As any faithful reader of this publication is aware, serving our readers is the top editorial mission at Oil & Gas Journal.
This function, however, is a two-way street. This is manifest in the many letters to the editor published in the pages just following the OGJ Newsletter.
We serve electronic readers with the Forums section of OGJ Online, the website that accompanies the printed Oil & Gas Journal. Many readers use OGJ Online to exchange information with others in the industry.
Sometimes, though, a response from a reader warrants more than simple reproduction in the letters pages. That is judged to be the case with this column.
The readers write
The subscriber list shows that OGJ has about 35,000 paid subscribers worldwide, with readers in practically every country.
The printed magazine is published weekly, and the editorial matter is posted weekly on the OGJ Online website for almost instant access on a computer.
Many OGJ readers have been members of the industry for decades. This is the case of William T. Stoeckinger, a certified petroleum geologist living in Bartlesville, Okla.
Mr. Stoeckinger is one of many readers in a group we call "friends of the Journal."
These people do not carry cards or get free subscriptions. No one knows how many exist, but certainly over the years, thousands have fit the category.
Journal friends are people who have gone out of their way by various means to participate in and enhance the exhaustive worldwide coverage you see every week. They do this by submitting articles, writing letters, and simply staying in touch with and providing information to the editors.
Libya through the decades
Mr. Stoeckinger could not help writing a letter to OGJ after reading the material regarding the Lasmo Group`s drilling success in southwesternmost Libya (OGJ, May 17, 1999, pp. 65-66).
The article about Lasmo`s Elephant oil discovery there contained a photo of a boulder field of black rocks in the Murzuk basin. The article "understated the difficulties in navigating this ocean of black quartzite cobbles," Stoeckinger wrote.
"In 1958, along with an intrepid pair of archaeologists from The Hagueellipsewe (two Amoseas geologists) camped out at the southern edge of this vast boulder field where it transitions into the Murzuk sand-sea," Stoeckinger wrote to OGJ.
"Much to our surprise, a closer examination of these `boulders` showed them to be Paleolithic ax heads, chipped on one side only. The count was astronomical. What a battle must have occurred.
"Could the distinctively pyramid-shaped black boulders shown glistening in the sun in the photograph on page 66 be the working of human hands in pre-Egyptian days, when this part of Libya was much less arid, densely populated, and far more hospitable?," Stoeckinger asked.
