The Frackers Quotes

“He couldn’t understand why union rules prevented him from helping others at the refinery, or allowed employees to sleep on the job and then complain at union meetings.”
― Gregory Zuckerman, The Frackers: The Inside Story of the New Wildcatters and Their Energy Revolution

“The really crazy thing was that it was Oryx leading the pack, not bigger companies like Exxon, Mobil, and Amoco. Those companies had been focused on finding huge pools of oil abroad, not on improving drilling methods and squeezing out more from fields in the United States. Those “major” oil companies had been convinced that “elephant” fields in the United States were extinct. Now some were trying to figure out how to get involved in the Austin Chalk region.”
― Gregory Zuckerman, The Frackers: The Inside Story of the New Wildcatters and Their Energy Revolution

“Oil prices fell from thirty-six dollars a barrel in 1981 to about fifteen dollars by 1986, based on benchmark West Texas Intermediate prices. In 2013 dollars, that’s a decimating fall from over ninety dollars to just over thirty.”
― Gregory Zuckerman, The Frackers: The Inside Story of the New Wildcatters and Their Energy Revolution

“Some of Mitchell’s troops resisted this method of stimulating the rock, which they didn’t think could work. Mitchell listened and acknowledged the doubts, but he pushed forward. “Let’s fracture it anyway,” he told them. Mitchell was determined to be the first to extract serious amounts of natural gas from shale and to do it before his existing fields ran out of gas, scoring a potentially historic windfall and shocking the industry in the process. He knew that if he was successful, the country itself might have a new way of discovering much needed energy resources.”
― Gregory Zuckerman, The Frackers: The Inside Story of the New Wildcatters and Their Energy Revolution

“George Mitchell wasn’t the nation’s first fracker. Mitchell was mighty early, though. “The majors didn’t bother with fracking, they didn’t want to fool with it,” he says. “I saw it as the new technology.”
― Gregory Zuckerman, The Frackers: The Inside Story of the New Wildcatters and Their Energy Revolution

“The 1980s were among the worst periods in the history of the domestic energy industry, amid a glut of oil and slowing demand. An estimated 90 percent of oil and gas companies went out of business and the bulk of the industry’s petroleum engineers left to try their luck in more promising businesses.”
― Gregory Zuckerman, The Frackers: The Inside Story of the New Wildcatters and Their Energy Revolution

“He was struck by an encounter with a group of bankers outside a Denny’s restaurant. Standing in the parking lot, he watched the bankers debate who had eaten a piece of pie with lunch, and who was responsible for a larger percentage of the meal’s bill. “Oil and gas guys would have just grabbed the check,” Hamm says. “They were generous to a fault and were willing to teach me.”
― Gregory Zuckerman, The Frackers: The Inside Story of the New Wildcatters and Their Energy Revolution

“Liquefied natural gas is simply natural gas subjected to the intense cold of minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit. The supercooling process converts the gas to a liquid form that’s one six-hundredth its original volume. As long as it remains at this temperature, liquefied natural gas can be shipped for use elsewhere. Producers transport it in a cryogenic container, which isn’t much more than a very, very large thermos. At its destination, the liquefied natural gas, or LNG, is “regasified,” or heated until it turns back into its natural gaseous state. Then it can be distributed through traditional natural gas pipelines for heating, electricity, and other purposes in homes and businesses. Souki”
― Gregory Zuckerman, The Frackers: The Inside Story of the New Wildcatters and Their Energy Revolution

“Because the energy industry was so unloved, Souki thought there might be opportunity, if only because it likely was starved for new capital. He knew a bit about the business from his trips to the Middle East and from a few early deals, but that was about it. At that point in his life, he knew more about fajitas than fracking. So”
― Gregory Zuckerman, The Frackers: The Inside Story of the New Wildcatters and Their Energy Revolution

