Anniversary Special:Offshore magazine — A look back

How did this magazine start? It's genesis began in 1953, when a man named John H. Latham left the landmen's staff of Texas Eastern Transmission Corp. after refusing a transfer out of Texas. In his spare time, Latham was a western novelist who compiled a list of writing credits. He began writing western novels in the 1940s and continued through the '70s. Some titles were Panhandle Purgatory (1943), Smoke Those Traitors Down (1947), and The Gun-Pack Runs Tonight (1948). Altogether he published dozens of these, fact and fiction. He also wrote under the name of Long John Latham, so called for his size of six feet four. My favorite title was Johnny Behind the Gun (1970) under a pen name of Tom Brand.

After he left Texas Eastern, he began to consider the idea of an offshore oil and gas magazine.

"I counted 45 separate publications dealing with some phase of the oil and gas industry in 1953, but not a single one was overly interested in what was going on offshore," Latham recalled years later. "The thing was simply explosive. Everybody felt that offshore drilling was a coming thing. It was just a matter of time."

He and his wife Jean put the first magazine together on their kitchen table, with plenty of ideas and a bankroll of $2,900. Latham was a one-man show, doing interviews, writing articles, and selling advertising for the first issue. The first printing of 300 copies came out in April 1954, but due to a typo, carried a date of 2054. The original name was Offshore Operations but within three or four issues, the title was shortened. Copies sold for 50 cents apiece.

"We had a wild time those first few years," Latham says. "At first I did all the reporting, went to just about all the rig christenings and launches and parties celebrating strikes. Industry leaders were always at those functions then, and they were ready to talk to us, people like John Mecom and Bob Smith and the Adamses, to name a few." George H. W. Bush was head of Zapata Drilling at the time and became a friend and advertiser.

As the magazine grew, Long John moved offices to a rented house north of town. He hired a staff of editors, reporters, and artists, acquired status in the industry, and traveled about the country. Behind the office, he maintained a putting green open to anyone who dropped by.

PennWell Publishing of Tulsa, once named Petroleum Publishing (or Petpubco), purchased Offshore in 1966. George O. Ruppert became publisher. A native of Oklahoma, George sold advertising for PennWell in California, mainly for the Oil & Gas Journal. For years, he lived in a beachside home at Palos Verdes Estates and sailed up and down the coast in a small sailboat. In 1967 he moved Offshore to Houston, taking a suite in a two-story building on West Alabama, at the edge of River Oaks. At the same time, I was moved from a staff writing job with the Oil & Gas Journal to become editor of Offshore.

After selling Offshore, Long John returned to western fiction and established more magazines, including one for antiques and another for Australian land opportunities. He continued to write about cowboy lore and buried treasure in the West.

Location, location

Houston was a popular location for offshore operators and supporting vendors almost from the start. The Bayou City sat near the upper coast of the Gulf of Mexico and possessed a 50-mi ship channel leading to the open sea. Except for financial centers in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, Houston attracted the most home offices, research facilities, seismic processing centers, and administrative services of any other city. Among the first to set up shop were Gulf Oil and Texaco. The Humble Oil & Refining Co. later morphed into Esso and then Exxon.

Slowly, the number of independents expanded, and consolidations within corporations made Houston more attractive as a headquarters location. The move of Shell Oil's corporate headquarters from New York in 1969 sealed the case: Houston gained the crown of world offshore headquarters.

Attempts to set up a marine base for offshore operations for the Gulf of Mexico seemed uncertain at first. As early as 1938, rigs set up in shallow coastal waters off Cameron Parish. Morgan City had strong support, mainly due to location -- only 10 mi south was Kerr-McGee's first oil production at Ship Shoal block 32 field in 15 ft of water.

Some businesses looked at Opelousas and New Iberia, Louisiana, but farther north, on the edge of "Cajun Country," the town of Lafayette drew the most interest. In 1952, the Heymann Oil Center opened, renting space to oil companies and supply houses wanting to get wet. The clincher came with the opening of the Petroleum Club of Lafayette. The influx of oilmen into town doubled Lafayette's population within three years. By1954, the list of oil industry firms locating in Lafayette reached 700, bringing geologists, landmen, service companies, major oil companies, independents, and more.

