Reply #20: Some history on Wyatt and San Antonio/Austin [View All]

[Gman]

I remember this very well...

Oscar Wyatt, at age 65, is one of the richest, toughest,
shrewdest, most powerful, and ruthless oil barons in Texas. "Wyatt takes
a backseat to no one in the pantheon of takeover artists...remaining one
of the most successful men to set foot in the oil patch. He's also one
of the most despised" (Ivey 120).
Oscar Wyatt is also a brilliant, controversial, businessman, who
almost single handedly built the Coastal Corporation, of which he is
chairman and a substantial shareholder, into one of the largest energy
companies in Texas with assets of nine billion dollars" (Taylor 45). His
name" strikes fear in the heart of every pipeline executive," says
William Greehey, a formal Coastal official who now runs Valero Energy
Corporation. Wyatt just isn't tough on pipeline executives. "In the
early 1970's he cut off winter gas supplies to San Antonio and Austin,
igniting one of the nastiest legal fights in the states history. He has
sued the federal government, as well as numerous oil companies...also
when the Houston Chronicle compared him to J.R. Ewing of Dallas, Wyatt
sued the paper" (Ivey 120).

http://www.la.utexas.edu/chenry/mena/roles/oil/sp1994/0020.html