Anyone watching the show ‘Wildcatters‘ on the Discovery Channel or am I the only one? =-)
Since the oilfield is how I entered the Working World at the ripe young age of 15, this show holds some interest for me. Yep, while my friends were flippin’ burgers and playing Atari, I was bustin’ my ass on drilling rigs and pulling units on Independent oil leases in Northern Oklahoma.
There aren’t many things that will inspire a young man to achieve high financial and educational goals in life than working in 105 degree temperatures covered with sweat and crude oil!
‘Wildcatters‘ follows a group of Independent oil producers as the search for Black Gold. Since the very best oil producing ground is already leased by the major oil companies, Wildcatters have to search the less productive areas for pockets of oil. These places have been either overlooked or discounted by the major oil companies as not being “profitable” or too much risk for the ROI.
Wildcatters take tremendous risk in exploring and trying to find these undeveloped areas. It’s not uncommon to put up a half million bucks or more in an effort to try and find oil. In many instances, they’ll spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in testing and research just to see if an area is likely to hold oil. There’s no guarantee you’ll get you money back either. Fortunes have been made and lost in this business.
How are Affiliate Marketers like Wildcatters?
First, there are damn few marketers, including myself, who could be considered Internet Wildcatters.
I consider people who started sites like Digg, MySpace, CraigsList, AOL and others as true Internet Wildcatters. They’re the type of people who are always looking for a new technology or application to further the Internet experience.
Just as with Oil Wildcatters, Internet Wildcatters will put up a huge outlay of cash with no promise of a ROI. They ‘bet the farm’ in hopes of striking it rich. A few do, most don’t.
But as one of my favorite TV personalities, Richard Davis of The Real Estate Pros, likes to say, “The greater the risk, the greater the reward!”
That’s so true!
Remember, it was the Pioneers who got all the arrows shot at them. But those who survived were also the ones who got the best land!
Before deciding you want to be an Internet Wildcatter, measure your risk level and your bank account because your taking a chance on loosing both. =-) But if you succeed, you’ll be on top of the Internet world and if you fail, you’ll be back at square one, more experienced the second time around!
5 responses so far ↓
1 Jenn
No you are not the only one who watches Wildcatters. I am a very proud “PatchWife” and i love this show. To me the “patch” is a wonderful place to be. True, it does hold a lot of danger for the men that work in it. I am married to a hard working roughneck. He has busted his ass on both drilling rigs and pulling units as well. I always find myself thinknig back to the first time i was requested to go out to the rig by his toolpusher and I was amazed by the beauty of the sight of the rig at sunset. That is why I love the show.
2 ashley
we’ve only been able to watch episode 4. i can’t find the schedule for it on discovery.com. my husband is Adam, the toolpusher for justiss oil on the show. we don’t know when it comes on again. i’d sure like to know so we can record it if anybody here can let me know! thanks!
3 Jenn
Ashley,,,
this is my addy please e-mail me, newme314@hotmail.com
4 Kendra
I am also a wife of a Roughneck and have been trying to find show schedules and channel – I just seen one preview and didn’t get info. – If someone could let me know when its on I would greatly appreciate it!
5 chuck
I watched two episodes. The first was some guys drilling shallow wells in the mid continent or Illinois Basin, looked plausible and interesting. It came on again in Malaysia so I watched a second programme. This one was about a guy drilling in central Texas for a Pennsylvanian Limestone, another in Alaska, and a third in the Sac Basin in California. This was pretty disgusting because I could not believe it was real. First, the guy in Texas got lost and used a tool that I thought the last had gone to the museum in 1950 in order to survey the hole. He pronounced himself lost and quit, which would be patently ridiculous, to quit near the target because the oil is not structurally controlled in that area. If this really occurred, then it was a scam to oversell the well and be sure it was a dry hole if you had sold, say 130% of the well.
The guy in Alaska, from his ranch in Kansas, pronounced himself rich based on what he said was the chromatograph going off the scale. A chromatograph cant go off scale, it reads percentages of gas components. He announced the ammount of reserves in the well which would be impossible, without sustained testing, and they werent enough to develop in Alaska. There are a lot of 100 million barrel fields in Alaska which have certified, by SPE standards, which cannot be developed. And nobody would get terribly rich from a small discovery under Alaskan Laws which demand a very high royalty to the state.
The Sac valley might have been plausible assuming that he was dumber than dirt, to drill a well in such a structurally complex area without any control. There are such people.
I did wonder if the Discovery channel is promoting people with well known scams, ie oversubscribing a well and being sure it is dry.