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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 12, 1978)
Page 12 THE BATTALION WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 1978 WHO IS HOUSE OF TIRES? Oil boom in Kurten seems welcom The smallest tire store with the largest selection and the lowest overhead ... so you get the lowest prices' Tire sale now in progress. Corner of Coulter and Texas. 822-7139. MICHELIN • SEMPERIT • PIRELLI • DOUGLAS • CARNEGIE HAMiittN IMS APARTMENTS ATTENTION APARTMENT HUNTERS! SUMMER LEASES Hi 30% DISCOUNT” You can SAVE up to $374.00 when you sign a summer lease. Please come by today and see how much we can help you save. Furnished & Unfurnished Efficiency, 1, 2 & 3 Bedroom Apartments All Utilities Included No Escalation Clause or Fuel Adjustment Charge 24 Hour Emergency Maintenance Service Two Swimming Pools Tennis Courts Party/Meeting Room Health Spas, including Saunas for Men & Women Three Laundry Rooms Rental office open Monday through Friday 9-6 Saturday 10-5 Sunday 2-5 693-1110 1501 Hwy. 30 693-1011 By ANN RICHMOND Kurten is the kind of town a person can drive through without even knowing he has been in a town. Kurten has a grocery store- gas station, a post office, a couple of houses, and a population of about 150. It doesn’t look like this town has much to offer anyone. But, take another look. Beneath those gree pastures and lazy cows is oil — lots of oil. Kurten is the center of one of the biggest oil booms South Texas has seen, and the oil companies have moved in. Amalgamated Bonanza Petro leum, Ltd. is the largest oil com pany in the area in tersm of the number of wells and the number of areas leased. It has 64 percent interest in petroleum and natural gas rights on 160,000 acres in the northern part of Brazos County, says Chester Quick, field superin tendent for Bonanza. The company came to Brazos County early in 1976 and drilled its first well, Bonznza No.l Shramm, Quick says. The well struck oil, but it only produced five barrels a day. Bonanza drilled about five more wells in the area and found a well that produced 150 barrels of oil a day. Today, the company has 40 completed wells and has not hit a dry well yet. Quick says. Three sites are now being drilled and seven are ready to be drilled. One of the wells now being drilled is located off Democrat Road. The rig stands alone in an open field. Planks cover the ground around the rig to help sup port heavy equipment and cars. Off to one side is a house trailer where the supervisor lives. The four or five men who operate the drilling rig live in surrounding communities. The sound of engines and pumps is constant. At first the sound is nerve-racking, then it becomes monotonous, then forgotten. It’s just a part of the work, as is the sweat and grime that covers the men. There’s nothing exciting about working on an oil rig. The work is hard and routine. Pumps and engines have to be fixed when mal functions occur, and they occur of ten. The mud in the hole must be kept at a certain thickness and weight, and the pH maintained at a certain level so the mud can be easily pumped out of the hole. Most importantly, the drill has to be kept going 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The men who keep it going work smoothly. They know what has to be done and they do it. Cigarettes dangle from their mouths as they work and their eyes squint in the bright sunlight. There’s not much talk. The only way to be heard above the din of the machinery is to yell. That gets tiring in a hurry. Often, hand sig nals are used instead of words to Couple's Special 2 8X10 Color Photographs only $22 95 And if you're an engaged couple, the 5x7 glossy for the newspaper is free with this offer. Your choice of eight color proofs of your sit ting in traditional studio style. Additional portraits available at lowest reprint rate. Offer expires June 1, 1978 convey messages. It takes about 15 days to com plete the drilling on an oil well. The wells in this area have to be drilled down to eight or nine thousand feet to the Woodbine sandstone level. Quick says that this is a fairly shallow well. . In the process of drilling, the bit has to be changed six or seven time. Each bit lasts 40 to 50 hours, Quick says. The only way to change the bit is to remove all of the pipe, one piece at a time, from the hole. The entire process takes about three to four hours. The well will become either a pumping well, a down-hole well or a flowing well. The pumping well is the most visible kind of well. It looks like a giant black insect that is slowly devouring the land, its head moving