Editors Note:
Our editors liked this column because it explains so well the term “Wildcatter,” in the oil and gas industry. John Yates was a leader in the industry, a major force in New Mexico business and a wildcatter. He was the uncle of Harvey Yates, Jr., a founding member of the Rio Grande Sun ownership group, El Rito Media, LLC., who had no input in the selection of this column but is also a wildcatter himself.
Of all the honors John A. Yates received in his long life, he was most proud of being named Chief Roughneck of the Year by the Independent Petroleum Association of America in 1996. The same year, he was American Wildcatter of the Year.
As Santa Fe bureaucrats anticipate record oil and gas revenues next year, it’s sadly ironic that an industry giant could pass with little or no notice. On Nov. 21, John A. Yates died at home in Artesia at 93. He was a mainstay in a very tough business.
The Yates dynasty began with John’s father, Martin Yates Jr., and mother, Mary Emmons Yates, who are New Mexico legends. Martin drilled the first commercial well on state land in 1924 in an area experts considered worthless; Mary chose the spot.
Their four sons – Harvey, Martin II, St. Clair Peyton, and John – followed their father into the business. But Martin left them only shares of other companies, not a business for them to inherit, according to the obituary. The sons forged their own place in the industry. Each one became a wildcatter with separate ventures.
A wildcatter isn’t just somebody in the oil business. Mike Sheldon, of the Oily Stuff blog, defines wildcatters as “intrepid, hardworking, hard-playing oil explorers who came from little and risked everything to accumulate fortunes.” A wildcatter, he writes, has cojones and uses his own money.
“Who cares? you ask. It’s just a word,” Sheldon writes. “Well, I care. History matters. Every day the oil and gas industry loses a piece of itself to internet experts who just a decade ago knew nothing about oil and gas… When journalists call the wrong people wildcatters, they are in effect cancelling 140 years of oilfield culture; they are confusing the use of other people’s money with courage.”
The Yates brothers developed some of New Mexico’s largest, most significant fields, which in turn spawned supporting industries – well servicing, pipelines, refineries – that have poured money into state coffers ever since.
In 1960, John persuaded his brothers to operate together as Yates Petroleum Corp., a closely held oil and natural gas company headquartered in Artesia. The brothers and their offspring kept their individual companies.
John founded Abo Petroleum Corp. in 1968 and drilled in the Pecos Slope Abo Field, an area experts considered salt and sand. Ultimately, he drilled more than 400 producing wells in several years. That made him a wildcatter.
Because a wildcatter also learns to sling heavy cables and pipes on the derrick floor, he also earned title of roughneck.
In 1996 John received the Chief Roughneck Award, “a lifetime achievement recognition honoring an individual whose accomplishments and character best represent the highest ideals of the oil and gas industry. It symbolizes the spirit, the determination, the leadership and the integrity of those who have left their mark in the business,” according to award sponsor U. S. Steel Tubular Products.
John was appointed by five presidents to serve on the National Petroleum Council advisory committee. His other offices and honors are too numerous to list in this space.
The alternative weekly Crosswinds noted in 1996 that the Yates family didn’t use trust funds to convey wealth to the next generation. “In the Yates clan, you form your own firm, get out there, take a lot of risks—and maybe even lose your shirt,” the paper wrote. The Yates empire was more “a collection of individual fiefdoms,” sometimes allied and sometimes competing, and yet “family relations are described as extremely cordial and cooperative.”
In 2016 John was chairman emeritus of the company when it was sold to EOG Resources Inc. for $2.5 billion. The company had 300 employees and operated thousands of wells. It was the end of an era.
Critics always make it about the money, but John A. Yates and his relations loved the business – the adventure of exploration, the excitement of discovery, the satisfaction of harvesting a valuable product that creates jobs and greases the wheels of the nation’s economy.
Yes, things have changed. Yes, we must respond to climate change. But it shouldn’t keep us from saluting those who brought us this far.
© 2022 NEW MEXICO NEWS SERVICES