Lloyd N. Unsell, who rose from reporting for a small Oklahoma newspaper to become one of the US oil and gas industry’s most influential leaders in Washington, DC, as president of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, died on Apr. 7. He was 84.
Unsell joined IPAA in 1948 and retired in 1987.
In a foreword to memoirs he had begun (the early chapters of which appear on the American Oil and Gas Historical Society’s web site at www.aoghs.org), he wrote:
“The domestic oil and gas industry historically has been the target of as much unfounded criticism and counterproductive intrusion by government as any economic entity in America, and most assuredly has been shaped in part by misguided political actions and effluvium. I hasten to add, because I’m not an apologist for oil and gas, that the industry at times clearly invited some lumps by its own mistakes. I should add too that it has been the beneficiary of positive policies put in place by legislative leaders concerned for the country’s energy future.”
Oklahoma roots
Born in Henryetta, Okla., Unsell became a reporter for the Seminole [Okla.] Daily Producer in 1945 after military service during World War II. He later worked at the Tulsa World.
He joined IPAA as a staff writer for its monthly magazine, Petroleum Independent, and rose through the association as vice-president of public affairs to become executive vice-president in 1976, a job title changed to president in 1985.
During Unsell’s tenure, IPAA and its members worked to end price controls on interstate natural gas, which had existed since 1954, and on crude oil, which US President Richard M. Nixon imposed as part of an effort to fight inflation in the mid-1970s. Gas price controls changed when the Natural Gas Policy Act became law in 1978 and ended in 1985. President Ronald Reagan lifted oil price controls soon after taking office in 1981, but the industry had to endure a crude oil windfall profit tax, which independent producers vigorously opposed, from 1980 to 1988.
Under Unsell’s leadership, IPAA’s committees grew in stature. The cost study panel tracked drilling and oil field service prices. The natural gas group worked to remove market controls and improve relations with pipelines. And the supply-demand committee’s twice-yearly forecasting sessions attracted economists and planners from major oil companies to debate industry trends with leading independent producers.
Formed coalitions
Unsell was not bashful about confronting issues important to independent producers. But he also formed coalitions with leaders from other oil and gas industry segments, as well as other businesses, to address matters of broader importance.
“He was incredible. He was a giant,” recalled Gene Ames, a former IPAA chairman and chief executive of Venus Oil Co., San Antonio. “You could thank Lloyd for the stripper well producers’ exemption from price controls. He worked with [Sen.] Lloyd Bentsen [D-Tex.] on that. He also worked to preserve the intangible drilling costs exemption when it came under attack in the 1980s.”
“In a way,” said Barry Russell, IPAA’s current president, “he was a throwback to a time when there was much more power with committee chairmen in Congress. You always had the sense you were in the presence of a statesman, even though he wasn’t an elected official or part of the government, because he cared so much about this country and its energy policies.”
Unsell worked with other groups on issues like tax reform and energy policy, said Russell, who joined IPAA in 1980, adding: “He never talked negatively about anybody, even political adversaries.”
’Environmental purism’
In the foreword to his memoirs, Unsell recalled the industry’s political critics since World War II, “some who could justify industry-bashing as a strategy to advance their controlling philosophies, and some who were opportunists adept at recognizing any vulnerable target when it entered their field of vision.”
He wrote, “Much of that has changed now. In fact, sheer antioil demagoguery once rampant in Washington has all but disappeared, but environmental purism has become so identified with the public weal that political actions addressing the nation’s energy policy dilemmas seem less likely than ever.”
Less known than Unsell’s IPAA leadership was his work for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall in the early 1980s. He was cochair of the corporate advisory committee, which raised more than $1 million in contributions. The US petroleum industry provided more than any other business.
