THE OIL DAILY - February 11, 1985

      The acres of repossessed and stacked drilling rigs that have suffocated the profit margins of energy-lending banks and oil producers alike could be the lifesavers of an entire African nation. Thirst is killing Ethiopia, just as surely as is starvation, despite the suspected existence of huge aquifers of potable water anywhere from 90 to 900 feet below that country’s cracked surface. 
      All that’s missing, says California and Texas oilman, Bobby Vassallo, is the machinery to drill into them.  And, as a peek into the energy-lending portfolios of many southwest banks will attest, idle drilling rigs and other oil field equipment are items the US has in abundance.  Vassallo, who is a board dirctor of the disaster-relief organization, Operation California and who accompanied its latest airlift of supplies to Addis Ababa wants to help the banks convert at least some of their red ink into lifegiving water for Ethiopia by having them donate truck-mounted drilling rigs to the cause.    
      They’re not going to get more than $150,000 to $200,000 (by reselling) what were muti-million dollar investments,” Vassallo says.  We’re trying to convince them to donate it to us and take the writeoff and tax breaks.  They’re bound to do better than they would otherwise.”
      Vassallo has talked to banks in Midland and El Paso, Texas and will be talking to more this week.  He has been back in the US to short a time to have received any commitments.  Vassallo, president of Texploration Oil and Gas, Inc., which operates almost exclusively in North Texas and Southwestern Oklahoma says he is looking first for truck mounted rigs to tap the relatively shallow zones of potable water. 

March 3, 1985

THE WALL STREET  JOURNAL -

How Do Texans Ease a Drought?  With Lots of Oil Rigs, Of Course               By ELLEN HUME Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL 

     If there is one thing Texas oilman knows about, it is wheeling and dealing. 
So it shouldn’t be any surprise that Bobby Vassallo is up to his usual tricks.  What may be surprising though, is the beneficiary of his latest brainstorm: the drought-stricken Ethiopians.

   His idea is to mix oil and water-equipment, that is.  Just about every oil company has a lot of idle rigs these days.  Mr. Vassallo figures that oil firms and banks with repossessed rigs can get a nice tax write-off for donating the equipment to drill fro water in Ethiopia.

Rigs in Parking Lot
   “I’ve passed banks in Midland, Texas where the president had to park at the meter out front because the drilling equipment was clogging up the parking lot, says Mr. Vassallo.” Although his firm, Texploration Oil and Gas Co., doesn’t have the right kind of rigs to donate, Mr. Vassallo is scrambling to find other firms to donate their rigs. 
   Mr. Vassallo got the idea on a recent mission to Addis Ababa with Operation California, a relief group on whose board he serves.  He ran into an oil company geologist who told him that potable water lies in relatively shallow aquifers there.  The water could be tapped, Mr. Vassallo believes, by drilling wells from shallow truck-mounted rigs normally used for oil.
   “Water is the lifeblood, he says, If you get them water, everything else will follow.”

Pestering Others
   No shrinking violet, Mr. Vassallo is out to wrest rigs from everyone he encounters.  Parks Pedrick, Jr., a vice president of InterFirst Bank, Dallas, found it impossible to read while sitting next to Mr. Vassallo on a recent New York flight.  Mr. Pedrick took the rig donation idea to higher-ups at InterFirst bank and they’re thinking it over.
   Anthony Iorio of Black Star Petroleum Corp., of Oceanside, N.Y., says he knows of 150 rigs that are idle and suitable to the Ethiopian task.  “Companies can get a full tax credit for a rig they donate, which because of the depressed market, they can’t sell right now,” he says.
   Mr. Iorio is offering his firm as the staging area for gathering the rigs and other equipment Mr. Vassallo rounds up.  Meanwhile, Operation California has other ideas up its sleeve:  “The rock group Alabama is donating 250,000 T-shirts to keep Ethiopians clothed,” Mr. Vassallo says.

The Mexico City News - September 22, 1985

Bobby Vassallo is chairman of Operation Texas in Dallas.  "Before the earthquake we had been meeting with Henry Cisneros , Mayor of San Antonio," he said, to see what need we might be able to meet in Mexico.  Of course, we never visualized anything on this scale, but we can help."  More follows.

MORNING AFTER- MEXICO CITY EARTHQUAKE, 1985

Bobby Vassallo (right) with Valerie Wildman and Richard Walden