The Journal of Electricity, Power and Gas, Volume XX, No. 18, May 2, 1908 / Devoted to the Conversion, Transmission and Distribution of Energy

Devoted to the Conversion, Transmission and Distribution of Energy.
Volume XX. SAN FRANCISCO, CAL., MAY 2, 1908 No. 18
By CLEM A. COPELAND.
Consulting Engineer, Los Angeles, Cal.
The large and deep-lying oil-sand lakes and subterranean gas works, commencing with the southern rim of the Santa Maria Valley and stretching away for a dozen miles southward toward Santa Barbara, contribute some 14,600,000 barrels of high gravity refining and fuel oil to California’s annual production of 40,000,000 barrels.
WEST FRAME OF 2600 FT. SPAN. POWER-HOUSE IN BACKGROUND.
With the assistance of two eight-inch pipe lines 32 miles to Port Harford, a similar line 48 miles across the Isthmus of Panama, and a goodly fleet of vessels, the Union Oil Company scatters this oil from Seattle to San Diego, and from New York to Japan. Chile also has a share for the working of its nitre beds and its railways.
The little towns of Santa Maria and Orcutt receive with open pipes a tithe of the gas which nature has here stored, and which would otherwise escape the many safety valves, while the steam rig engines have often been run with direct gas pressure from the wells.
This land of gas and gushers is difficult of control, and is always ready to pop off at from 100 to 400 pounds pressure through the many 3,000-foot tubes which puncture its depths. When a new gusher is brought in, it sprays the adjacent hills with a glistening shadow of petroleum and is no respecter of persons or property. One new and frisky fury flowed 12,000 barrels per day, and delivered 4,000,000 cubic feet of gas every 24 hours for four months, gradually dropping to a production of 7,000 barrels, which it maintained for nearly a year, finally diminishing to 3,500, and now, after three and a third years, is still producing 250 barrels per day, having delivered during this time 3,000,000 barrels of petroleum, and enough gas to last San Francisco for three years. This is, with perhaps one exception, the most remarkable well in the history of oil industry, and is widely known as “Hartwell No. 1.”