The New Wonders of Geology
In the early 1970s, Helmerich & Payne began to turn its attention once more toward exploration. During the drilling depression of the 1960s, independents like Helmerich & Payne had not kept up with new scientific developments in geology and geophysics. Most of the sophisticated geologists in the industry worked for the major oil companies and were being schooled by the majors' huge research facilities.
As the company began to regenerate its exploration efforts, it sought out highly trained and skilled geologists from the majors, such as Al Braumiller, who joined the company in 1969 from Humble. He was eventually to become Vice President of Exploration for Helmerich & Payne.
The company's search for new geological expertise soon paid off. It played a significant role in bringing in the Buffalo Wallow Field in Hemphill County, Texas, in 1970, the company's most significant find since 1954. "I got a phone call one night from an old-time land man," Braumiller recalls. "His brother-in-law had just left Amoco, and had told him they were getting ready to farm out two sections of land on the down side of a fault that ran along the east side of a major deep Hunton field — Buffalo Wallow, they called it.
"There were some gigantic gas wells on the other side of this fault, but everyone thought the east side was fool's land. If you looked at the stratigraphic and sedimentation situation, you could believe in a zone of entrapment above the Hunton that looked very promising."
Helmerich & Payne took the farm-out, two sections from Amoco and one from Union. Flowing from the Morrow formation at 14,000 feet, the first well had a potential output of 65 million cubic feet per day. "We started the second and third wells before the first was completed," Braumiller says. " These three wells have now produced almost 75 billion cubic feet of gas."
Other finds followed, and by 1977, income from the sale of natural gas was higher than from oil. As seismic equipment and methods continued to improve and the search for subtle geological traps became increasingly important, Helmerich & Payne's sophisticated seismology became an important tool in its exploration efforts.