Albuquerque Journal from Albuquerque, New Mexico • Page 77

BUSINESS Albuquerque Journal Sunday, July 29, 1984 Page 1, Section C02 Pumping Life Into Stale Economy 3-County Area Celebrates Revival I v. 7 fA MfH first electronic gas-measuring equipment to be used in New Mexico. A second phase of construction now under way includes an additional 177 wells, a second compressor plant and another pipeline. On completion at the end of the year, the $140 million development will produce 250 million cubic feet per day. Demand and market value for C02 is still undefined, but Lowell Smith, Amoco district manager, said it appears C02 recovery "will be widely implemented over many years in the Permian Basin." To reduce costly drilling, Amoco and 44 working partners are developing Bravo Dome as a unit of more than one million acres, the largest ever created, according to company C02 of the WORLD VNVA BER OF COMMERCE CLAt TON UNION CO IEEE officials.

Some 1,400 property owners will share royalties according to acreage. Most ranchers viewed the unit as a windfall and didn't balk at the idea, but 100 members of the Bravo Dome Fee and Public Landowners Association fought the plan in court. The state Supreme Court upheld the unit in late 1983. More recently, Amoco and its partners were back in court in a dispute with ranchers over pipeline right-of-way. Told by the courts that, as a private entity, it lacked condemnation power, the pipeline owners are purchasing right-of-way after private negotiations.

By SHERRY ROBINSON Journal Business Writer CLAYTON New technology and old share the horizon in northeastern New Mexico. In a place where rolling plains meet the sky in an endless seam, the distant silo may hold grain or a colorless gas destined for use in the oil patch. The ubiquitous windmill overlooks solar-powered, remote well monitors. When Amoco Production Co. held an open house Thursday to commemorate the beginning of C02 production, its Houston officials wanted to show off state-of-the-art compressor facilities and telecommunications system.

But from the barbecue served up by the Hayden Cowboy Club to the enthusiasm of local officials, it was also the celebration of an economic revival. On the production end, the colorless, odorless gas fizz in soda pop and dry ice in its frozen state is creating jobs in three depressed counties. On the usage end, C02from Bravo Dome Reservoir will coax another crop of oil out of older, Permian Basin wells on the New Mexico-Texas border. Within sight of Amoco's gleaming hardware, deserted houses list like shipwrecks in a sea of grass, monuments to hard times on the high plains. Fifty years ago, Union County was known for fine beef and dairy herds, grains and beans.

But droughts, the Great Depression and, more recently, expensive irrigation pumping, have locked the area in a 40-year decline. With young people drifting off to seek jobs, Union, Harding and Quay counties lost 37.6 percent of their population after 1930, according to U.S. Census figures. Harding County's population is a quarter of what it was. It would take technology and an energy crisis to change a worthless gas to "cold gold." Drillers walked away from Bueyeros Well No.

1 and let it blow wide open for a year before they sealed and abandoned it. In 1916, the American Production Corp. was looking for oil. What they found was carbon dioxide, a gas considered worthless until the railroad gave it modest value when it needed dry ice. Amoco began acquiring leases in the Bravo Dome area in 1971, shortly after the process known as miscible flooding was first tested.

Results showed that C02 mixed completely with globules of oil, like thinner in old paint; another IS to 25 percent was recoverable after conventional methods (natural pressure followed by water) were exhausted. It took the first squeeze of the OPEC vise to make C02 flooding attractive to the oil industry, however. Then it became very attractive. Conservative industry estimates pegged recovery from the Permian Basin alone at more than 2 billion barrels; the Department of Energy raised that estimate to 10.4 billion. Amoco calculated that tertiary recovery in the Permian Basin, where it had operated since 1928, could use several trillion cubic feet of C02 over several decades.

Bravo Dome dazzled geologists for its size largest in the world at 8 to 10 trillion cubic feet recoverable and purity of 98 percent. The reservoir is relatively close to the surface at an average of 2,200 feet deep. And it's reasonably close to the basin where it can be used. Amoco launched its project, the first phase of which ended in April with 50 wells and 50 miles of gathering lines all converging on the newly opened compressor plant. There the gas is dehydrated and squeezed into a pipeline that originates in southern Colorado's Sheep Mountain Dome for a 210-mile journey south to Denver City.

