Charles Weiner will be the first to tell you he has often been in the right place at the right time. The geologist has not only generated prospects for more than 50 years, he and his family were in on developing now-legendary fields and introducing new technologies.

Through Texas Crude Oil Co., formed in 1941, he and the family’s various drilling companies built one of the first offshore rigs, and participated in the first hydraulic fracturing in West Texas. “I’ve been on every continent except Antarctica,” he says cheerfully. The company and affiliates drilled in France, Egypt, Cote d’Ivoire, Turkey, Indonesia, China, and more.

Weiner was born in an oilfield town in Arkansas in 1923. His father Sam ran an oilfield supply and salvage company. The family has been active in West Texas since then and was instrumental in discovering and developing the Spraberry trend.

Weiner and older brothers Stan and Ted founded Texas Crude Oil in 1941 in Midland. Now based in Houston and run by his son, K.C., and Peter Fluor, it has discovered 180 fields in eight states and abroad. Weiner is former chair.

After serving in Burma and China in the Air Force in World War II, Weiner entered the University of Texas, graduating in 1948 with a B.A. He studied geology, engineering and physics, but returned to duty in the Korean War in 1950.

The family business was acquired by Fluor in 1968. In 1972, he stepped away to launch Westerly Exploration Inc. in Houston. It explores around the world, developing concepts internally or from friends and taking nonoperated working interests. At press time Westerly was applying for concessions in Western Australia and Iraq. Weiner also has intriguing prospects along the Ouachita Thrust Belt in Arkansas, below the Fayetteville shale.

In 2001, he received the Col. Edwin L. Drake Legendary Oilman Award from the Petroleum History Institute in Pennsylvania, for a lifetime of achievement.

Investor Tell us about the early fracturing.

Weiner Stan was completing wells in West Texas that my father and brother Ted had drilled. Fracing’s an art. Stan would pack nitroglycerin in the hole with pea gravel. The explosion would fracture the rock, but it would take a long time to clean out the hole. Then hydraulic fracturing came along…patented by Standard Oil of Indiana. It did not create as much debris. Standard licensed to Halliburton, where we knew the president, L.B. Meadors, so we got permission to use this new technique. Stan helped pioneer the practical application of fracing.

Investor You were involved in the early Spraberry?

Weiner We were drilling a large field in Midland County, the Tex-Harvey, in 1948-49. Humble Oil found it but had plugged their well…we leased 12,000 acres there. We were drilling to 13,000 feet to validate the lease, but we hit oil at 8,000 feet…this area ended up being the Spraberry.

But the wells kept caving in after being fraced. On the second well we drilled personally, on the Floyd Ranch, Stan asked Halliburton to use 2,000 gallons of napalm and 2,000 pounds of sand. They said that wouldn’t benefit the frac, but Stan tried it. Lo and behold, it flowed 500 barrels a day.

We bought leases for 30 or 40 miles to the north and south, but we didn’t go back to the deeper zone; we started developing the Spraberry. Jay Floyd joined us in buying some of the leases and we JV’d with his company.

Investor What were your results?

Weiner We drilled our wells 10 miles apart, and in short order, we had five fields producing. We still collect royalties under it.

Investor What was your role at Texas Crude?

Weiner I was the little brother, the “gofer” and engineer who sat on some wells. We are still drilling in the Permian Basin.

Investor What good advice have you gotten?

Weiner Humility is essential and perseverance is terribly important. As a geologist, I was wrong so often, I knew I’d better be looking for something big to offset that. With that in mind, when I returned from Korea I moved to the Gulf Coast. I lived in Houston, Corpus Christi and New Orleans. Ted was the heart and soul of it and raised the money; I couldn’t sell gold to Fort Knox. Stanley ran the West Texas operations.

Investor How did you get into owning rigs?

Weiner We began buying and building rigs because we had so much to drill. My wife’s father was an engineer who developed pipe mills in Texas and Mexico. He talked me into going offshore and helped us design our first jackup in 1954. This was pioneering stuff. These were monstrously big things and sometimes the jacks would fail and the whole thing would tumble over. But we could work in 80 feet of water.

Investor What’s next?

Weiner We’re very active in shales. In effect, we are mining the source rock through fracing. We didn’t realize it, but that was what the Spraberry was and now we’ve come full circle 50 years later. Our strategy is to go to the white places on the map, where no one has found anything yet. But if there is any political controversy, we excuse ourselves.

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