C O M P A N Y
H O W W E A P P R O A C H T H E B U S I N E S S
How We Approach the Business
The oil business has always rewarded those willing to do their homework. At Turtle Creek, we hold that capital should follow understanding, and that an asset ought to be known before a commitment is made. The business of finding and producing oil and gas has always been attended by uncertainty; its risks may be measured and managed, but never entirely abolished. We therefore approach each undertaking with patience and with a view extending beyond the immediate horizon. We do not regard growth as an end sufficient unto itself. The increase of an enterprise, when pursued without regard to the quality of its properties or the soundness of its decisions, has often proved a poor substitute for lasting value. We prefer good assets, careful judgment and the prudent stewardship of capital. These are not novel principles. They have endured through generations of oil and gas development in Texas, surviving changes in markets, methods and circumstance. We see no reason to abandon them.
Discipline
Each property is considered according to its own circumstances and merits. Capital is not committed by habit or impulse, but only after a careful consideration of what may reasonably be gained, what may be lost, and what uncertainties must be borne.
Stewardship
Oil and gas properties are not sustained by ownership alone. They require attention, judgment and the steady application of competent work. We regard the assets entrusted to our care—and the people whose labor supports them—with the respect due to both.
Independence
The independence of our management preserves the freedom to judge each matter without obligation to fashion, haste or distant instruction. It permits us to decline what does not merit commitment and to act, when warranted, with the interests of the enterprise measured over years rather than quarters.
Patience
Commodity cycles have risen and fallen throughout the history of the industry, bringing in turn confidence, excess, caution and retrenchment. Such changes are not new. We believe that preparation, patience and sound judgment retain their value in every season, and that the ability to wait is sometimes no less important than the ability to act.