The system is monitored by the Amoco's Gleaming Hardware at State-of-the-Art Compressor Facilities "What I dream is that 5 or 10 years from now, this will be a model for the industry, that we can point to Clayton as the place where it was done right." Amoco Division Production Manager Ron Barnett made the comment in 1981. Thursday, during "Amoco Appreciation Week" in Clayton, Mayor Jimmy Butt told 200 people gathered to commemorate the start of carbon dioxide production that Amoco "has really made an effort to do it right." Nobody has fussed much about environmental impacts or disruption of lifestyle, chronic laments of boomtowns. The town has already weathered one boom-bust cycle, but strains don't resemble the nightmarish experiences of boomtowns like Rock Springs, and Grants because city fathers and the companies have learned. Where companies once regarded field towns as occupied territory, if they regarded them at all, Amoco directed its employees to get involved in local activities. The handshake and grin of Amoco's Johnny Johnson became a familiar sight in Clayton after 1980.

Initially cautioning locals against hasty expansions, he also worked with officials to plan for growth. Amoco also phased its development to avoid overwhelming the small community. Clayton availed itself of funding from the Continued on G-2 Jfy Journal Photoi by Sherry Robinaoo Crew Works on "Cold-Gold" Pipeline Near Clayton He's Talked His Way to Success Special Talent's in Tune With the Time Fast, Fast, Fast 'it I By HAROLD COUSLAND Journal Business Editor "OKEunice.travelplans.Ineed-tobeinNewYorkonWednesday.L.A.on-Thur?aay,NewYorkonFriday,Gotit?" -John Moschitta Jr. can probably say all that faster than you can say Duke of Albuquerque. IJut, then, he calls himself the world's talker, and he has jabbered his way into making a bundle doing television commercials.

His most famous was done four years ago the Federal Express commercial in which Moschitta, as a monotonal, motor-mouthed executive named Spleen, chairs the swiftest business meeting in history. You know the one: while gulping lunch, he puts' a new man in charge in Pittsburgh in rapid-fire fashion: "Iknowit's Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh sperfec If you can say that tongue twister at 534 words a minute, you can equal Moschitta. Actually, he says he slows down to six to At. Mb.

him down, he decided to take on the "fast-talking record." Moschitta worked the "to be or not to be" soliloquy up to record speed, but unfortunately, there was no Guinness representative at the fair so he was forced to await fame. He sang in his school choir, had some college stage roles and played 16 roles in Neil Simon's "Little Me." He has also worked in a mental health clinic and as a fast-food clown. The latter job was short-lived. He retired his clown suit when kidnapped at knife-point during opening-day ceremonies at a Jack-in-the-Box in Queens. He was giving away cotton candy and little plastic animals when a couple of guys grabbed him and started carrying him down the street.

"I was wearing this hot, heavy costume, and kids were screaming, 'They're taking the and then those guys dropped me on the pavement and took off," he recalls. He then got into TV game-show produc-, Continued on G-2 1 eight words a second for commercials so the separate words can be understood. The actor was in Albuquerque to tape commercials for the Albuquerque Journal including some TV commercials for Business Outlook the newspaper's new Monday business tabloid which will start Aug. 6. Moschitta, whose wit is as fast as his tongue, noted he will turn 30 that day, which he also observed is the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshime and is Lucille Ball's birthday.

How on earth did he learn to talk so fast for so long? His stock answer is that he has five sisters (he is the oldest child in the family) and he has to talk that fast just to get a word in edgewise. Actually, he been practicing talking fast every day since he was 12 years old in Long Island, N.Y., when he was seeking a way to get into the Guinness Book of World Records. First, he had read a news story stating that Guinness would have a booth at a Cerebral Palsy fair. He wanted to break the record for repeated rides on a roller coaster, but when Coney Island turned John Moschitta Jr. Fastest Mouth in the World?.