So it was only natural for the first oil show devoted exclusively to offshore to gather in 1955 at Lafayette's Blackham coliseum. It was named the Louisiana Gulf Coast Offshore Exhibition (Lagcoe). The coliseum's dirt floors were carpeted by green sawdust and some 130 exhibitors convened amid thousands of attendees. The show was modeled after Mardi Gras celebrations, fed by a strong desire to have fun. Partying at oil shows was a tradition established early.

For the first show, Gloria Knox tossed a rollicking press party. Kessler Air Force's band played a concert, 17 school bands marched in a parade, zydeco music blared, and Cajun dancing – fais-do-do, swamp pop, or a sort of hometown stomp – erupted spontaneously.

In those days, as partly true today, trade exhibitions were a forum for exchanging information. Back in the '50s, communications were poor, so new technology was hard to obtain. Going to a trade show was a form of education, a way to keep up with what's new. Lagcoe suited that formula just fine.

The next marine show for oil was Offshore Exploration Conference, or OECON, as it came to be called, in 1966. Mort Richardson, publisher of World Dredging, organized and ran the show, aimed at all maritime industries including oil and gas. It met in New Orleans and San Diego before closing due to competition from the next big oil show, which first appeared in 1968. That mammoth offshore exhibition and technical meeting is, of course, the Offshore Technology Conference, which began in downtown Houston but soon moved to the Astrodome. The OTC drew burgeoning crowds, bringing in a record 110,000 in 1982. Attendance in recent years runs 40,000 to 50,000.

According to one report, OTC began when Society of Petroleum Engineers was denied a role as sponsor to OECON. Joe Alford, head of SPE at the time and later with AIME in New York, organized efforts to produce a conference pulling all offshore technical papers into one gathering. A technical exhibition was at first a sideline.

Early on, a few industry people objected. I attended a lunch in Dallas with Alford and George Weber, then editor of the Oil & Gas Journal. Attending were Roy Carlsen of API's production division, Warren Baker of oil's drilling contractors group IAODC, and a few others. Fears of diluting SPE's regional meetings if an offshore conference was organized came up. Alford dismissed them as misguided. OTC's 36-year run proves him correct.

At one point, in those good old times, Offshore published its largest-ever issue, a grand total of 524 pages, a record within our publishing house. Later, our sister publication Oil & Gas Journal, came up with a bigger issue, but only by a few pages of advertising. Still, we stay proud of our May OTC issues.

Stavanger oil show

Offshore Northern Seas conducted its first show in Stavanger in 1974 inside the city's ice rink, drawing 7,000 attendees. ONS officials decided to alternate with Aberdeen on a biannual basis. Since 1974, ONS has grown into the largest of its kind and second largest in the world. In 2002, ONS pulled 26,200 people from 91 countries. The show had 1,250 exhibitors, and 60% were non-Norwegians. In total more than 34 nations were represented in the exhibition and the conference. The conference itself had about 1,000 delegates. This year, Offshore serves as official media sponsor of the show.

Offshore spokesmen

A more serious side of the industry came about in 1972 with formation of a group in Washington called National Ocean Industries Association. NOIA championed a number of causes, but the most notable were efforts to open up federal leasing. The group also supports rig safety, telecommunication programs, safety, environmental issues, and government relations.

NOIA began in the aftermath of the 1969 blowout off Santa Barbara. Widespread publicity triggered by the sight of a fouled coastline generated a political backlash that threatened offshore leasing. Soon, 30 leaders of companies representing all phases of the offshore industry came together. NOIA's single goal was to keep offshore leasing alive. Ordinarily, professional associations represent one segment of an industry. But NOIA has members from producers, drillers, divers, geophysical surveyors, rig builders, pipelines, shipyards, finance companies, suppliers, and service companies.

Charles Matthews, a Washington lobbyist from Fort Worth, was NOIA president from 1972 until 1990, when he became deputy chairman of the board. Bob Stewart assumed the presidency at that time. Charles retired in 1993 and died in 2002 at age 81. Bob remained president until 2001. Tom Fry, former director of the US Minerals Management Service became president at that time and remains in that post.

PennWell became an NOIA member in 1974, and I represented Offshore at meetings. In 1976, I was named to the board and served eight years. I became NOIA secretary in 1983 and stayed until 1990.

Colorful people

The offshore industry produced its share of renowned people, and more are in the making. So many names come to mind. Herbert and Bunker Hunt, from the Hunt family of Dallas, played a big role in the early days. Placid Oil, one of their companies, set a water depth record of 1,400 ft in 1985 for subsea production in the GoM. They had to shut down when technical problems persisted, losing millions of dollars. They were able to salvage some of the equipment and reuse it elsewhere.

