Giddings Field

Giddings Field

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Rocking the established boat can cause waves or in some cases a tsunami. When I moved to the Houston E&P Office I created a some very large waves. Here’s the story.

 

 

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Giddings Field

 

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When I moved to the Houston E&P Office as head of the Gas Plant and Systems Engineering Group, the Central Texas Area was just booming. We had just started up Giddings Gas Plant and we were connecting gas to the systems at a very fast rate. Corporate Engineering had been brought in to contract and ramrod the construction and I immediately started attending contractor meetings about another new plant called Benedum Plant in the area. Corporate Engineering had been given a free hand and were ordering many more 580 horsepower field compression units and pipe for the gathering systems than seemed necessary and I started asking questions to try to slow things down. Well, this pissed off a few Corporate Engineering people in Bartlesville, but I really didn’t care and we did get them slowed down.

 

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A skid mounted gas powered gas compressor unit used to compress raw natural gas to pipeline pressure of about 800 psig to feed the gas processing plants in the Central Texas Area..

 

 

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The Central Texas area had grown so fast, that we needed a central maintenance facility and operations offices for the area and I got with the area personal and picked out a 10 acre site next to the highway. We had the option to do the job ourselves if it was under $1,000,000, so my cost estimate for the new facility was for $995,000 after contact with local contractors for input. I submitted the project to management and it was immediately approved. I received a call the next day from Corporate Engineering and they asked when we wanted them to start work and I told them we were going to do this job ourselves and the shit hit the fan. I was on the phone all day talking to various people in Bartlesville, but they finally sorted it out and we were off and running. I assigned one of my engineers full time to the project and he prepared a bid packet with input from all pertinent field personnel and we selected a contractor. The field people were involved in all aspects of the project and in one year, we had a facility delivered on schedule and below the estimated cost which fit all our needs. With the new facility and some added personnel, we started to do much more of our own construction and got control of our spending. All the field people were happy, I was happy, and my management was happy. They saw fit to promote me out of that job after a year and one half in Houston even though I did not want to move.

 

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The raw natural gas is gathered and compressed to gas plant processing pressure. The lean natural gas is separated and sent to homes and industrial sites to burn as fuel. The natural gas liquids components are separated and sold as ethanes,  propane, butane, and heptanes plus for gasoline fuel.

 

 

 

Thanks for reading Giddings Field,
Bill