How Do I Cold Call Oil and Gas Buyers?

answers

By Amanda Leon, founder of OilMoney.io. Houston-raised, came up in the Houston marketing team of Vallourec, and has run Unrth, a brand and growth studio for oil and gas and industrial companies, since 2017, with her boots on client locations in Midland and Odessa. Last reviewed October 20, 2026.

You've got a list of operator names, a phone, and a truck that doubles as your office. Before you dial, you want to know who to ask for, what to say, and how many tries a name deserves before you let it go.

Call the person whose work your service touches, not the front desk. Know their wells before you dial, give it three honest attempts, and open with one useful thing about their location. Then make sure your name holds up when they look you up afterward. For a fast yes or no, the phone beats posting: Cognism's 2025 figures show 93% of its conversations had happened by the third call attempt.

Who to Call at an Operator

Start with the title that owns the work your service touches. Operators' own job postings tell you what each one does all day.

  • Drilling engineer. EOG's Midland drilling engineer posting from October 2025 has the role writing AFEs and evaluating vendor performance, so if you sell to those rigs, you're part of his review. The rest of that posting is in What Does a Drilling Engineer Do?
  • Completions engineer. Oxy's Midland completions engineer posting from June 2026 makes him the on-site company representative on a 70/30 field/office rotation, and he reviews and approves invoices. Odds are he's on location when you ring, so keep it short (more in Selling to a Completion Engineer).
  • Production engineer. Permian Resources' Midland posting from June 2026, for the Texas Delaware Basin, has the engineer designing and troubleshooting gas lift, ESP, rod pump, jet pump, and plunger lift, covering chemical programs, and writing AFEs for workovers. Lift, chemical, and workover reps start here.
  • Water resources engineer. Permian Resources' September 2026 Midland posting has the engineer reconciling run tickets and meter data against water purchase statements. If you sell or haul water, your run tickets end up on a desk like this one.
  • Company man. He's the operator's representative on a drilling location, a different man from the toolpusher. SLB's definition, and how to sell to him, are in Selling to the Oilfield Company Man.
  • Procurement and supply chain. An engineer can want your service and still have no way to pay you until you're an approved vendor. B-P Supply's September 2026 posting, for one, asks its business development hire to get the company approved as a vendor and to win access to supply chain managers as well as engineers (the full posting is broken down in Oil and Gas Procurement).

Where the Buying Offices Sit

For a Permian rep, a lot of the list lives in Midland. The City of Midland lists Chevron and Diamondback Energy among its major employers and says ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, EOG Resources, and Oxy have headquarters or regional campuses there, on a fast-facts page updated May 2026. All four operator postings above are based in Midland too.

Some accounts are run from a head office somewhere else, so ask early which office handles yours, and keep that number next to the engineer's. For staying in front of Permian buyers through the swings, see Oilfield Service Sales in the Permian Basin.

Doing Your Homework Before You Dial

You need one real reason to call, tied to their wells. New permits are one place to find it, because a new hole needs somebody's service. The Railroad Commission of Texas's September 2026 numbers show 323 permits for new holes in District 8, the Midland district and the busiest in the state that month, plus 69 in District 7C and 24 in District 8A.

The operator's own job postings are free homework too. They tell you what a title does all day and which part of it touches your service. Before you dial, write down the name, the title, the wells, and your opening sentence. If you can't fill in that last line, you aren't ready. More places to find names are in Where Do I Find Oil and Gas Sales Leads?

Three Attempts, Then Move On

That 93% is why Cognism treats three attempts as the optimum. It comes from one sales team's own phones, not oilfield buyers, and Is Cold Calling Dead in Oil and Gas Sales? covers what those numbers do and don't tell you.

Spread the tries across different days and times, because an engineer on a field rotation won't sit at his desk the same hour every week. Leave a short voicemail with your name and your one reason. After the third try, park the name until something changes on their side, and spend the saved dials on someone fresh.

Word Travels in the Permian

Spend time on client locations in Midland and Odessa, the way I do, and you learn how the basin talks. Everyone out there knows everyone. When somebody messes up, people hear about it. When somebody does right by a customer, that customer tells five people. A cold call goes into the same conversation. Ramble through your line card to a man who's busy on location, and that's the story about you that gets around. Keep it short, useful, and polite, and that gets around too.

Go easy on the younger engineers in particular. A Permian founder we work with told us younger engineers in the Permian are scared to rock the boat or stick their neck out. So don't ask one to vouch for you on the first call. Give him something easy to say yes to: a spec sheet he can forward, or the name of whoever decides. Read the full story.

Techniques That Hold Up

None of these need a slick personality. They need respect for the other person's time.

  • Ask if you caught them on location. We've stood on enough locations in Midland and Odessa to know the person you're calling may be standing on one. Offer to call back, then call back when you said you would.
  • Lead with their wells, not your line card. The cold calling script for oil and gas sales has openers you can adapt.
  • Ask about the work, then be quiet. Ask who's running that part of the job now and how it's going, and let the answer run.
  • Ask for something small with a day on it. A short office visit on a named day beats "let's get together sometime."
  • Be straight about your vendor status. If you aren't approved yet, say so and ask what it takes.

What Your Profile Has to Show After the Call

A good call often ends with "send me something" or "let me think about it." Either way, expect to be looked up before you hear back. Why the profile carries so much weight is on Does My LinkedIn Profile Really Matter If I Sell Oilfield Equipment?

When he looks, he should find a headline that says what you do and who you do it for, in the words you used on the phone, and recent posts in your own voice that show you know the work. A blank profile makes a good call look like a stranger's.

There's no shame in cold calling; every rep pays that tax until he's known. The Warm Walk-In™ is built to lower it: your name in the right conversations, so the next call starts a little less cold. If you work in the field, the oilfield service reps page walks through it.

Get Your Bison Walk-Around

Before the next round of calls, see your profile the way the man you're dialing will.

Send us your LinkedIn. We'll send back the Bison Walk-Around: five minutes of plain English on what's costing you callbacks and what we'd build. No call. No invoice. We give first.

Get your Bison Walk-Around

Sources and As-Of Dates

The Warm Walk-In™ is an original method created by Amanda Leon and owned by The Valours Creative Innovation LLC.

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