Welcome to the latest interview for TOPP. I was honored to have the opportunity to interview Sally Meador Roberts; owner of Sonshine Exploration and geologist. As an independent who own’s her own company, she offers us a unique view as she has to face not only the geology end of the business, but the business end and all the challenges that come with it. Challenges that I can personally relate to as a small business owner (Check out the new site. Click our icon on the right). I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I enjoyed visiting with her.
JL: Hi Folks. This is Jay
Leeper with The Oil Patch Post. I have
as my special guest, Sally Meador-Roberts of Sonshine Exploration. Ms. Meador-Roberts has been at this for
almost 40 years as a geologist, 24 of them as an independent Explorations
Geologist. Ms. Roberts was nice enough
to let me visit with her and let me post a few questions.
Ms. Roberts, is there anyone you’d like to say hello to?
SMR: Howdy, y’all!
JL: LOL! If you would,
ma’am, please tell us a little about yourself.
SMR: I was born in a small town up in Iowa. A town of 200. You never know where you’ll end up. I got my bachelors at the University of Colorado. My dad had always said the only thing women
did was teach and that was the Colorado State Teaching College and I was bound
and determined that I was not going to teach so I got my hours for my BS but
took my education and did a full year internship for teaching. I did this to fulfill my dad’s request but unfortunately
he passed away before I graduated. It
probably was a good thing because I went to the University of Arizona and got
my Master’s degree there. At that time,
every weekend was field trips and the only thing Spring Break was for was
weeklong field trips. I look back at
what a blessing it was and all the things we got to see. Well, we kinda fast forward to City
Service. I wanted to work for them
because they had a 1 year training program and I really wanted that. They only took about 15-18 people every
year. The training program was set as
they felt it was easier to train geologists to interpret geophysics than it was
to take a geophysicist and train them to understand geology. (It was an extensive training program – 9
months intensive geophysics,3 months advanced geology, land, etc. Classes I would rely on later in my
career. I have done LOTS of well site
work, trained geologists in well site work, LOTS of log analyses, putting
prospects together from grass roots to successful discovery, field development
of discoveries, consulting for other independents, you name it, I’ve done
it. As an independent you have to do all
your own data mining, drafting, writing, paperwork for BLM lands, state lands, units,
NMOCD and RRC hearings.) I don’t want geophysicists to take that wrong. Forty years ago, geophysicists training was
basically physics and not much geo. Of
the group, they (City Services) would find out who of us were pretty good in
geophysics and those who were better off in geology. At that time, we had nine months in
training. At that time, help in vibro-seis had just came out; the same vibro-seis that is now forty years old. We got field trips to the barrier reef off
the shores of Belize to digging trenches in the Colorado River down by Easton
to knowing the rocks up in the Colorado Rockies. We had to interpret dynamite data to single
fold data to vibro-seis data. At that
time, it was BC … Before Computers.
(**laughter**)
SMR: The Seis Log was just coming out and we had to do that
by hand. When I was out on Drilling
Rigs, that’s what I did. They gave me
the log and I’d color them by hand and then take them back in. Now, all that’s done in seconds by PCs and
things. I had gotten to do a Summer
Intern (use to be called a Summer Hand) with City Service here in Midland. Being from a small town, in 1975, Midland was
45K. For me, that was a big city.
JL: Heck yeah.
SMR: I enjoyed my time.
I got to work in the Four Corners area.
People want to know the difference between a wildcat and a rand wildcat,
go work for Four Corners for a little while.
I enjoyed it. Like I said, I went
full time with them and got the benefit of the training program. We even had a week of training on report
writing for the industry. Probably, this
is where being candid and outspoken worked for me because I wrote them a nice
letter saying that if they send me to Houston, I’ll know they don’t want
me.
(**laughter**)
SMR: My boss was wanting to recommend me to Denver. I got my Bachelors in Greeley, just north of
Denver and I really didn’t want to go back but I couldn't say that. I held my peace because there were two other
shoe shiners who wanted Denver. When I
was sent to Midland, I was probably the only person alive that was excited to
go to Midland.
