Brother and Sister Oil - future author's tale of woe

Eric and Anne

The oil boom and ensuing oil bust of the 70s and 80s are long past and seem almost like a dream to me now. I can recount stories about the period for hours, some of them funny and some of them sad, and I still chuckle about one that happened to my then wife Anne and me.

Anne was an oil and gas accountant – a damn good oil and gas accountant. She and I formed a small oil company and began drilling wells. I love the oil business, but Anne was passionate about it. She poured her heart and soul into our company, and I guess so did I.

Caught up inextricably in the bust, we both fought to keep our floundering company. We began a quest for a “white knight,” or at least a responsive banker. Alas, we found neither, but we had a few adventures along the way.

I have often heard that people that live together for a long time begin to look alike. If this is true then Anne and I were identical twins. Why? Because we were together twenty-four hours every day, and we both had reddish-blonde hair.

As Oklahoma oil companies began crashing Anne and I traveled the country looking for a friendly banker. We thought we had found a home with a bank in Los Angeles. On a trip there, we pitched our company and our souls. The banker, a large man with long hippy hair, a longish beard, and John Lennon glasses, listened to our fervent plea with a jolly Santa Claus smile on his large face.

“I’m curious,” he said when we finished our presentation. “How did a brother and sister happen to start an oil company together?”

Neither Anne nor I had a satisfactory response and it didn’t truly matter as his inane remark gave us the answer to the question we had just spent an hour asking.

We never found our white knight or our friendly banker. Like so many companies during the 80s oil bust, we went belly-up. Yes, the bust is long past and seems almost like a dream to me now. Some of the stories were funny but many, so many, I keep buried deep in my mind until moments such as now when they come bubbling up painfully to a surface still foaming with crushed emotion.

All of Eric's books are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and on his iBook author pages, and his Website.

The Robbing of Penn Square Bank

While it is true that the eighties oil bust adversely affected every oil hub in the United States, Oklahoma City maintains a unique position in the episode because it was the location of the infamous Penn Square Bank debacle.

Penn Square Bank occupied a stand-alone building in the parking lot of the Penn Square Mall, still located in the northwest corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Northwest Expressway. The picture at the left was originally the Penn Square Bank Tower, symbolic of how much money the small bank generated in a short amount of time. During the go-go days of the last oil boom, officers of this bank began making oil and gas loans, then selling the paper to eager upstream banks like Continental Illinois. The problem was, many of these loans were secured by little more than a “lick and a promise.”

One story that has circulated for years now involves an oil company that borrowed millions of dollars to purchase drilling rigs. Auditors, attempting to account for the bank’s collateral after the company went bust, learned that Rig 13 (I don’t know if this is the actual number) was really a Lear Jet. Clients, supposedly with little or no oil experience, could get a million dollar loan with only a signature and the promise of drilling a few oil wells.

Many nouveau operators purchased jet planes, helicopters, luxury vehicles and lavish offices and lifestyles with the seed money they borrowed from Penn Square Bank and then parlayed into millions more with money raised from largely unsophisticated investors. It is safe to say that most of these investors had little more than a “lick or a promise” of ever seeing any return on their investment.

While drilling a well in western Oklahoma, one company encountered a large pocket of natural gas. The well blew out and the gas ignited in a huge burst of flame. Instead of worrying about the raging fire and its ensuing consequences, the company chartered a commercial jet and flew a planeload of investors and various company people to the blowout site. There they had tents erected, catered barbecue and beer, and a band to entertain everyone at an elaborate blowout party, ostensibly to raise even more money.

Elaborate parties were the norm during the last oil boom. Christmas parties hosted by operators and service companies boasted hundreds of guests, all enjoying free food, drink, and entertainment. I attended one oil company party where Mel Tillis and the Oakridge Boys were flown in by jet helicopter to entertain for an hour or so. One of the Penn Square loan officers was there, dressed in an Alpine costume complete with hat, shorts, and lederhosen. The party took place on a farm near Edmond, the cars and party-goers so thick that they blocked the adjacent county road for hours.

The eighties oil bust ended the careers of many would-be oil barons, including my own. Like so many others, my little oil company wound up on the busted scrap heap of broken dreams. Not much wiser but at least a little older, I became a fiction writer instead.

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All of Eric's books are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and on his iBook author pages, and his Website.