn't consciously noticed. Repeat as necessary. This gesture sends a clear message that it's wise and safe to calm down now.

These gestures won't remove the need for hard verbal bargaining, of course, but they can begin to defuse tense situations more easily. Use the power of your nonverbal messages before you have to resort to verbal fisticuffs.

Nick Morgan is the president of Public Words, a communications consulting firm, and the author of "Trust Me: Four Steps to Authenticity and Charisma."

Texas jobless rate for July holds at 8.2 percent

AUSTIN, Texas

The Texas unemployment rate held steady at 8.2 percent in July as the state saw modest job growth, the Texas Workforce Commission said Friday.

The state picked up 4,600 jobs in July and has gained 168,900 jobs since January, according to commission figures.

"Private sector employers in Texas continued adding jobs in July, a trend we've seen since the first of the year," said commission Chairman Tom Pauken.

Pauken said the loss of 23,300 government jobs in July offset gains in the private sector. Professional and business services had the biggest increase at 12,600 jobs.

Mining and logging employment grew by 4,600 jobs in July and has added jobs for six consecutive months. The construction and manufacturing industries each added 4,300 jobs.

The Texas jobless rate remained more than a percentage point under the national figure of 9.5 percent.

Unemployment rates are adjusted for seasonal trends in hiring and firing, which most economists believe give a more accurate picture of the job market.

Without the seasonal adjustment, the state unemployment rate remained unchanged from June at 8.5 percent.

Midland had the lowest local jobless rate at 5.7 percent, while the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission was the highest at 12.3 percent. The local rates are not seasonally adjusted.

6 Questions You Should Never Ask at the Interview

5 Ways to Recharge Without Taking a Vacation

By Maria Hanson, LiveCareer

Want a vacation, but just can't take one? Despite mounting evidence that vacations are essential to happy, healthy workers, some bosses still balk at the prospect of letting employees leave for a solid week or two--especially in this economic climate. And only half of employees are willing to speak up and ask a boss for support in taking a vacation, according to Ron McMillan, a coauthor of the New York Times bestselling book "Crucial Conversations."

It's time for managers to get up-to-speed on the benefits of vacations, according to Jenni Luke, national executive director of Step Up Women's Network. "The best supervisors insist that tired eyes and minds spend time away in order to return refreshed and ready," she says.

If you really can't escape for a big getaway, all is not lost. Here are some alternatives to a traditional vacation that can give you the same benefits:

1. Mini-vacations. You don't need to travel abroad for weeks at a time to benefit from a vacation. A few days off here and there can recharge your batteries. Take a Friday and Monday off, for instance, and enjoy four solid days of time away.

"Mini-vacations are priceless and help make work less stressful overall," says Talia Witkowski, a consultant for Heal Your Hunger, a concierge treatment service that helps people achieve and maintain work-life balance.

2. Daily vacations. "Be sure to do the things you love that are healthy and enjoyable every day, and not solely wait until vacation time to relax," says psychologist Kenneth Herman, the author of "Secrets from the Sofa." Take that dance class you've been wanting to take, or learn to sail. Treating yourself to daily perks that make you happy can make life downright enjoyable between vacations.

Having a job you love can also help put you in a vacation state of mind year-round. Take a free career test to find your dream career.

3. Mental vacations. Therapist Mindy Fox advises that if you can't take a physical vacation, you should take a mind vacation. "Incorporate meditation, yoga, or any activity that puts the mind in the present," she says. An additional benefit is that when your vacation does finally come, you'll be able to disconnect any workaholic tendencies more easily and embrace your well-deserved time off.

4. Staycations. A staycation, where your vacation base is your home, is an economical and relaxing way to kick back during vacation time. More than half of Americans say they plan to stay close to home this summer, according to the newly released Chase Freedom-U.S. News Consumer Monitor Summer Survey. Avoid the stress that often comes with vacationing (think airport security lines and cramped seats), and save big bucks.

And you can do many of the things you'd do on a traditional vacation: sleep late, check out local fun events or tourist attractions, embark on a new hobby, and go to a fun restaurant or two. Keep household chores to a minimum; with the money they save by not traveling, some staycationers even hire a housekeeper once or twice during their time off.

5. Unplug. "We live in a world where people go on camping trips with their laptops and cell phones," says Barry Maher, the author of the career book "Filling the Glass." This is no way to recharge your batteries. No matter how engaged you are with your job, it's essential to check out occasionally. (Find a job you can connect with, with a career interest test.) Even if you can't really get away, you can still unplug from the world of work emails, texting, and other job leashes.

Stress is inevitable. But the debilitating strain of chronic work stress is not, even if you're in an inherently stressful profession.

In fact, learning to manage your stress is likely to improve your career, according to career coach Julie Jansen, the author of "You Want Me to Work With Who? Eleven Keys to a Stress-Free, Satisfying, and Successful Work Life--No Matter Who You Work With."

Consider these tips for recognizing and managing work stress:

Become mindful
"The most important thing an individual can do is have awareness of both what's causing the stress and how you're responding to it," says Dr. Steven Rolfe, principal of the Boswell Group, a business consultancy in New York City.

Focus on your stress response and pinpoint causes:

• What activities, duties, or people leave you feeling drained?
• What or who causes your neck pain, headaches, or racing heartbeat?
• What tasks or situations do you avoid?
• How do you talk to yourself about your stress? What stories do you tell?

