Some Peak Oil Humor….

Texas Oil Buffoon Pumping 8,000 Barrels Of Oil Into Ground Every Day

ODESSA, TX

Known far and wide as “the biggest oil buffoon in Texas,” T. Ludlow Banks earned his unmatched reputation by doing things his way. He pioneered the practice of cutting in as many middlemen as possible. At a time when others were reducing costs, he put employee comfort first, issuing free cigarettes and Zippo lighters to every person working at his refineries, drilling platforms, and filling stations. And, in his most unorthodox move to date, he imported custom-built Italian machinery to pump more than 8,000 barrels of high-grade oil right back into the ground each day.

Banks remains, perhaps, the last true Texas oil buffoon, a breed most thought had died out with the Noodle Deal. But since 1965, he has transformed the Banks family’s enormous inheritance into what experts agree is now a small fortune. Some call him the “epitome of a self-unmade man,” and petrochemical geologists grudgingly agree that without Banks’ unique scheme to get sweet crude oil into his 3,500 acres of rich pastureland, there would be no way to draw oil from soil once believed to be suitable only for grazing cattle.

The Onion