Checking the Waste: A Study in Conservation

by Mary Huston Gregory

The Appalachian field includes, besides Pennsylvania, western New York, West Virginia, a narrow strip in eastern Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. These southern oils are of a much lower grade, but are better than the Russian or other foreign oils.

The next great field is called the Lima-Indiana, and covers a considerable portion of northwestern Ohio and eastern Indiana. This petroleum contains less gasolene and less lamp oils, and more sulphur, which makes refining difficult. The Illinois field lies next. Here, in a strip about thirty miles long and six miles wide on an average, an enormous quantity of petroleum is produced. This oil is slightly lower in quality and contains considerable asphalt.

The mid-continent field lies in Kansas and Oklahoma. This petroleum also contains asphalt and other chemical products. Such immense amounts are produced here that it has not been possible to care for all of it, either in the matter of storage tanks or cars for transporting it, and as a result large amounts have been wasted. In Oklahoma within a space of less than two square miles one million barrels of forty-two gallons each of petroleum were wasted in the year 1906.

The Gulf field lying in Texas and Louisiana has been developed entirely since 1901. The first well was drilled near Beaumont, Texas, as an experiment to determine whether oil could be found. Small storage tanks were provided and it was hoped to find oil enough to make drilling profitable. The well proved to be a "gusher" of such magnitude that before sufficient tanks could be provided, or the flow checked, more than half a million barrels were wasted on the ground.

The Gulf petroleum contains a large amount of asphalt and a small amount of gasolene and lamp oil. It has been used principally for burning as crude oil in locomotives and has sold as low as ten cents per barrel; but lately methods of refining have been perfected which produce good lubricating oil and a gasolene of high value from these low-grade oils.

The last great field is found in California. The oil is similar to the Gulf oil, and investigation has shown that the quantity is greater in this field than in any other. It is used largely for fuel and power on account of lack of other fuels in that region.

In addition to these fields there are small ones in Colorado and Wyoming, and promises of fields in New Mexico, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington.

Estimates of the amounts of petroleum yielded are made by computing the amount usually produced per acre, which varies from eight hundred barrels produced in Pennsylvania, to eight thousand barrels per acre produced in Illinois. In most of the fields it is about a thousand barrels per acre. Even then the amount is extremely difficult to estimate. The Geological Survey concludes that the lowest probable calculation of the entire amount stored in the rocks of the United States is ten billion, and the highest a little less than twenty-five billion barrels. The last report officially published shows that we are producing one hundred and seventy million barrels per year. If the same rate of production continues, we might expect our petroleum to last from fifty-five to one hundred and thirty-five years, according to the amount found; but tables of statistics show that throughout the life of the petroleum industry, as much has been produced each nine years as the entire product before that time. For example, up to the present, we have produced one billion eight hundred million barrels and if the present rate continues, in the next nine years alone we shall produce an equal quantity again. The causes of such rapid growth are many. One is the great increase in the use of some of the products, such as gasolene, which has increased many fold since the automobile became popular. Another, and the greatest cause, is the ease with which any quantity of oil can be sold for cash at any time, and at prices much above the cost of production.

Another reason is based upon the nature of the product. In pumping from one well oil is apt to flow in from other leases, under other farms, and exhaust them without the holders of those leases having received any compensating benefit. It is therefore necessary for each lessee to get his share before it flows away. Under these circumstances, it is impossible to prevent an entire field from being drilled over very rapidly, unless there is a combination of all the interests; or unless the law limits the amount that each producer shall extract per acre within a given time.

Pennsylvania and New York have declined to one-third their former value and yet it is only seventeen years since they reached their highest point. This would seem to indicate that the life of that field will not exceed ten years. West Virginia is producing only a little more than half its former yield and is rapidly declining. Ohio and Indiana are declining more rapidly than Pennsylvania. Texas is also in the rapidly declining class, and in Kansas the production is only a fraction of what it was formerly. On the other hand, Illinois, Oklahoma, and California can be expected to increase steadily for several years.