Oklahoma: A Story Through Her People

GHK COMPANY
The Hefner family roots run deep in
Oklahoma, from statehood, less than two
years after which Judge Robert A. Hefner
opened his law practice, founded the oil
and gas firm The Hefner Company, and
later was Justice of the Supreme Court of
Oklahoma; to his son Robert A. Hefner, Jr.,
who assumed leadership of The Hefner
Company, then subsequently formed The
Hefner Production Company and drilled
many oil wells throughout Oklahoma; to the
continuation of the Hefner legacy with his son
Robert A. Hefner III, who graduated from the
University of Oklahoma in 1957 and founded
The GHK Company (www.ghkco.com) in
Oklahoma City in 1959. Hefner and privately
owned GHK, now celebrating fifty-five years
in business in Oklahoma, pioneered deep
natural gas exploration in the Anadarko
Basin of western Oklahoma, leading the
technological innovation necessary to drill
and produce the world’s deepest and highest
pressure natural gas wells, setting many
world records along the way.
Robert A. Hefner III, a geologist
and geophysicist, proved in the
1960s and 1970s, against all conventional
wisdom, that commercial
natural gas production in the deep
Anadarko Basin was indeed possible.
This discovery resulted in major
economic and political impact for
the state of Oklahoma. Hefner, who
remains active today as owner and
CEO of GHK, was known as the
“Father of Deep Natural Gas” and is
considered one of the world’s top
natural gas wildcatters. His exploration
efforts in the Anadarko Basin
led to the discovery of several Tcf
of natural gas. In addition to setting
many world drilling records, in the
1970s GHK initiated and operated
the first 3D seismic group shoot
in Oklahoma and then became the
first operator to successfully use
the proppant sintered bauxite in
fracturing. In 1980, GHK was
the largest leaseholder in the
deep Anadarko Basin, owning over
450,000 net acres. Hefner and GHK
successfully organized and executed large joint
ventures with independent and major oil and
gas companies, including, in 1980, the largest
on-shore domestic joint venture in the history
of the industry with Mobil Oil Corp., resulting
in GHK/Mobil interests in over 224 deep wells
in Oklahoma’s Anadarko Basin and total
expenditures in excess of several billion in
today’s dollars. In the late 1980s, Hefner began
analyzing the complex Ouachita fold and
thrust belt and in 1997 discovered the Potato
Hills Natural Gas Field in the Arkoma Basin
in eastern Oklahoma, at the time one of
the largest onshore natural gas discoveries in
recent decades. Historically, GHK operated
about ten percent of Oklahoma’s best-producing
natural gas wells.
Within the past ten years, Hefner and
GHK have returned to Oklahoma’s Anadarko
Basin, using horizontal drilling and completion
technologies to develop tight oil and
gas reservoirs, initiating, among other efforts,
the Tonkawa horizontal drilling play. Hefner
and the GHK Company presently maintain
interests in over 100,000 gross acres principally
in Oklahoma and Kansas.
Robert A. Hefner III spent many decades
speaking widely about his belief in the vast
abundance of natural gas in both Oklahoma
and the nation and how its expanded use
could facilitate economic development to
both Oklahoma’s and America’s advantage.
He testified before many U.S. Congressional
committees on these subjects, leading to
policies enhancing the development of
Oklahoma’s and America’s resources. For over
fifty years, he has written and published
numerous energy articles and papers, and
given many interviews and speeches—to
institutions and organizations worldwide—to
help keep these issues at the forefront.
His groundbreaking book The Grand Energy
Transition (www.the-get.com) was published
by John Wiley & Sons in 2009 and a documentary—The
Grand Energy Transition—filmed
in Oklahoma, was released in 2012. The documentary
has been distributed at no charge
to raise awareness about the importance of
natural gas to the U.S. economy and to
provide the facts about the issue of fracking,
and can be ordered through the website.
O K L A H O M A : A S t o r y T h r o u g h H e r P e o p l e
242