Some 40 miles north of Houston, Conroe Field is an oldie, producing oil since 1931.

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ExxonMobil ( XOM - news - people ), Conroe's output had dwindled to 1, 200 barrels of oil a day.

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Jackson and his brother-in-law had been fishing for crappie in Lake Conroe outside Houston when his brother-in-law got a call from an 800 number.

CNN: Drinking beer and waiting for their women to come home

The company overhauled many of Conroe's wells, and put in new fluid-handling gear--important considering that what was coming out of the ground averaged just 2% oil to 98% water.

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In its time Conroe was a gusher, flowing some 60, 000 barrels per day from a reservoir that started with as much as 2 billion barrels of oil stretching across 19, 000 acres.

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Of them all, Conroe could be the biggest.

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