The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters by Gregory Zuckerman Page A
Authors: Gregory Zuckerman
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George Mitchell was drilling in other Barnett Shale sediment near Fort Worth.
Dvorin sent his gas tests to researchers at Mitchell Energy’s headquarters, hoping they’d take a look and maybe confirm that they in fact were drilling in shale. He reached one of Mitchell’s petroleum engineers on the phone and casually asked how their Barnett Shale test was doing, acting as if Mitchell’s interest in the Barnett was common knowledge in the business.
“The jury’s still out,” the engineer told Dvorin, inadvertently confirming that Mitchell had interest in the Barnett Shale layer.
The conversation buoyed Dvorin. He spent the next eight years testing various spots in the Barnett area, learning about the region. He didn’t have enough cash to drill by himself in a proper way, so he tried to persuade other operators to partner with him.
Dvorin couldn’t entice any companies, however, and an energy crash left him fighting to save his business, distracting him from the Barnett. He sold off all his production and his savings dwindled.
“For years, just years, it was, ‘Do I buy clothes for the kids, or a new shirt for me?’ Those kinds of decisions,” Dvorin told the
Dallas Observer
. “Every day I gave my wife, Patty, a reason to run off.”
Dvorin survived the downturn, as did his marriage, and he was back exploring the Barnett by the early 1990s. He focused on drilling spots near that original Mobil gas well in Dallas County, figuring that if he could make a well a success, transporting the gas would be easier if the well already was near a transmission line connected to a city.
One day, he got a call from an industry executive suggesting he hire an engineer who had opened his own practice. “There’s someone in my office who you should meet,” the industry member said. “He’s a kook like you about the Barnett.”
It was Jim Henry, the researcher whose study on the Barnett originally helped get George Mitchell excited about the region. He had left Mitchell Energy and now was on his own. Henry and Dvorin began working together, searching for productive wells in the area.
Dvorin desperately needed to raise new cash to make it work, however. In the fall of 1994, he pulled out a Dallas County Yellow Pages, went down the list of every outfit connected to the oil and gas industry, and sent them a letter, one that sounded as outlandish and unlikely as any get-rich-quick scheme.
“History is about to be made and you can be part of it!” Dvorin wrote.
The letter invited the lucky recipients to participate in the first commercially viable natural gas wells in Dallas County. Anyone with a shred of understanding of the energy business immediately threw the letter in the closest receptacle. Who drills under Dallas? If there was a real opportunity there, it sure as heck wouldn’t be found in the morning mail, they all knew.
A few people wrote him back, just to tell Dvorin he was out of his mind. Michael Hart, a Dallas-based petroleum engineer with more than forty years of experience, told Dvorin, “Dallas is not worth a flip,” he recalls.
“That was one of the mild ones,” Dvorin says. “I got a lot of hate mail.”
Dvorin was an oil and gas promoter, an archetype of the energy field. He truly believed he was offering a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and couldn’t understand why others didn’t see it the same way. But his unbridled zeal turned off some would-be investors.
They had good reason to be wary. The energy industry has long attracted charismatic salesmen spinning compelling stories. It takes charm to persuade investors to open their wallets to finance activity below the earth’s surface and far out of sight. Dvorin’s North Texas location was a notorious place where oil and gas promoters had spent years fleecing gullible investors. The region already had gained an unattractive nickname: “promoter’s paradise.” They flocked to the region because it wasn’t hard for a wildcatter to bus a
Dvorin sent his gas tests to researchers at Mitchell Energy’s headquarters, hoping they’d take a look and maybe confirm that they in fact were drilling in shale. He reached one of Mitchell’s petroleum engineers on the phone and casually asked how their Barnett Shale test was doing, acting as if Mitchell’s interest in the Barnett was common knowledge in the business.
“The jury’s still out,” the engineer told Dvorin, inadvertently confirming that Mitchell had interest in the Barnett Shale layer.
The conversation buoyed Dvorin. He spent the next eight years testing various spots in the Barnett area, learning about the region. He didn’t have enough cash to drill by himself in a proper way, so he tried to persuade other operators to partner with him.
Dvorin couldn’t entice any companies, however, and an energy crash left him fighting to save his business, distracting him from the Barnett. He sold off all his production and his savings dwindled.
“For years, just years, it was, ‘Do I buy clothes for the kids, or a new shirt for me?’ Those kinds of decisions,” Dvorin told the
Dallas Observer
. “Every day I gave my wife, Patty, a reason to run off.”
Dvorin survived the downturn, as did his marriage, and he was back exploring the Barnett by the early 1990s. He focused on drilling spots near that original Mobil gas well in Dallas County, figuring that if he could make a well a success, transporting the gas would be easier if the well already was near a transmission line connected to a city.
One day, he got a call from an industry executive suggesting he hire an engineer who had opened his own practice. “There’s someone in my office who you should meet,” the industry member said. “He’s a kook like you about the Barnett.”
It was Jim Henry, the researcher whose study on the Barnett originally helped get George Mitchell excited about the region. He had left Mitchell Energy and now was on his own. Henry and Dvorin began working together, searching for productive wells in the area.
Dvorin desperately needed to raise new cash to make it work, however. In the fall of 1994, he pulled out a Dallas County Yellow Pages, went down the list of every outfit connected to the oil and gas industry, and sent them a letter, one that sounded as outlandish and unlikely as any get-rich-quick scheme.
“History is about to be made and you can be part of it!” Dvorin wrote.
The letter invited the lucky recipients to participate in the first commercially viable natural gas wells in Dallas County. Anyone with a shred of understanding of the energy business immediately threw the letter in the closest receptacle. Who drills under Dallas? If there was a real opportunity there, it sure as heck wouldn’t be found in the morning mail, they all knew.
A few people wrote him back, just to tell Dvorin he was out of his mind. Michael Hart, a Dallas-based petroleum engineer with more than forty years of experience, told Dvorin, “Dallas is not worth a flip,” he recalls.
“That was one of the mild ones,” Dvorin says. “I got a lot of hate mail.”
Dvorin was an oil and gas promoter, an archetype of the energy field. He truly believed he was offering a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and couldn’t understand why others didn’t see it the same way. But his unbridled zeal turned off some would-be investors.
They had good reason to be wary. The energy industry has long attracted charismatic salesmen spinning compelling stories. It takes charm to persuade investors to open their wallets to finance activity below the earth’s surface and far out of sight. Dvorin’s North Texas location was a notorious place where oil and gas promoters had spent years fleecing gullible investors. The region already had gained an unattractive nickname: “promoter’s paradise.” They flocked to the region because it wasn’t hard for a wildcatter to bus a
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