Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: And the pumps kept on.

This past weekend, the week after I posted this

Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: And the pumps kept on.: And following on this: Lex Anteinternet: And the pumps kept on. : Saudi production has reached 10,000,000 bbl per day, near (or perha...

the Tribune made the topic of a possible oil collapse its Sunday feature.  I was out of town, so I didn't read it in depth, although I tried to on my app for that.  The Tribune did a nice job, in one article, of listing all the prior collapses, which is something I've written about here in the past (again, you heard it here first) but which the Tribune, having full time staff et all, did a nice job on. They listed the prior ups and downs as follows: 

The Star-Tribune compiled a brief timeline of oil in Wyoming from the first sale to its current situation.

• 1863: “The first recorded oil sale in Wyoming, however, happened along the Oregon Trail when, in 1863, enterprising entrepreneurs sold oil as a lubricant to wagon train travelers. The oil came from Oil Mountain Springs, some 20 miles west of present-day Casper. ” -- Phil Roberts on wyohistory.org.
• 1883: Mike Murphy drills the first oil well in Wyoming south of Lander at Dallas Dome.
• Fall 1888: Casper’s first well is drilled 3 miles northwest of town.
• 1895: Pennsylvania Oil Company builds the first refinery in Casper.
• April 5, 1889: “The town was swarming with oil men. Something will evidently be doing soon.” – The Casper Tribune
• 1910: Franco-Wyoming Oil Co. is created. Construction on a refinery begins a year later.
• 1911: The Midwest Oil Co. begins construction of another refinery in Casper.
• 1914: Standard Oil moves into Casper, buying land to build a refinery.
• 1916 to 1917: "During the latter part of 1916 and for nine months in 1917 Casper experienced a wonderful oil boom,” according to a 1990 Gillette News Record article citing a historian.
• 1916: The Big Muddy Oil Field is discovered near Glenrock on a land grant section randomly chosen by a government surveyor for the University of Wyoming. Royalties from the oil field in the 1920s are used to build Half Acre, the current gymnasium, and the library, now the Aven Nelson Building. The building comes amid a statewide depression. 
• June 17, 1921: A fire erupts at the Midwest Refinery Tank Farm in Casper, in what is widely considered one of the major disasters of the time.
• 1923: “The Producers and Refiners Company (PARCO) built a refinery and a complete town for its employees on the Union Pacific line in Carbon County. When the firm went into bankruptcy in the early 1930s, oilman Harry Sinclair bought the town on April 12, 1934, and renamed it ‘Sinclair’.” -- Phil Roberts on wyohistory.org.
• 1925: “It was 1925, the peak of the Salt Creek oil boom in Casper. ‘Smoke of prosperity hangs over Casper Refineries,’ said the headline in the 1926 annual ‘industrial edition’ of the Casper Tribune-Herald.” More than 23,200 people lived in Casper and Natrona County, beating Cheyenne and Laramie County by about 5,000 people. Some people predicted Natrona County’s population would reach 40,000 within a year. – “Boom overshadowed gloom in ‘25” by Irving Garbutt.
• Late 1920s: Crude oil prices peak in 1920 at $3 for a 42-gallon barrel before sinking to as low as 19 cents in 1931.
• 1940s: World War II boosts Wyoming oil production.
• 1946: Major oil companies move regional headquarters to Casper, which is, once again, coined “Oil Capital of the Rocky Mountains.”
• 1947: “Casper listed 55 oil field service, supply, and trucking companies. In 1953, this list showed 196 such firms. Stanolind Oil Company, with division and district headquarters in Casper, had 70 employees in 1947. In 1953, the company employed 316 people. Ohio Oil Company had increased from 104 employees to 167. The total number of companies and individuals listed as engaged in oil production and exploration increased from 27 in 1947 to 81 in 1953.” – “Casper, Wyoming, Oil Center of the Rockies” September 1954 edition of Out West Magazine.
• 1950s: Most small towns in Wyoming have their own refineries, including ones in Cody, Thermopolis, Torrington and Lusk.
• Late 1960s: Oil production continues to be strong, but Wyoming’s overall economy is in a period of “malaise,” said Phil Roberts. “By the end of the ‘60s, we were flat broke.”

“In 1968, Gov. Stan Hathaway discovered that Wyoming had the grand sum of $80 in the general fund. 'That scared the hell out of me,' said Hathaway. 'I had to do something.'” -- Sam Western, “Pushed Off the Mountain, Sold Down the River: Wyoming’s Search for Its Soul.”

• 1969: Wyoming creates a severance tax to build state coffers.
• 1973: Arab oil embargo. Prices skyrocket to $40 a barrel. Gas prices nearly double.
• 1982: World price of energy crashes.
• Early 1980s: Headquarters of major companies, including Chevron and Exxon, move from Casper to Denver and then many to Houston or Tulsa, Oklahoma. Most small refineries, operating off of even slimmer margins, close.
• 1991: Amoco Refinery closes in Casper. “Had they stayed, they would have had to weather, how many years before it turned around? As a business decision, it was something they had to do looking down the road. But on the other hand, with the changing energy economy by the end of the 20th century, it would have been pretty profitable for them to stay in business.” – Phil Roberts
• Early 2000s: Enhanced oil recovery breathes new life into the Salt Creek Field. Horizontal drilling unlocks previously hard-to-tap shale reserves.
• Late 2014: Slow international growth and a rising tide of production from OPEC creates a slump in oil prices from $107 a barrel to below $50 a barrel in 2015.

* Historical information from Phil Roberts, a Wyoming historian and professor at the University of Wyoming, or the Western History Center at Casper College.

Casper Star Tribune and Phil Robertson.  Again, really nice job!

Points go to the Tribune for running such an article, but I can't help but note how much this feels like 1983 all over again.  I still have friends and colleagues outside of the oil industry who are trying to convince themselves it won't be that bad.  At the same time, as I have a lot of oil industry contacts, I can see what's occurring.  Lots of men I knew who were employed in the oil industry now are not. A good friend of mine in the financial world tells me that Texas expects 100,000 lost jobs in this sector this year.  Texas has a population of 24,000,000 of course, basically rivaling the population of Canada, so that may not be devastating to its economy, but a decline in this sector here, where this is the single largest industry, is going to have a major impact.  It simply will.

Not that there aren't opposing indicators people can point to, and do.  Things are still being built, businesses are still going in.

Just like last time.