“Until then, Hamm had resisted borrowing money or selling shares to raise cash, unlike McClendon and Ward at Chesapeake. Instead, he relied on cash coming from existing wells and from his side businesses, such as his drilling company. “I don’t like using other people’s money, it changes you,” he says, citing the need to be a salesman. “You believe your own bull, it distorts you.” But”
― Gregory Zuckerman, The Frackers: The Inside Story of the New Wildcatters and Their Energy Revolution

“In many ways, the wildcat profession is quintessentially American. It takes a heavy dose of self-assurance and comfort with risk to bet on what might or might not be far below the surface, well out of sight, as well as an unbridled optimism that Americans seem to have in abundance. At”
― Gregory Zuckerman, The Frackers: The Inside Story of the New Wildcatters and Their Energy Revolution

“Four decades later, Patillo Higgins, a one-armed mechanic, lumber merchant, and self-taught geologist with a violent and troubled past, became a Christian and took his Baptist Sunday school class for an outing near a hill in Beaumont, Texas. There, Higgins came across a half dozen springs bubbling with gas. He became convinced he had stumbled onto an oil field, even though experts scoffed.”
― Gregory Zuckerman, The Frackers: The Inside Story of the New Wildcatters and Their Energy Revolution

“Hamm’s friends theorized that he got into fights to send a message that he wasn’t going to be taken advantage of, perhaps because he worried about being taken lightly due to his lack of pedigree and poise. “He was looked down upon, people thought he wasn’t smart or savvy because he wasn’t polished,” says Devore, Hamm’s friend and attorney. “That’s why he established a reputation of ‘Don’t screw me.’ He intended to be a big deal and needed to show people they couldn’t take advantage of him.” Hamm”
― Gregory Zuckerman, The Frackers: The Inside Story of the New Wildcatters and Their Energy Revolution

“Hamm’s vision of better times for his company and his country was dismissed as unrealistic, if not half-baked. If someone was going to become a new oil titan, it surely wasn’t going to be Harold Hamm. Meeting Hamm sometimes reinforced the doubts. He had a humble upbringing, didn’t hold a college degree, and spoke in a slow country drawl. Earlier in his career, he had raised eyebrows by struggling with his speech.”
― Gregory Zuckerman, The Frackers: The Inside Story of the New Wildcatters and Their Energy Revolution

“Formula for success: Rise early, work hard, strike oil. —J. Paul Getty H”
― Gregory Zuckerman, The Frackers: The Inside Story of the New Wildcatters and Their Energy Revolution

“McClendon and Ward had an opportunity to make a fortune. They crafted a strategy to buy the best natural gas assets in the country as quickly as possible. They felt compelled to act quickly, before others caught on that prices were headed higher. They suspected they could use newfangled horizontal drilling techniques to help locate gas. Around”
― Gregory Zuckerman, The Frackers: The Inside Story of the New Wildcatters and Their Energy Revolution

“It helped McClendon and Ward that many veteran wildcatters still were licking their wounds from years of troubles, leaving them unable to spend much cash to compete with Chesapeake. The new company often acquired dominant positions in oil and gas fields and told those holding acreage in the area that they had to come up with their share of money to participate in Chesapeake’s drilling or sell their acreage to Chesapeake. It sparked grumbling among landowners who resented having to fork over scarce cash in an economic downturn to drill with young operators with little track record. McClendon”
― Gregory Zuckerman, The Frackers: The Inside Story of the New Wildcatters and Their Energy Revolution

“Some at Mitchell Energy urged their boss to stop wasting time and money. Shale just didn’t seem porous enough to produce much gas, they told Mitchell. He appeared to be jeopardizing his company’s future. Getting blood from a stone is pretty impossible; getting gas from shale seemed nearly as difficult.”
― Gregory Zuckerman, The Frackers: The Inside Story of the New Wildcatters and Their Energy Revolution

“In 1981, Mitchell Energy drilled its first well in the Barnett Shale in Wise County, the C.W. Slay No. 1.”
― Gregory Zuckerman, The Frackers: The Inside Story of the New Wildcatters and Their Energy Revolution