(**laughter**)
SMR:
Out here, I was able to go back to work in the Four Corners and Paradox Basin
and northern San Juan Basin. Broke in
working 4-Corners area, then SENM, Eastern Shelf, W/NM, SE Colorado, So. Utah,
All of Arizona, N. Permian basin TX, SENM (30Yrs in SENM). I got
to work with shelf edges there and work with some algal mounds and get my feet
wet. I also worked the north end of the
Tatum Basin and Permian Basin; Tatum Basin being the New Mexico side. I also worked the western extension of the
Matador arch. I got to work with not
only structural problems, but pinch outs as well. My favorite terms are the “Elida Highs” and
the “Insipient Ensleberg”. I like
that. That’s a case, too, where one of the
things I’d like to stand up and scream out to managers is “What do you think a
structure map is?” 30 years ago, 40
years ago, and even today everybody has to have a structure map. There have been so many periods of structure
movement since deposition and I want to say, “What does a structure map tell
you?” All it is is a topographic map of
what the surface looks like today.
That’s all it is. Is it important?
There are structural plays so yes, it is important. But, there are a lot of plays where structure
on the top of a zone doesn't tell you squat.
That was kind of the case working the Devonian up on the Roosevelt
Positive; the western extension of the Matador Arch. We ran two seismic likes up there and there
is a 1500’ fault as you come up out of the Arch and up onto the Roosevelt
Positive. It basically has three
brothers just under the Wolfcamp where on old logs looks like three
fingers. Very identifiable. We ran a couple of seismic lines; one from
north to south and one from south to north.
On one of them when they did the processing and migration on it, the
ringing in the granite lined up with the reflectors in the sedimentary section
and you couldn't see the fault. In the
other direction, the fault was “Boom” right there. It was an interesting enigma. There were very few sonic logs out there (at
that time). What we did was find a deep
well close to the line that we had and I took the sonic logs we had and I cut
out sections equivalent to the sections that we had and made what I called the
“Psudo Sonic Log” and digitized that. It
worked out really pretty well. Like I
said, that was back in the days where everything was typed into the cards. It took forever. But, it was a very interesting project.
JL: If you don’t mind, how long were you with City?
SMR: 5 and a half.
JL: Where did you go from there?
SMR: Harvey E. Yates Company (HEYCO). From what I was mentioning earlier, I did all
of this work on the cross sections to figure out what, when, where, and why the
Devonian Play was and the actual Paleo Crest which was where you wanted to be
on the Devonian was on the third block fault down. I spent two hours going through everything I
got and at the end the manager said, “Well that’s all good, but we need to move
the location two miles up here to the structure high”. Well, evidently, when I get mad my ears turn
red. My boss looked at me and said, “Why
don’t you go downstairs?” I was
livid. I got moved over to Coke County. They moved locations and they drilled
themselves a nice granite well. Another
company went and drilled my proposed location and got a Devonian
discovery.
(**groan** … from me)
SMR: I spent the next 15 months looking at southern Nolan
and Coke and northern Tom Green. There’s
some super exciting things over there.
There’s a great submarine canyon that goes right through the center of
one of the fields. On the carbonate
shelf edge, there’s a beautiful surge channel.
JL: You know there are people who are going to call trying
to get info from you.
SMR: I’ll tell them that it was thirty years ago. Over on the east side of the Midland Basin,
there’s a spot where you can see the sands coming off the shelf and the long
shore current taking them to the south. There
is just so much over there on the Eastern Shelf. I said you could make a living forever just
in those three counties. The sad thing
about computers today is that the kids don’t understand that there’s other maps
besides a structure map and an isomap and if you let the computer make an
isopach map then I’m sorry but you’re an over paid geotech. If you want to write me and tell me how ugly
I am, go for it.
(**laughter**)
SMR: Computers can do structure maps, but they don’t have a
brain. A computer can’t tell the
difference between an offshore sand bar and an algal mound. It just can’t tell the difference. If you don’t understand the model you’re
working then you’re probably in the wrong field. You've got to understand the structure and
the area that you’re working and the structural history and you've got to
understand the depositional environment of each and every zone. If all you’re doing is working on the Morrow
and you’re not looking at anything else then you’re missing how the Morrow was
laid down and why as well as the faulting that occurred as well as since
then. If you’re only working the Strawn
and you’re not looking at the Atoka base and you don’t understand the
depositional models then you’re going to drill you some good dry holes. I've seen them. There are ways to map on the Eastern Shelf to
find additional reefs. I spent the time
needed to gather the information to make those maps. Like me spending 15 months to make those maps
and then being moved. I was like, “What
are you doing!?” and was told that you have starters in this business and you
have finishers. There are very few
people who can start a project but there are lots of people who can finish a
project. I was told, “We appreciate you
starting this project.”
JL: That’s not
frustrating at all.
