Coastal Corporation - Oscar Wyatt

Oscar Wyatt

Founder Oscar Wyatt served in World War II as a bomber pilot, earned a degree in mechanical engineering from Texas A & M University, and gained experience in the oil business as a partner in Wymore Oil Company. In 1955, Wyatt founded Coastal States Gas Producing Company. Coastal began business in modest circumstances, with 68 miles of pipeline and 78 employees. Wyatt's pipeline company purchased small amounts of gas from a number of producers, packaged it, and then sold it in larger volumes. Gas gathering became the company's primary business. Wyatt developed effective pipeline systems that connected both buyers and sellers and still left room for profits. Most pipeline owners set output quotas to make an oil field last for up to 20 years. Wyatt ignored this convention and generally purchased as much gas from producers as they could pump. The practice frustrated other pipeline owners, but the arrangement worked to Coastal's advantage, and by 1960 revenues exceeded $17.6 million.

As the U.S. economy grew in the 1960s, dependence on energy sources, notably oil and gas, also increased, and Coastal took full advantage of the soaring demand. By the early 1960s Coastal's newly created subsidiary, LoVaca Gathering Company, supplied gas to San Antonio, Austin, Corpus Christi, and other cities in south Texas. In 1962 Coastal purchased 800 miles of crude oil pipeline from Sinclair Oil Corporation, including a major refinery in Corpus Christi with a capacity for almost 30,000 barrels of oil per day. Later, as oil refining became one of its principal activities, Coastal extended this capacity. Much of Coastal's subsequent expansion came through takeovers—often hostile—of rival companies. Wyatt acquired a reputation as a tough business competitor. In 1968 Coastal acquired a 965-mile system from United Pipeline Company. In the same year Wyatt won control of Rio Grande Valley Gas Company. In June 1970 the company announced plans to link its west Texas natural gas reserves to the Dallas area.