"In most jobs, the professional actually sees what he’s working on. The carpenter sees the nail he’s hitting, the truck driver sees the road ahead, and the doctor sees the spleen he’s venting, but as drillers, we have it a little harder."

"From the smallest house well jobs, to the most technically challenging deep water oil wells, attention to detail has made the difference between success and failure."

Years ago, when I started in the drilling business, training of new hands was almost non-existent. Drillers expected new hands to know what to do and how to do it without any instruction – almost as if they were supposed to be born with the knowledge of how to make the tongs bite or slip the drill line.

The blowout, fire and sinking of the rig Deepwater Horizon, and the tragic loss of 11 of our peers in the drilling industry, will be with us much longer than it takes to clean up the environmental mess.

“The drilling industry has been tied to the environment for its entire history.”

"Drilling rigs historically have been built to last longer than almost any commercial product, except maybe fine musical instruments."

"I’ve just spent a few weeks in Eastern Europe, and it sure was a learning experience."

"In the drilling business, unscheduled events can be the bane of our existence. One of the most common – and most costly – is stuck pipe."

In addition to the shale gas that is starting to take off, there is another source of gas in the United States that is underutilized – coalbed methane.

"Often, we don’t get to pick the locations we drill on or the formations we may encounter. The customer hires us to be able to drill any formation, anywhere, so we’ve got to be prepared ..."