SMR: (**nodding**) They
moved me and put two geologists on what I had spent all that time working
on. You just lose all of the knowledge
gained. I could show you the Stripe Valley
Sands and the surge channel and submarine canyon. I figured out a way to map where there might
be potential carbonate mounds. People
have a tendency, if they are looking at the Strawn, to forget about the Cisco
and the Canyon that’s on top of it.
There’s just so much to do.
Anyway, because I was candid and outspoken I got to work the Western
Edge. I think what they wanted to do was
see if I could come up with a strategy to do that and I actually did. I came up with a strategy and trained
geologists. I had one week of experience
on a drilling rig and I had the most experience. Yes, I was the very first woman … let me back
up a moment … as a summer hand, I had a friend … let me back up even further …
City Service, like most oil and gas companies in the early seventies, were not
allowing women on rigs. I didn't know
that. I’m from a little town. I was never really told what women could or
couldn't do other than my dad telling me that the only thing women could do was
teach. So, fast forward, there was a gal
working there who was a district geologist and she had not been allowed on drilling
rigs. Well, I was a summer hand and
there was another fella there who was a summer hand for another company and his
boss said if you want to see one of the best gas drill stem test you’ll ever
see be at such and such location at such and such time. He asked, “Can I bring a friend?” The boss said, “Yes”, and I was the
friend. Well, I am very fair
skinned. I don’t tan. I turn red.
I was excited. I was going to be
on a drilling rig. It flowed, the flow
line froze, caught the prairie on fire … it was exciting! Well, I go in Monday and I was bright red as
a lobster and the boss kind of looks at me over his glasses and goes, “Hmm …
What did you do this weekend?” I got
excited, “I got to go out on a well and it flowed this much and caught fire..”
and went on. He just looked at me and
said, “Really”. I later found out that
he went right upstairs and told the bosses that their female summer intern got
to go on a competitor’s drilling rig and see a gas stem test. The female district geologist, within 30
minutes, got to get some gear and head out on a rig. I’ve been known to cause some thing to happen
like that. When I was on the Four
Corners on a rig up there, I was evidently the first female geologist to go on
a rig up there. Within 6 hours, everyone
knew there was a woman on a rig. It was
kind of like mines, if a woman was on a rig then it was supposed to be a bad
omen. Another thing young geologists
need to understand is that our job as geologists is to find enough oil to
replace that which is produced every year plus increase the average production. Don’t think this will last forever.
JL: You bring up and interesting point. Do you see this boom lasting a while?
SMR: What is
different now is the horizontal drilling.
The existing downstream infrastructure, which most geologists don’t
think about, hasn't changed. Refineries
can only produce so much. They don’t
have enough drivers or tank trucks to even pick up the oil. One company in New Mexico just bought a dozen
trucks themselves and hired their own truck drivers to get their oil hauled off
their leases. Oil pipelines are pretty
much full and I’m told the tank farm out here is pretty much full. There’s supposed to be one pipeline up here
by this fall that will ease that but right now operators are taking about a
$14/barrel hit just to get their oil picked up.
This means that if the posted price is $90 per barrel, operators are
only getting $76 per barrel. Now comes
in the economics. There hasn't been a
new refiners built since ’72. Environmentalists aren't going to let you build a
refinery. So, you have a capacity
problem. There may reach a point where
you don’t have any place to take your oil.
I’m a geologist and not a economist and I’m kind of afraid that if oil
drops down below $75 you’re going to see a whole lot of horizontals shut
down. Gas may come up. Gas needs to be at $6-$7, I’m told, to make
it cost effective to drill gas wells.
Still, geologists need to find oil.
If dry holes don’t bother you, you’re in the wrong field. You’re asking an engineer to take your word
that there is oil here and several million dollars are spent on your word. If you’re wrong, they are out millions
dollars on a vertical well. You won’t be
working very long. An engineer and I
found a company to drill based on my findings, but the engineer paid for a
science well. He spent a lot of money on
logs trying to get as much information as possible. If I would have been wrong and the wells didn't
pay out in 10-12 months, I would have caused him to go broke. It was either a bust or a plus. Turned out to be a plus. I've been blessed from the work at HEYCO to
go independent in 1989 at one of the worst times and the Heavenly Father
blessed me with enough consulting through my career to keep the bills
paid. I was able to put together enough
prospects that each one was successful and made the engineer some money. But that’s what I stress to interns, that’s
your job. That company doesn't grow and
the bills don’t get paid and employees don’t get paid if you don’t replace
those reserves plus increase them. When
you work for a big company, you’re insulated from that. When you work for a small company it becomes
real “in your face”. One of the first
things I learned when I worked for City Service is that we had to double the
reserves you thought you were going to get because the engineers were going to
cut them in half.
