Fresh off the $425-million sale of Sligo Field assets in North Louisiana to Chesapeake Energy Corp. in May 2004, privately held Greystone Oil & Gas LLP created a new venture to develop properties in the ArkLaTex region. But there was a problem. "When we got ready to drill some of our prospects in the fall of 2005, we were unable to find drilling rigs," explains managing partner Joe Bridges. "We went to contractors who had drilled our wells for years-all of the big ones and a lot of the small ones-and their rigs were booked for years. It was a pretty dismal outlook. We were faced with seeing projects that we had put together so carefully lying fallow for lack of a drilling rig." Greystone opted to build and operate its own fleet. The Houston company has taken delivery on two 1,000-horsepower, "trailerized" high-performance rigs manufactured by Brady, Texas-based Loadcraft Industries Inc. Greystone will receive four additional units by the end of first-quarter 2007. "The size of our rig fleet is built around what we think our indigenous needs are likely to be," says Michael Geffert, Greystone's other managing partner. "We're basically oil and gas operators. We don't intend to be in the contract-drilling business as a significant, primary line of business. It is a means to the essential end of our oil and gas efforts." For more on this, see the January issue of Oil and Gas Investor. For a subscription, call 713-260-6441.

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