For thousands of years, when oil was more of a curiosity
than a necessity for most of humanity, it was found primarily
at natural seeps, where liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons
leak from the ground much like water flows from natural
springs. Coastal California is one place where such seeps
occur frequently, and the La Brea tar pits near downtown
Los Angeles is an example familiar to most Americans. At La
Brea and other seeps, oil tends to be blackened and
thickened by oxidation and bacterial attack, often flowing in
small quantities with a tar-like consistency. While this was
sufficient for traditional and pioneer uses such as sealing
wooden boats and greasing wagon wheels, the explosive
development of the modern oil business would soon require
a much greater and higher quality supply.
In 1859, with the well drilled by "Colonel" Edwin Drake in
Northwestern Pennsylvania, the petroleum business began
the industrial exploitation of pools of oil underground.
Although early prospectors certainly studied the geological
theories of the time, they also relied heavily on methods that
often had as much to do with personal knowledge,
experience, and luck as they did with geology. Prospectors
drilled near seeps, looked for oil residues in rock samples,
and sought out natural gas leaks that could be set aflame.
Some even found oil by accident while digging or drilling for
water.
The Sherman oilfield, in California, was bustling with activity
circa 1910.
These first wells in Pennsylvanian and Appalachia required
that the oil be pumped to the surface, and quantities were
minuscule by today's standards. Rumors of wells supplying
50 barrels per day would draw prospectors in droves. By the
early 1860s, drills tapped the first freely flowing well in
Pennsylvania, providing oil at the then-astounding rate of
3,000 barrels per day. Soon, annual production shot up
statewide, from 450,000 barrels in 1860, to 3 million barrels
in 1862.
The observational techniques for locating oil -- often
practiced by geologists and non-geologists alike -- prevailed
for decades. One of the greatest oil finds of all time was
spearheaded by Patillo Higgins, a self-educated, one-armed
mechanic, who had a persistence bordering on obsession
that the strange hill called Spindletop, near Beaumont,
Texas, had oil beneath. His hunch proved correct when, in
January, 1901, the first true "gusher" was found there
beneath a geologic feature now known as a salt dome. Salt
domes originate when salt -- which is more buoyant than
surrounding rock -- rises through the sedimentary layers
above, piercing and bending them upward, forming ideal
traps for oil and gas to collect as they seep and flow toward
the surface.
This document from 1865 certifies ownership of one share of
stock in the Spondulix Petroleum Co.
The discovery at Spindletop -- where the first rig produced
as much as 75,000 barrels per day -- was by far the largest
to that point. And the oil boom that followed signaled the shift
of the oil business from the place of its origin in the
Northeast to its new center in Texas and Oklahoma.
The man who struck black gold at Spindletop, John Galey,
was one of the most famous and successful of a breed of
oilmen known as "wildcatters." He and other wildcatters,
then and now, tend to drill for oil on the basis of relatively
little geologic information, basing their livelihoods on the idea
that holds an important truth even today: Despite the
progress of geology as a means of predicting the location of
oil, its measurements and theories are indirect and often
imprecise. Any assessment has some degree of uncertainty,
and the drilling of wells with no oil -- "dry holes," in industry
parlance -- is all too common. In Galey's words, the only
geologist who can ever really tell where oil is to be found
goes by the name of "Dr. Drill."
from Extreme Oil
than a necessity for most of humanity, it was found primarily
at natural seeps, where liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons
leak from the ground much like water flows from natural
springs. Coastal California is one place where such seeps
occur frequently, and the La Brea tar pits near downtown
Los Angeles is an example familiar to most Americans. At La
Brea and other seeps, oil tends to be blackened and
thickened by oxidation and bacterial attack, often flowing in
small quantities with a tar-like consistency. While this was
sufficient for traditional and pioneer uses such as sealing
wooden boats and greasing wagon wheels, the explosive
development of the modern oil business would soon require
a much greater and higher quality supply.
In 1859, with the well drilled by "Colonel" Edwin Drake in
Northwestern Pennsylvania, the petroleum business began
the industrial exploitation of pools of oil underground.
Although early prospectors certainly studied the geological
theories of the time, they also relied heavily on methods that
often had as much to do with personal knowledge,
experience, and luck as they did with geology. Prospectors
drilled near seeps, looked for oil residues in rock samples,
and sought out natural gas leaks that could be set aflame.
Some even found oil by accident while digging or drilling for
water.
The Sherman oilfield, in California, was bustling with activity
circa 1910.
These first wells in Pennsylvanian and Appalachia required
that the oil be pumped to the surface, and quantities were
minuscule by today's standards. Rumors of wells supplying
50 barrels per day would draw prospectors in droves. By the
early 1860s, drills tapped the first freely flowing well in
Pennsylvania, providing oil at the then-astounding rate of
3,000 barrels per day. Soon, annual production shot up
statewide, from 450,000 barrels in 1860, to 3 million barrels
in 1862.
The observational techniques for locating oil -- often
practiced by geologists and non-geologists alike -- prevailed
for decades. One of the greatest oil finds of all time was
spearheaded by Patillo Higgins, a self-educated, one-armed
mechanic, who had a persistence bordering on obsession
that the strange hill called Spindletop, near Beaumont,
Texas, had oil beneath. His hunch proved correct when, in
January, 1901, the first true "gusher" was found there
beneath a geologic feature now known as a salt dome. Salt
domes originate when salt -- which is more buoyant than
surrounding rock -- rises through the sedimentary layers
above, piercing and bending them upward, forming ideal
traps for oil and gas to collect as they seep and flow toward
the surface.
This document from 1865 certifies ownership of one share of
stock in the Spondulix Petroleum Co.
The discovery at Spindletop -- where the first rig produced
as much as 75,000 barrels per day -- was by far the largest
to that point. And the oil boom that followed signaled the shift
of the oil business from the place of its origin in the
Northeast to its new center in Texas and Oklahoma.
The man who struck black gold at Spindletop, John Galey,
was one of the most famous and successful of a breed of
oilmen known as "wildcatters." He and other wildcatters,
then and now, tend to drill for oil on the basis of relatively
little geologic information, basing their livelihoods on the idea
that holds an important truth even today: Despite the
progress of geology as a means of predicting the location of
oil, its measurements and theories are indirect and often
imprecise. Any assessment has some degree of uncertainty,
and the drilling of wells with no oil -- "dry holes," in industry
parlance -- is all too common. In Galey's words, the only
geologist who can ever really tell where oil is to be found
goes by the name of "Dr. Drill."
from Extreme Oil
BigOilFields.Com
The Early Days
Pennsylvania, then the Wild West
Pennsylvania, then the Wild West
