Hard times have hit the oil fields. A barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude has dropped from a high of over $100 to less than $50. But Tracy Perryman, a small oilman in Luling, Texas, has learned how to survive the lean times.<\/p>\n

Oil companies that take on a lot of debt sometimes don’t survive the downturns. But veterans of oil busts have learned how to plan for the inevitable price plunges.<\/p>\n

Perryman’s family has been in the oil business in Luling since the 1920s, when a wildcatter drilled down a half-mile through ancient limestone and struck a small but productive field measuring 2-by-12 miles. Nearly a century later, the Luling field, located about an hour south of Austin, is still active \u2014 there are about 9,000 producing wells in Caldwell County.<\/p>\n

They have made a good living for Perryman, production manager of B.J.P. Inc. Unlike the stereotype of the flamboyant, boorish Texas oilman, Perryman wears work clothes and speaks softly.<\/p>\n

Digging into a slice of smoky brisket in the dining room of Luling City Market, he looks out the window and considers what the price drop has meant for traffic rumbling through his hometown.<\/p>\n

“Gravel trucks, oil field trucks, oil haulers, rigs … going right through Luling \u2014 it’s maybe half as much or less in activity than it was when oil was $100 a barrel,” he says.<\/p>\n

As it happens, the Luling field lies just north of the monster-sized\u00a0Eagle Ford Shale formation, which has become one of the world’s most prolific fields thanks to fracking and horizontal drilling.<\/p>\n