Roy M. Huffington’s journey into the oil and gas industry is a particularly interesting one. The son of an oil rigger and a home maker, Huffington was not a stranger to hardship. He lost his father at the age of 16 to an oil mining accident in Venezuela. Undeterred, Huffington worked his way into the industry by first earning a degree in geology from Southern Methodist University, teaching as an aid while earning a Master's degree with the focus of geology at Harvard University, and lastly working for Humble Oil (which was absorbed into what is now known as Exxon/Mobil in 1959).
As a petroleum geologist, Huffington spent his early field working years in areas like New Mexico and later Texas. Some of this work is best illustrated in a related collection, the Roy M. Huffington Personal and Professional Papers, MS 688. After garnering some experience in the working industry for Humble, Huffington branched out into his own venture. Along with a few other partners, Mr. Huffington created the company that would bear his name, Roy M. Huffington, Inc. (RMHI), also known as Huffco (<--click on link for the exhibit or the link on the left).
As demonstrated in the collection Roy M. Huffington Oil Company Records, 1977-2006 MS 575, RMHI began with domestic ventures. The original parent company largely focused in the United States and Canada, mainly in the parishes of Louisiana and in its home state of Texas, with other domestic enterprises. The company eventually found great international success after a discovery of a large pocket of natural gas in Indonesia.
At that time, the natural gas itself did not initially have much of an export market. The idea of liquefied natural gas had been discussed and while it has been present in the 20th century key factors kept it from becoming a consistent producing market. Firstly, due to remote nature of the areas where these crude materials were found, mining and production were hampered as they could not use traditional methods such as pipelines. Secondly, at that time, there were few established producers for the materials. Lastly, the cost of treating and shipping the finished product were considered fairly steep and led to less interest. Fortunately for Huffco and its local partner, the Indonesian state owned oil and gas company, Pertamina, there were small pockets of oil to be mined. During that period the company mined areas of East Kalimantan while the LNG plants were being built.
With this success in the 1970s and 1980s, a need for a branch with roots in Indonesia became apparent and Huffco Indonesia was created. However, Indonesia was not the only international market that Huffington Oil was able to break into. Some examples include Huffco East Asia, Inc., Huffco Trinidad & Tobago LNG, Inc. and Huffco Turkey, Inc., to name a few. Later in the early 1990s, Mr. Huffington sold parts of Huffco and served as an ambassador to Austria under former President George H.W. Bush's presidency. When Huffington returned to the United States, he resumed his work for Huffco in a different capacity and continued to work up until his passing in 2008, leaving behind a chronicle that continues to educate those interested in oil and gas production as well corporate trade.