JL: I know you have done this for a long time, but do you think
there are still new discoveries out there?
SMR: Oh, it’s vast out there. So much to do and so little time. If you love the geology, I liken it to not
only finding the needle in the haystack but the reservoir is like threading the
needle. Once you have made a new field
discovery, you want to keep making them.
You want to find that reservoir that others don’t know about. It’s like playing “Hide and seek”. “CSI Geology”. I was blessed to get in on the discovery and
development of the initial Bone Spring carbonate production and kick off of the
Bone Spring sand production when I worked for HEYCO (Harvey E. Yates Co) in the
‘80’s. Because of log analysis classes
taken in the CS training program, I recommended perforating the 2nd
Bone spring sand in a well in 1984 – the well flowed 140 BOPD. That well allowed us (HEYCO) to do a lot more
exploration for more carbonate reservoirs because now we had potential sand
reservoirs in each well also.. Because
of a carbonate field course I had taken in the CS training program, I had a plausible idea for the
depositional environment of the Bone Spring that wound up being and changing
the way operators viewed the Bone Spring. At one point, we drilled 66 of 68 successful
wells – THAT is amazing by any account. This
allowed us at HEYCO to keep everyone’s jobs through the toughest times of the
downturn in the mid to late ‘80’s. Although
I was not allowed to publish any data, Ted Galowski, then with Mitchell, did
publish a paper that, for the most part, was pretty good. I think it is still considered one of the
best papers on the Bone Spring. To look
back and think that one recommendation to perf the 2nd B Sp Sand,
that engineering actually decided to do prior to plugging a well, turned things
around and, now, with horizontal drilling and slick water frac’s, has caused
what some call a “rebirth” of the Delaware Basin portion of the Permian Basin,
is something even I am in awe of. The
Heavenly Father truly blesses those who try to live their lives for Him. Secondly,
an Engineer I have worked with for over 20 years, was able to put together a
large acreage block on a prospect we had been working on for approx. 19 yrs.
(we got the 1st lease some 18 yrs ago). Recently we had a significant new field
discovery and are very excited. We have
multiple reservoirs to further evaluate and are super excited about the
potential of several of these. One has
the potential to be very significant. Talk
to me in a couple years. Another
highlight of my career was mentoring a young Geologist who now works for Concho
– Sergio Ojeda. What an amazing and
fulfilling few years! Even more
fulfilling is to watch him drill successful wells at his young age. I've been associated with 2 dry wells in my
time and they both about killed me. I
was like, “What went wrong?” On one of
them it was like a wildcat and it drilled out like we mapped it. What a geologist cannot determine necessarily
is if it’ll be pickle juice. We got salt
water. There was an argument among the
field people. The well was TDed 100’ shy
of our planned TD. I let my superiors
know they made the decision. A number of
years later on a farm out another company drilled out the other 100’ and found
the sands we were looking for. It was
there. Things like that bother you. When you drill a plain dry hole it’s got to
bother you. I always say, “What did I do
wrong?” I use a 20’ contour interval and
believe that if I can’t be closer than that 20’ contour interval then I did
something wrong. If I pick my tops, I
want to be within 5’. If I had one thing
to say to young geologists, it would be to know and understand your logs.
JL: Agreed. Any other observations on what’s to come in
the oil and gas field?
SMR: Watch out for the
environmentalists trying to shut down the Oil Industry by using the Endangered
Species act and scare tactics about fresh water contamination. HOWEVER, that aside, there are so many
potential reservoirs still to be tested based on shows in older wells, based on
advances in completion technology, exploration for reservoirs heretofore
ignored. There is so much left to do –
and so little time!
JL: What are some of the main
differences between today’s professionals and the prior generations? Is this good, bad, both?
SMR: It is both bad, bad, Leroy
bad, and good. The main difference I see
is the use of computers. They really
started coming into their own in the 1980’s with the advent of personal
computers and, later, with networking capabilities and the Internet. The first mapping programs came out around
1984. The best one was a DOS based program
that, unfortunately was never converted to MS Windows. It had an internal database that allowed you
to enter data sheet tops, porosities, perms, 150 pieces of information per
well. It used USGS squares so could be
used in SENM w/out lots of problems or a land map. You could also import a land grid to use if
you wanted. You could use footage
locations, not XY or Lat Long coordinates.
