There's a good article here on the West Texas oil boom going on in the Permian basin now.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/business/stories/MYSA082606.01A.oilboom.305aeac.html
Interesting you pick a story from Big Lake. My route goes through there four times a month. A freind of mine is working out of there, absolutely no rentals or even buys available, he is living in an RV he pays outrageous rent on space for.
Frantic doesn't do it justice. Stop to fuel up at 4:00 AM, there is a headhunter there offering a dollar or two more to jump companies, and that's before he asks what you are making now.
By the way, of side interest, Big Lake is named for a playa south of town. This is essentially a scoop in the ground with no regular riverine or spring fed source. When it rains, about once a decade, it fills up, then dries out over time. Not far west of Big Lake is the Santa Rita site of the first "gusher" in Texas. Those fields are "mature" but still very productive.
Another of my leases is the Cree/Sykes east of Winters. Last year they had a real live gusher, blew out and blackened all the brush within about 300 yards. Took them three days to find an old hand who had dealt with such a phenomenom to help shut it down. That lease has gone from two desultory wells to ten, and punching holes as fast as they can.