“Just do what you did for your buddy Terry.”, I often hear when talking to one of our producer clients.

They are referring to, of course, Terry Pegula and the sale of his company to Royal Dutch Shell for $4.7 billion dollars and our company’s marketing and transportation strategies that helped him do it.

When you have been in the natural gas marketing business for as long as gas marketing has been a business, it should surprise no one when you become aligned with very successful natural gas producers and consumers. Brilliant businesses and their people seem to have a way to converge when goals and philosophies are shared.

From a distance, the enormous volume of natural gas managed by our company may appear daunting. But when you realize that each molecule of that precious hydrocarbon has been carefully choreographed from its initial gathering, processing and transportation until the final agreement for sale, you begin to appreciate our efforts. Efforts carried out in such a way, by such talented and experienced people that it becomes abundantly clear why our company is the energy partner with so many extraordinary companies.

Whether it is an end-use customer who has shared their business plan with us and the importance natural gas plays to a bottom line or a driller/producer who simply points their finger to a spot on a map, the directive to Vineyard Oil and Gas Company is always the same: figure it out and help us become successful. And that is exactly what we do.

 

Letters from the president

Imagine…

Imagine being in a business for forty years. What was once new and groundbreaking is now normal-course, commonplace; it makes you often say, “remember when?”.

There was no such thing as natural gas deregulation when we began our company almost 4 decades ago. In fact, natural gas was in very short supply in the mid 1970s. And then, ambitious laws were written to allow for competition and the free market to take hold (think The Natural Gas Policy Act as an example). Fast forward to today, and we see a boon to an industry making more gas than ever imaginable.

Yes, the shale revolution combined with well thought out pipeline regulations are creating inexpensive energy, industry and industry related jobs, national security and a sense of American pride sorely missing since Grand dad’s steel mill closed. We find the stuff here, we make it come out of the ground and we make sure it gets to those who need it. Safe, clean and profitable. The natural gas industry was good in 1978. It’s great today.

Our trading room lights up to a whirl of activity each morning. One day I said to the gang, “remember when you only had to drill a well, sell what comes out to a pipeline and then go home?”. I get blank stares. I’ll press further. “ Remember when we hit a well that made 300 mcfs per day and we drank champagne to celebrate?” A voice from behind a computer screen retorted, “Big deal Steve…as of this year, we market that amount of natural gas every minute of every day!”

Forty years ago we drilled a gas well in a Vineyard. Today, each day, we market one half a billion cubic feet of natural gas for and to some of the greatest companies in the United States. Imagine…

Steve Millis, President
Vineyard Oil & Gas