Michel T. Halbouty
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Michel Thomas Halbouty (21 June 1909 in Beaumont, Texas – 6 November 2004 in Houston, Texas) was an American
geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althoug ...
, petroleum engineer, and
wildcatter A wildcatter is an individual who drills wildcat wells, which are exploration oil wells drilled in areas not known to be oil fields. Notable wildcatters include Glenn McCarthy, Thomas Baker Slick Sr., Mike Benedum, Joe Trees, Clem S. Clarke, ...
. Credited with discovering more than 50 oil and gas fields, he twice declared bankruptcy, but came back each time to regain wealth. He authored hundreds of technical articles on petroleum geology, and two book-length histories of famous oil fields. Halbouty is often described, including in his ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' obituary, as “legendary.”


Biography

Halbouty's father, a Lebanese immigrant, ran a grocery store. Michel Halbouty got his first job in the oil business as a boy, bringing ice water to the drillers at the Spindletop oil field south of Beaumont. He enrolled at
Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...
at age 16. Although he was short of funds, the president of the university personally gave him a $50 loan to cover tuition. He was graduated in 1930 with a double degree in
geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ea ...
and petroleum engineering. The following year he gained a master's degree from Texas A&M, again in both Geology and Petroleum Engineering. He always wore his A&M ring on his left-hand ring finger, and was instrumental in persuading George H. W. Bush to locate his presidential library on the A&M campus. He discovered his first oil field in 1931, only six weeks out of college, when as a wellsite geologist for the Yount-Lee Oil Co. he drove from the wellsite and interrupted a formal dinner party at the owner's home to persuade the owner not to abandon an apparent dry hole, but to drill deeper. Halbouty staked his job on the result, and drilled into the prolific High Island Field in Texas. Halbouty served in the US Army during
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, as an infantry officer, instructor in military science and tactics, and as Chief of the Petroleum Production Section of the Army-Navy Petroleum Board. He attained the rank of
Lieutenant-Colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colo ...
by the end of the war. Halbouty was an outspoken proponent of increased American domestic exploration for oil and gas, rather than reliance on foreign sources. He was highly critical of oil companies that cut back exploration efforts in the period of low oil prices during the 1980s and 90s, and especially of the efforts of T. Boone Pickens to dismantle exploration departments at various US oil companies. Halbouty was fond of citing
Wallace Pratt Wallace Everette Pratt (1885–1981) was a pioneer American petroleum geologist. He is also notable for helping establish Guadalupe Mountains National Park through his donation of McKittrick Canyon. Biography Born in Phillipsburg, Kansas, M ...
's dictum that "Oil is found in the minds of men", to encourage more creativity in oil exploration. Halbouty died at age 95, while working on a West Texas oil project.


Honors and offices

* President of the
American Association of Petroleum Geologists The American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) is one of the world's largest professional geological societies with more than 40,000 members across 129 countries as of 2021. The AAPG works to "advance the science of geology, especially as ...
(AAPG), 1966 *
American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers The American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers (AIME) is a professional association for mining and metallurgy, with over 145,000 members. It was founded in 1871 by 22 mining engineers in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Uni ...
(AIME) honorary membership, 1973
Horatio Alger Award
1978 *
Hoover Medal The Hoover Medal is an American engineering prize. It has been given since 1930 for "outstanding extra-career services by engineers to humanity". The prize is given jointly by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, American Institute of Mi ...
recipient, 1982 * Honorary "Doctor of Geoscience" degree from the
USSR Academy of Sciences The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991, uniting the country's leading scientists, subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (until 1946 ...
, 1990; the only such honor awarded to a scientist outside the Soviet Union. * Michel T. Halbouty Geosciences Building at Texas A&M College of Geosciences * The American Association of Petroleum Geologists awards th
Michel T. Halbouty Outstanding Leadership Award
to those providing "outstanding and exceptional leadership" in petroleum geosciences. * Scientific adviser to the Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development,
People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
* Elected to membership,
Chinese Academy of Engineering The Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE, ) is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for engineering. It was established in 1994 and is an institution of the State Council of China. The CAE and the Chinese Academy of Sciences ...
* Honorary Professor in Geology,
Nanjing University Nanjing University (NJU; ) is a national public research university in Nanjing, Jiangsu. It is a member of C9 League and a Class A Double First Class University designated by the Chinese central government. NJU has two main campuses: the Xian ...
, 1993"A legendary scientist"
''Geotimes'', Nov. 2001.

recipient from the
American Geological Institute The American Geosciences Institute (AGI) is a nonprofit federation of about 50 geoscientific and professional organizations that represents geologists, geophysicists, and other earth scientists. The organization was founded in 1948. The name of ...
, 2002 * Halbouty Road in
Nikiski, Alaska Nikiski is a census-designated place (CDP) in Kenai Peninsula Borough, Alaska, United States. The population was 4,456 at the 2020 census, down from 4,493 in 2010. Geography Nikiski is located at (60.707891, -151.262646) on the west side of the ...


Published works

Halbouty wrote 370 articles and six books.


Selected articles

* "Rationale for deliberate pursuit of stratigraphic, unconformity, and paleogeomorphic traps," in ''Stratigraphic Oil and Gas Fields'', (1972) Tulsa, Okla.: American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Special Publication 10, p. 3-7.
"Exploration into the new millennium"
in ''Petroleum Provinces of the Twenty-First Century'', (2001) Tulsa, Okla.:
American Association of Petroleum Geologists The American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) is one of the world's largest professional geological societies with more than 40,000 members across 129 countries as of 2021. The AAPG works to "advance the science of geology, especially as ...
, Memoir 74.


Books

* ''Petrographic and Physical Characteristics of Sands from Seven Gulf Coast Producing Horizons'', 1937, Houston, Tex.: Gulf Publ. Co. * ''Spindletop'' (with James A. Clark), 1952, New York: Random House, * ''Salt Domes, Gulf Region, United States and Mexico'', 1969, Houston, Tex.: Gulf Publ. Co. * ''Ahead of His Time; Michel T. Halbouty Speaks to the People'', (ed. by James A. Clark) 1971, Houston, Tex.: Gulf Publ. Co. * ''The Last Boom'' (with James A. Clark), 1972, New York: Random House, . * ''Drilling in The Future'' (with Aidil Yunus B. Ismail), jan2014, Tronoh. Malaysia.


References


Further reading

* Jack Donohue, (1979) ''Wildcatter: the Story of Michel T. Halbouty and the Search for Oil'', New York: McGraw-Hill, * Jack Donohue, (1990) ''War Without End: Michel T. Halbouty's Fight for American Energy Security'', Houston, Tex.: Gulf Pub. Co, (0-87201-921-7) {{DEFAULTSORT:Halbouty, Michel T. American petroleum geologists 1909 births 2004 deaths Texas A&M University alumni American people of Lebanese descent People from Beaumont, Texas 20th-century American geologists Foreign members of the Chinese Academy of Engineering