Energy
December 30, 2017
The New Yorker’s Lawrence Wright on Texas Oil
We recommend this gripping piece on the boom-and-bust cycle for your weekend longread.
Oil boom
Energy
March 4, 2015
Learning to Roughneck
Growing up in the Permian Basin, I thought I had a sense of what it was like working the oilfields. Turns out I didn’t know a damn thing.
Energy
January 9, 2015
This Time It’ll Be Different
Plummeting prices. Industry layoffs. Panicked mergers. Are we about to experience the eighties all over again?
Essay
October 13, 2014
On the Road Again
I thought being a landman in the Eagle Ford Shale would help replenish my bank account. I quickly got more than I bargained for.
Energy
December 3, 2013
How Long Will This Shale Boom Last?
We asked three experts in the oil field to come together to discuss that very question and to debate whether this latest boom will treat Texas, and the nation, any better than the last two.
Energy
October 21, 2013
The Energy Hunter
George Mitchell didn’t set out to launch one of the biggest oil and gas rushes in world history—he just wanted to coax some more gas out of an old well near Fort Worth.
Energy
October 21, 2013
“Y’all Smell That? That’s the Smell of Money.”
A son of the oil patch chases the new boom in South Texas.
Texas History
October 15, 2013
The Assassination at 50
In November 1973, Texas Monthly, which was still in its first year of existence, marked the tenth anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy with a profile of Lee Harvey Oswald’s mother, Marguerite; the cover, however, went to Tom Landry. Two years later, in November 1975, the
Politics & Policy
October 11, 2013
Road to Nowhere
Oil money’s nice, but actually funding our infrastructure needs is even better.
The Culture
March 11, 2013
The Bust of Times
Can Texas’s oil and natural gas boom keep going forever?
Energy
January 20, 2013
That’s Oil, Folks!
Forget the Outer Continental Shelf. There’s a good old-fashioned boom happening in Midland, thanks to a crafty drilling technique that unlocked the secret reserves of the Permian Basin and revived the late, great West Texas oilman.
Energy
January 20, 2013
Made in Midland
Skip Hollandsworth talks about rigs, the trickle-down effect, and the new generation of oilmen.
Energy
August 31, 2010
Baby Boom
On October 27, 1900, an Austrian-born mining engineer named Anthony F. Lucas spudded in an oil well on a hill near Beaumont. He’d drilled a previous well in the vicinity to a depth of 575 feet before running out of money and giving up, but this time he’d secured financing