Oilfield Trash: Life and Labor in the Oil Patch

8 Change Comes to the Oil Patch,1941-1960

As the decade of the s began, the petroleum industry was still recovering from the twin effects of the Great Depression and the collapse of oil prices caused to a large extent by the immense production of the East Texas boom. Additionally , by  the price of oil was still stagnant and drilling in West Texas was not escalating. However, the situation of the oilfield hands had some bright spots with plenty of work in the offing. Then, with the official outbreak of World War II in late , the demand for oil skyrocketed, but the industry remained hamstrung by government price and production controls. However, getting oil out of the ground during the war years presented an entirely new set of problems for the oil patch. The war effort curtailed the acquisition of steel to the point that no new rigs were allowed to be built and drill pipe was almost impossible to obtain. Drawworks, pumps, and other types of drilling equipment had delivery dates going out at least a year, and drill pipe required a lead time of nine months to a year under the best of circumstances. Despite recycling outmoded equipment and patching up existing rigs and production equipment there was a significant drop in the number of operating rigs during the war years. On the one hand, rotaries were especially hard hit because of the large amount of steel required to supply them with the drill pipe necessary for them to drill. On the other hand, the cable tool units that were still being used in the older more shallow fields suffered less devastation due to not needing drill pipe to operate. In general drilling was restricted to proven areas and large-scale wildcatting was discouraged. The result was an ongoing battle between the oilmen and the government for allocation of materials that continued right up until the end of the war in August/September of . With most of the able-bodied young men drafted into the army it became increasingly difficult to find workers to drill the wells and all the other jobs needed to operate the oilfields. The government did give some military deferments to experienced workers as essential personnel for the war effort, but those were far too few to fill the demand for oilfield labor. That situation was further exacerbated by the fact that despite being classified as an essential industry whose employees were eligible for draft deferments, young able-bodied oilfield workers were generally reluctant to get involved in the process due to the stigma of being looked upon as draft dodgers. Consequently, the oil patch was forced to continue the rapid pace of the work with inexperienced older men and teenagers supplying much of the manpower. Workers ranging from truck drivers to rig builders and everybody in between were in short supply. By , when Change Comes to the Oil Patch, 1941–1960 CHAPTER   CHAPTER  , rigs were needed to drill the number of wells forecasted by the government agency PAW (Petroleum Administration for War), and with the numbers of operable rigs dwindling, the pleas for additional men and supplies became more and more strident from industry leaders. Oil-related industries were urged to train men over the age of thirty-eight and under twenty for various jobs. Women were recruited by some of the larger companies to work at jobs deemed suitable for their physical limitations, and in general every available manpower resource was explored. Workers were assured that the regulations of the relatively new Fair Labor Standards Act would cover practically all oilfield workers under the rule of minimum wage and time and a half pay for hours worked in excess of forty each week. During those years most of the petroleum industry employers worked their employees from forty-eight to sixty hours per week. The situation of the drilling contractors was particularly difficult due to the manpower dilemma. Their practices are exemplified by the situation that developed during  in the newly opened TXL field about twenty miles west of Odessa. Drilling contractors descended upon the area like a plague of locusts and rig lights lit up the area every night. J. D. Brown, an experienced roughneck, remembered working derricks at TXL during the height of the drilling and making a deal with the drilling company to work on five rigs at the same time. This is how he explained it: I was working derricks out there at TXL during the war and we was always short handed. Everybody out there worked...