“I apologize for monopolizing the microphone, but I’m the senior senator, so the hell with it.”
– Sen. Pat Roberts during a Kansas Independent Oil and Gas Association panel discussion in Wichita Monday that included Sen. Jerry Moran and Reps. Mike Pompeo, Tim Huelskamp and Lynn Jenkins
“I want to know what 12 people out of 100 think we are doing a good job! They’re out of their mind.”
— Republican Rep. Lynn Jenkins, commenting today at the Kansas Independent Oil and Gas Association annual meeting about a recent poll that showed 12 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing
UPDATED — An oil acquisition has led to a new lease at Twin Lakes Office Park at 1900 N. Amidon.
Pennsylvania-based Empire Energy is establishing a Wichita office in 1,600 square feet at Twin Lakes.
“We’ve just bought a whole bunch of oil wells in Kansas,” says president and co-CEO Bruce McLeod.
He says his company has purchased about 220 operating wells from TNT Engineering. McLeod says the wells produce about 550 barrels a day for a value of about $57 million.
Lewis Kelley of Landmark Commercial Real Estate handled the lease.
McLeod says Empire is looking for other wells, too.
“We’re looking to expand in Kansas,” he says.
McLeod is a little puzzled by Kansas weather, though.
“Wichita seems like a nice place, although it seems to get very cold there,” he says. “I arrived in a blizzard and left in sunshine.”
WICHITA — Earlier this summer, Have You Heard? reported when the Minnesota Guys moved their Real Development office out of Broadway Plaza and into the Wichita Executive Centre.
Now, Blue Diamond Energy is moving into the almost 3,300-square-foot space the Minnesota Guys vacated on the first floor of Broadway Plaza, which is at the southwest corner of Douglas and Broadway.
“That gives us a little bit of a storefront, if you will,” says president Ryan Schweizer.
He and business partner Travis Forsberg, who previously was president of Sapphire Energy of Wichita, made the decision.
Blue Diamond is mainly a petroleum land services company that consults with businesses across the country, but its primary client base is here.
Specifically, they are a lot of the same people who will be heading to the Petroleum Club across the street and to the Kansas Independent Oil and Gas Association, which also is in Broadway Plaza.
WICHITA — Vanguard Petroleum is moving from the Wichita Executive Centre at 125 N. Market to Market Centre at First and Market. But president Todd Aikins won’t be making the move.
Aikins is forming Aikins Exploration and remaining in the space Vanguard currently subleases from Edmiston Oil.
“I used to . . . be on my own,” Aikins says.
Then he went into the jewelry appraisal business before getting back into the oil business.
“The oil industry started to get pretty exciting again last year,” he says.
But it’s not his only interest.
“I’ve just got so many outside interests,” Aikins says. “I couldn’t devote the time to it . . . the company really deserves.”
Vanguard founder J. Paul Jennings will serve as interim president until a new president is hired.
Aikins will leave at the end of the month. Vanguard moves to Market Centre Dec. 1.
Adam Clements of Grubb & Ellis/Martens Commercial Group handled the transaction.
“We’ve just been real active,” he says of Market Centre. “We’re still signing leases.”