South Texas Oil Boom – The STOB Impact
Insider insights into the South Texas Oil Boom
Everything is bigger in Texas. Gas and oil wells in Texas are so big they can be seen from outer space at night. NASA satellite images display a thick band of dots that glow like stars along the Eagle Ford Shale and Serpentine Plug. Those “stars” are actually the gas flares that burn through the night at the gas and oil wells.
Oil and Texas are as comfortable together as bread and butter, but it has been George Mitchell’s innovations in fracking and horizontal drilling that have revolutionized how to access fossil fuels trapped underground. Although his ideas were not taken seriously initially, Mitchell drastically changed the American economy and how gas and oil wells are drilled today.
Although the impact of the South Texas oil boom may be far-reaching, small communities within Texas have felt the impact. Areas within south Texas, previously poverty-stricken and under-resourced, now flourish. In areas such as Cotulla, where Lyndon Johnson taught before heading into politics, deep poverty was crushing. However, the past few years have tripled the population, increased sales by millions, and transformed the community with new roads and facilities. The South Texas oil boom represents a wealth of opportunities for those within Texas as well as the gas and oil investors who make it possible…but the effects of the South Texas oil boom will ripple across the world.