tediously up and down. The down-hole well is also a pumping well, but the pump is lo cated beneath the surface of the ground. The flowing well has no pump. As the name implies, the The maintenance of the engines and pumps on drilling ric a continual job that requires a great deal of time. It’s^ glamorous, but it is necessary in order to keep the drill got, 24 hours a day. oil flows by itself out of the well. From the well, the oil will be piped to a “heater-treater a short distance away. This will heat the oil so it will be easier to move it through the pipes into storage tanks called “tank batteries.” These Battalion photo by Ann Fife . . . University Studio 115 College Main Northgate 846-8019 SUPER WEEKEND STUDENT DISCOUNT 71 Sun Theatres The INDY CARS Foyt - Andretti - Sneva Johncock-Rutherford The Unsers at 200 MPH SATURDAY THIS COUPON WORTH $5 discount on $15. reserved seat when presented at grandstand gate 333 University 84C The only movie in town Double-Feature Every Week Open 10 a.m.-2 a.m. Mon.-Sat. 12 Noon - 12 Midnight Sun No one under 18 Escorted Ladies Free BOOK STORE & 25c PEEP SHOWS 846-9808 APRIL 15 ^TKjonr (win';. ^ pL < ?;f <?0 T t on $? infield admission when presented at infield gate (Limit one per person) i A <?. F large silver tanks are easilyf and quickly pinpoint the! of the oil wells. From here,! will be taken away by tniflj It costs about $400,0 a well. Quick says. This cl eludes everything, from tlitr ing of the road to the finale! tion. This oil field is ^ S an Bonanza about $1 million afnble they are taking in only onem rs , this. But the company cSgLud start making money in tlv ia t tore. Quick says. Ep p ( Other oil companies ! J n( j f ou Bonanza are also drillingK Kurten area, though on a j. smaller scale. gta s w Ashland has four to sr\ ^ ^ of Kurten Lane, Butte bg tb wells and Cayuga has offi’-ightei Other companies are vvor® r l e Brazos County but no ontj av0 u exactly how many. DiffeniTher companies may share leases ound same land and consultanlfiever each represent as many* me li companies. As Maudie 0£ irner Kurten resident, puts it, 1 Onei of a crazy sit mi tion down they«hec li11111111111 M More Of A Good Thing " Overnight Camping and Concert BATTLE OF THE BANDS continues Sunday, April 16 with Motorcycle Races M 6 TEXAS WORLD SPEEDWAY on Hwy. 6 south of College Station, Texas J l <***4»*^ <^**»*^ -¥4F-¥^'¥4F-¥4F-¥--¥^-¥“¥^-¥--¥"¥4F-¥^-¥“¥“¥4FAF-¥4F-¥4F-¥4MMMMMMMMMF-¥ l-< >-l - M WK./4 * * * * * * * * * * ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ I * * ¥ ¥ ¥ M HAPPY HOUR 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Monday Thru Friday Call any weekday during the dinner hours and have a piping hot pizza delivered to your door — at these discounted prices!!! Live Entertainment! Gambling! and Gee Golly Good Times at RHA Casino Night, Friday, April 14 7:30 P.M. 2nd Floor MSC Advance tickets - $2.25 at MSC, Commons, Sbisa At the door - $2.50 GET A PIECE OF THE ACTION! ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ $ A* M (No coupons accepted during Happy Hour, please.) 846-7785 nimm mi mmt H H ainai :ed Before an oil company ■well, it must lease aT60-acft of land. Quick says. This 1 quired by the Railroad Cos sion. Only one well canhGjtch t within this block. ThecoSiedo] must secure a lease fromeaci owner within the block, at anski land owner refuses to les* fly w land the company niusfotejund 160-acre block elsewhere. It costs the land owner. to have an oil well drilledfiall < land, quick says. And he W, s ceive royalties from the oir Boh on his land or in the block Tony I is contained in. Bryan Few people object to Lainta companies leasing their ad cause they know that thefjfeoli money out of it,” Quickwout “There is no way they II o-TOlma Th ey may want to, but Rise] won’t.' I try Few residents in Kurteilem jected, says Margaret Jopf.Rsay postmistress in Kurten. No«l Bob of the residents are pleased Rian the way things are going -tanf tl Brocksmith’s grocery stonjo rei doing a landslide business,Ran than he can handle,” Jopp| “Th When Brocksmith is asked ^ked the business he is doing, blans) shrugs and smiles. tant fr When Bonanza came to&Colle County, no one cared auction about it. Quick says. But s^Oul says, oil companies were f W t\ new to the area. Oil couiraoutir had been leasing land thetfBe p years and nothing had ever jiand of it. When Bonanza ca»( his tr years ago, Jopp says, no Bo] any attention to it. land v O' o DANCE CONTEST April 13 12:30 noon Rudder Fountain PRIZES SPONSORED BY TOWN HALL IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE OHIO PLAYERS SHOW SIGN UP IN ROOM 216 MSC F C