I write this on the eve of another OTC. It hardly seems possible that it is that time of year again, and that I went to my first OTC in 1978. A lot has changed since then. OTC was healthy in 1978 and a near disaster several years later after the crash of 1982 drove attendance to the point that the 1985 event was cancelled. The early years were spent in the Astrodome, billed as the Eight Wonder of the World. The Astrodome now stands near derelict, its fate uncertain. It is a big event again, though nowhere near the 100,000 attendee mark that it once enjoyed. The exhibit has outgrown the new Reliant Center and has spread to another athletic facility, Reliant Stadium. You can find out a lot more about the history of OTC in the Oilfield History article beginning on page 37.

As a long-time attendee, I have fond and not-so-fond memories of OTC. The very nature of the beast has changed. For instance, when I say I went to OTC in the late ’70s I am telling a bit of a lie. What actually happened was this. A vendor’s plane would pick up a group of us in Lafayette, La., early in the morning and fly us to Houston. We sometimes flew over the Astrodome but generally got no closer to it. Upon landing, we were taken to the vendor’s hospitality suite — replete with running liquor and women — where we passed the day in wastrel pursuits. About mid afternoon we were poured back into the plane for a return trip to Lafayette. Thoughtfully, the vendors registered us so that, should someone ask, we could prove that we had “been” to OTC. This scenario could repeat itself for several days.

Fortunately, the bust of the ’80s killed most of that foolishness.

On another occasion, I was accompanying the Chairman of OTC on a tour with Federico Pena, then US Secretary of Energy in the Clinton Administration. Freddy, as we called him in college — he was a good friend of my roommate, a frequent visitor and a fair beer drinker — strolled the aisles asking questions of the Chairman, mostly what is this and what does it do. The Chairman did fairly well with the answers — “this, Mr. Secretary, is a FPSO, or BOP, or personnel basket, or . . .” — until we got to the hydraulic hammers. “And what, Mr. Chairman, is this” asked Freddy. The Chairman paused and replied “Mr. Secretary, what does it say it is?” “A hydraulic hammer,” replied Freddy peering into the display. Looking at Freddy knowingly the Chairman replied, “there you have it Mr. Secretary, it’s a hydraulic hammer of course.”

And so it has gone from OTC to OTC. See you there.

On another note, we finished a highly successful Hart’s Unconventional Gas conference a couple of weeks ago. It was in Ft. Worth, smack in the middle of the hot Barnett Shale play. We have a wonderful conference group here and they did a super job with the conference. But they are an inquisitive bunch and ask a lot of questions about the industry. So when we had them all gathered in the middle of a big basin development I decided to try and get them a rig tour to expand their knowledge of the industry. I am happy to say we pulled it off thanks to the good folks at Patman Drilling International of Rio Vista, Texas. We were able to tour their new Rig 6, drilling just outside Ft. Worth in Arlington in the Barnett. It was a fascinating tour conducted by Andy Cunningham. Thanks Andy.

The rig was drilling on a four well pad in an urban area. The rig and substructure are skidded with the derrick up. All the other equipment — pumps, tanks, gen sets — remains in place for all four wells. It is an interesting concept and I hope Andy can produce an article on it for us. All in all, I think the rig tour was the high point of the week for the conference staff, and they developed an appreciation for the size and complexity of oil and gas drilling. My thanks again to Patman Drilling International for allowing us on their rig, and to Shanna Longley for arranging the tour.