Neither Lat- Longs nor API numbers were readily available in the ‘80’s
and 90’s. All programs can produce good
structure maps – whoopee! But even
today, none of the programs can accurately make Isopach maps, Isolith maps,
Relative Net Perm maps, etc. These maps
depend on the depositional model you are using.
These maps are produced using one’s intellectual understanding of the
formation (s) you are working with. None
of them deal accurately with faults, some high angle normal (extensional) movement,
some high angle reverse thrust (compressional) movement, some with lateral
movement (strike-slip). If all you do is
allow the computer to do the mapping, a good Geo-Tech can do that, the company
doesn't need a high paid Geologist for that.
You cannot do really detailed multi-well correlations on the
computer. I know they say you can but,
trust me, they know not what they say. Additionally,
with modern technology, the geologists really never have to leave their offices
to get data from the well site. It is
important for geologists to be out on location, to understand what goes on, how
wells are drilled, what the abbreviations on the mud logs mean, how to look at
samples and understand what the different types of shows are and what they
mean. How a well is drilled, the type of
fluid used, has everything to do with shows and with how the electric logs are
affected. Most young Geologists have NO
clue.
JL: If you could pass something along to the new
generation of professionals, what would you like them to know?
SMR: Your work and your word are
all you have, your reputation. Guard
them wisely. Ethics, Ethics,
Ethics. You can get sucked in far more
quickly and easily than you can get out.
JL: Any cool stories you could
share?
SMR: Several. Somebody chased me out to a rig one night.
JL: Why? What happened
there?
SMR: I have no idea. It was 11 at night. This car was going 20 miles an hour on this
road. I came up on this 60 MPH road and
they were in this dip and I didn't see them.
I whipped around them and they chased me all the way to the rig. I pulled around to the back side and they
pulled up to the dog house stairs. I
went up the backside. All the hands knew
me because I spent 60 out of 75 days on that well. All I had to do was tell those guys that they
chased me and it would have been ugly. I
didn't. I didn't want there to be a
problem. I just stood there. It was scary.
Another story was when I was with City Service, this guy, a landman,
came out and told us that this rancher really wanted our company to lease his land. It was out of NW Arizona. They came to me and asked me what I thought and
at that time they hadn't completed the topographic map of that part of
Arizona. I said that the only way we can
evaluate it is to go out on the ground.
I figured that would kill it as there was no way they would send us out
there. The landman kept coming back and
asking questions like what sort of techniques would we be using to evaluate
this. He wrote us letters and
fortunately I was smart enough to keep copies.
Well, we ended up meeting this rancher in the Flagstaff. We had a late dinner. He brought his sons which I could tell was
strange as they could go bear hunting with a switch. They weren't little. They were making all these snide remarks
about these big oil companies who thought they could do all these things and I
kept thinking “Something’s not right”. I
was sitting next to the attorney who was a gentleman of gentlemen in every
sense of the word. Part way through the
dinner I leaned over and said, “I need to talk to you after everything has
broken up.” He said, “OK.” I kept listening to these comments. Well, when he and I got together, what had
happened was this guy (the landman) had come to us wanting us to lease the
rancher’s land (202 sections) and was telling the rancher that we really wanted
to lease his land. He was playing both
ends against the middle. Every time we
wrote a letter, the landman wouldn't pass the letter along. He was telling the rancher stories about us
that we had equipment to test the land.
I showed the lawyer the copies of the letters and the lawyer said, “I
understand.” Well the next morning the
rancher was much nicer and offered to take us to his property in his private
jet by way of the Grand Canyon. What
geologist wouldn't jump at the chance?
He told his boys to drive with the intermediary to the property. I’m sure it wasn't a pleasant ride. The plane ride was awesome, though! I
could go on, but if you’re bitten by the bug it isn't about the amount of money
you make; it’s about the chase.
We visited at great lengths and Ms. Meador-Roberts shared a great many views. In fact, I'm considering posting her and other interviews on an audio site. Ms. Meador-Roberts shared a lot of insight that is hard to put into text and her words do her own justice where my text fails. Still, I gained much insight and definitely could appreciate the challenges she faced.
Thank you so much for taking time to read this interview. As always, feedback is encouraged in form of a comment or email. Also, if you have any questions for Ms. Meador-Roberts, you can email her at smrrocks@sonshineexploration.com. Be warned, if you're going to try to get secret info out of her she is pretty cagey!
Take care and I hope to see you on the oil patch!
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