Take control
While you probably can't control layoffs or reorganizations, there are things you can control--and you should focus on those, says Diane Lang, a health and wellness counselor in New York City.

"I had a client who couldn't leave her job at the moment because she was a single parent," she said. "So we made a list of everything she could control and worked on the list."

Such a list might include focusing on improving your own job performance and setting short- and long-term goals for changing jobs.

Breathe
"Don't hold your breath" is a cliche for a reason. When people are stressed, they literally forget to breathe, says Jeffrey Brantley, director of mindfulness-based stress reduction at Duke University's Center for Integrative Medicine and a coauthor of "Five Good Minutes at Work: 100 Mindfulness Practices to Help You Relieve Stress and Bring Your Best to Work."

Even taking a few minutes to breathe deeply can calm your body's stress-spurred flight-or-fight response.

First things first
"You cannot get control of your stress without getting control of yourself physically," says Karissa Thacker, a Delaware-based management psychologist.

So go back to basics:

• Sleep. Your body may need more rest to deal with the stress.
• Avoid excess. "Stress is a physiological phenomenon that is immediately increased by lots of sugar or alcohol, which stress the system," says Thacker.
• Move your body. You don't have to train for a marathon. Even taking the dog for a walk will help clear your mind.

Change your pattern
Try this: talk to someone at work you haven't visited in a while. Go out to lunch if you usually eat at your desk. Introduce yourself to someone new. Do something to interrupt the usual cycle of stress and anxiety.

"Humans are routinized creatures," Thacker says. "Upset the routine, and you will also unfreeze the thought and emotional patterns that are keeping you constantly worked up."

 When experts talk about fast-growing industries with lots of jobs, health care is often mentioned. In fact, approximately 28 percent of all new jobs will be created in this industry through 2018, according to the U.S. Department of Labor--this translates to 3.2 million new health care positions.

But where else are jobs growing within the U.S. economy? Many people switching careers or assessing their education and training options aren't interested in health care. Are there other rewarding, rapidly growing jobs that may be a better fit for them?

According to a recently released reference, "100 Fastest-Growing Careers" (11th edition), there are many. In the book, author Michael Farr identifies and discusses the 100 occupations with the highest growth projections through the year 2018, based on information from the U.S. Department of Labor.

"Rapidly growing jobs will often be more attractive career options than jobs that are not growing quickly. Often, these jobs offer better-than-average opportunities for employment and job security. For this reason, you should pay attention to jobs that are projected to grow quickly," says Farr.

Below are some of the fastest-growing occupations, outside of health care, featured in Farr's "100 Fastest-Growing Careers":

Computer Network, Systems, and Database Administrators
Percent Growth Through 2018: 30 percent

Accountants and Auditors
Percent Growth Through 2018: 22 percent

Human Resources, Training, and Labor Relations Managers and Specialists
Percent Growth Through 2018: 22 percent

Computer Software Engineers and Computer Programmers
Percent Growth Through 2018: 21 percent

Customer Service Representatives
Percent Growth Through 2018: 18 percent

Market and Survey Researchers
Percent Growth Through 2018: 28 percent

Construction Laborers
Percent Growth Through 2018: 20 percent

Heating, Air-Conditioning, and Refrigeration Mechanics and Installers
Percent Growth Trough 2018: 28 percent

Barbers, Cosmetologists, and Other Personal Appearance Workers
Percent Growth Through 2018: 20 percent

Teachers-Self Enrichment Education
Percent Growth Through 2018: 32 percent

Don't "wing" your phone interviews. Do prepare as if they were face-to-face interviews.
Prepare and practice at least three hours for every one-hour phone interview. Research the company, know their mission statement, and create a message about how you can help them succeed. Finally, put together a list of questions you want to ask about the opportunity.

When it comes to job interviewing, we were given two ears and one mouth for a reason. We should be listening twice as much as we are talking. The best interviews are the ones where the interviewer is doing most of the talking. Ask open-ended questions that will help you uncover the interviewer's vision of the ideal candidate, the challenges the company is currently facing, the needs for the position, and the critical factors necessary to succeed on the job. With that information, you can position yourself as the best candidate for the job.

Don't forget to confirm logistics. Do confirm time, time zone, and so on.
In many cases, you''ll be interviewing with someone far away. Many a phone interview was missed because the time zone was not confirmed. Are you sure that your 9:30 a.m. interview is at 9:30 a.m. your time? Make sure you confirm not only the time but also the time zone. Secondly, confirm who will initiate the call and what numbers will be used. Get the interviewer's land line and cell phone in case connections are missed.

Don't forget to ask for the order. Do determine your desired outcome and go for it.
Usually, the goal of a phone interview is to earn a face-to-face interview. During your phone interview, show the proper enthusiasm for the job. At the end of the interview, convey your interest and ask for the next step in the hiring process.

Don't set yourself up for failure. Do position yourself for success.
That means, ideally, taking the interview in a secluded and quiet home office. Try to use a land line if at all possible, because cell phone connections can be dropped. Remove any clutter from your home office so you can fully focus on the interview. Dress as if you were in a face-to-face interview. Smile and keep the proper posture. Even try taking the call standing up, as you will sound more authoritative and confident. Over 90 percent of all communication is non-verbal, even over the phone. Interviewers can sense your subconscious energy.

Finally, believe you are the best person for the job. If you don't believe it, nobody else will. Visualize the success. Have fun, be prepared, and expect success, and you'll have winning phone interviews.