Bunker, at one time equal co-owner of Sarir oil field in Libya with partner oil giant BP, later had to list his gold Rolex in a bankruptcy proceeding. In his spare time, he raised horses and was a genius at memorizing and managing bloodlines for thoroughbreds. He watched them gallop to win, place, and show at races around the globe. Herbert was a legendary industry leader. Together, Herbert and Bunker once attempted to corner the world silver market. They soon realized that there was too much metal hidden in closets that came to market as prices rose for that venture to ever be successful.

Bob Palmer, a drilling executive with a knack for pithy sayings, once compared a slowdown in rig charters as being similar to "running at full speed into a closed door." He was first to call the GoM a "dead sea" when drilling almost shut down. Palmer wrote the best letter I ever received as editor. In the midst of a rig-building boom, we forecast that future demand could probably absorb 540 rigs. Bob reminded us of an incident in Benjamin Franklin's autobiography. A professor of long ago issued a forecast based solely on the number of horses used in the streets of a city. Before long, predicted this scientist, London would be covered to a depth of two feet by horse manure. Only Bob didn't write the word manure.

To this day, I reflect on Bob's warning not to jump to conclusions. As things turned out, demand for rigs fell from 530 units in 1985 to a low of 275 in 1987. Anyway, how many drillers read Ben Franklin?

Meanwhile, as my time in the industry came to a close, I realized how cycles always seemed to run: boom to bust and back again. In 40 years as oil writer and editor, I witnessed rig surpluses and shortages, high oil prices and low, good drilling times and bad. I'd seen at least three booms and two busts. I realized what was coming next. I figured it was time to retire. So I did.

The emerging role of women executives

Women began to enter the professional ranks of the offshore industry workforce in the 1980s. Susan Cunningham wasn't around at the start of offshore work, but she represents the growing role of women executives.

Now serving as senior vice president of exploration for independent Noble Energy Inc. in Houston, Susan represents the AAPG on OTC's board of directors. Four years ago, she was named vice president of exploration for Texaco. A geology graduate from Canada, she began as exploration geologist for Amoco in the Alberta basin. Advancing rapidly, she moved to Houston, where she led exploration efforts in Africa, the Middle East, and the deepwater GoM.

In 1997, Susan joined Statoil as exploration manager, based in Houston, and became vice president of US exploration a year later. She moved to Stavanger in 1999 to manage Statoil's West Africa exploration.

Another fast-riser in the executive ranks is Helene Harding, general manager of the Gulf Coast upstream business unit for ConocoPhillips. In that position, she's responsible for the eastern half of the US Lower 48.

Born in California and a summa cum laude graduate of Texas A&M in chemical engineering, she has experience from both domestic and foreign assignments. She began her offshore career with Arco Oil & Gas in 1982 as a reservoir engineer working South Texas and the GoM. She moved to Arco International in 1991 as senior new venture engineer, focused on exploration and development projects in the Asia Pacific area, the Former Soviet Union, the Middle East, and Africa. She later served as planning and evaluation supervisor for Asia Pacific and Middle East and finance director of the Former Soviet Union unit. She became worldwide new ventures engineering manager in 1998.

After BP purchased Arco in 2000, Helene moved to Houston as western GoM shelf asset manager for BP. She joined Conoco in 2001 as South Texas asset manager. When the ConocoPhillips merger completed a year later, she became manager of the South Texas business unit, then general manager of Gulf Coast in 2003.

Lynne L. Hackedorn is responsible for Houston independent Spinnaker Exploration's offshore leases on the shelf and in the deepwater GoM. She is a native of Houston and a magna cum laude graduate in petroleum land management from the University of Houston. She negotiates lease contracts, exploration agreements, and farm-out deals and frames operating contracts in the eastern and central GoM.

She began with Arco Oil & Gas as a professional landman in 1984. For six years, she managed onshore properties in South Texas. Moving into offshore work in 1990, she joined Zilkha Energy Co. four years later. When Zilkha merged with Sonat Exploration in 1998, she became offshore land manager, handling an inventory of more than 400 leases.

After Sonat merged with El Paso Production, Lynne became director of the offshore land department. She joined Spinnaker in 2001.