Oil Play

Abstract

My mini-tour of the oil industry begins this cool March morning by driving around downtown Houston, Texas, the rhythmic bumps of the car passing over the seams in the elevated concrete freeway punctuating the ‘more music, less talk’ chatter of the radio station. The corralled rectangle of skyscrapers that grow upwards as if competing for the sunlight are the glaring product of the success of this oil capital, providing the flamboyant glass and steel expression expected of corporate headquarters. Leaving the city towards the east on Interstate 10, the dirty side of the industry is now in view, the jarring silhouette of steel bent into pipes and towers, occasionally venting smoke or a pale flickering flame. Here are the refineries, that industrial transition converting the crude mixture of produced hydrocarbons into their separate components, to be sold as fuels and base products for a multitude of industries.