Comments on: Comment of the Day: Big Oil Town

By: Rodrigo

Rodrigo — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 16:38:13 +0000

@Toasty: This sounds like an interesting story, any good articles about the boom and bust in Houston specifically?

By: toasty

toasty — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 21:14:00 +0000

@JR, I certainly remember, as I’ve lived in Houston my whole life (wouldn’t trade it for anywhere else). It’s amazing that what we see today was largely shaped by what happened in the 80s.

We learned a lot and as a city we are much more diversified, I personally still read the headlines about how popular Houston has become and can’t help but recall the early 80s and wonder how long we have before we go bust again…

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 19:54:55 +0000

This development reminds me of the Simpson’s episode where they move to “Cypress Creek” and Scorpio is the boss. Heavenly homes and a community where everyone works at the same place. It’s all too good until the boss tries to take over the world and the Navy Seals drop in from above.

By: iMidget

iMidget — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 18:34:17 +0000

So Exxon’s development of Kingwood lacked the office space and subsequent development of Greenspoint lacked the neighborhood? Finally combining the two?

Houston: Stamped out by Exxon, one experiment at a time.

By: mek ju

mek ju — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 18:20:34 +0000

@J.R. If it sticks, we Houstonians will refer to them as Exxiles.

By: J.R.

J.R. — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 17:03:07 +0000

toasty, Okay…So in your view OPEC has more influence on the community…I agree there too..In the mid 80′s Aramco flooded the market with oil…cutting prices to record lows at the time…many lost their jobs…Ask anyone (50+ years of age) still in the oil patch about the the mid 80′s….After a sigh and a head shaking…followed by a story of how they lost or almost lost their homes…you will understand.

By: HTX REZ

HTX REZ — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:07:33 +0000

This is Exxon learning from their mistakes at Greenspoint. Invest in your adjacent property, and your employees will live and reinvest there too.

Can you imagine 10,000 employees level of additioanl productivity when they are spending 1-1.5 hours less in frustrating traffic, more time with their families or at the office instead?

I just moved companies to a nice office 10 minutes from my house rather than cross town, and you can see the shat eating grin on my face daily.

By: toasty

toasty — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:02:59 +0000

so long as demand is greater than supply, it will keep the price of oil up, no matter the policy made by our government.

By: Craig

Craig — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 15:54:13 +0000

Even if I worked for EOM (ENB here) I would never live that close to work. It’s not healthy.

My father-in-law and I both worked at Compaq. The homes near CPQ, as nice as they were, became known as the CPQ Slums.

Sluming being it was bad enough you had to see those fools at work, but now you see them next door, at the Quickie Mart, yada, yada, yada.

There was nowhere to hide and no secrets. If you wanted privacy you lived in the city.

By: J.R.

J.R. — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 15:44:27 +0000

heyzues, I bet you one oil spill you will change your view…

By: Eric

Eric — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 15:37:38 +0000

I wish our government worked as efficiently as ExxonMobil.

By: heyzeus

heyzeus — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 14:46:45 +0000

There will be no change in government policy that makes the provision of oil and gasoline unprofitable. We’re relentlessly addicted to it. Regulations in the U.S. can only have the negligible effect of making these global commodities slightly more expensive to the consumer. No problem for Exxon; demand is inelastic, they can just pass those prices on to us.