Michel T. Halbouty

Michel Thomas Halbouty was an American geologist, petroleum engineer and wildcatter credited with discovering more than fifty oil and gas fields over the course of his career. Starting from Beaumont, Texas, he built an independent oil business that went bankrupt and was rebuilt twice, becoming known as one of the industry's most persistent and successful independent explorers. Halbouty wrote extensively on petroleum geology, authored book-length histories of famous oil fields, and was a vocal advocate for continued domestic oil exploration in the United States. He often promoted the view, associated with fellow geologist Wallace Pratt, that oil is found first in the minds of men who know where to look for it.