The First Venezuelan Geological Oil Map: The Ralph Arnold History 1911-1916

Venezuela’s first oil map, the Ralph Arnold history (1911-1916)

When Dr. Ralph Arnold went to Venezuela he was already 36 years old, married, but had no children. Prior to this he was a consulting geologist with the USGS in Washington, D.C. .It was after his appraisal of the Island of Trinidad’s oil assets in late 1911 that he was hired by the General Asphalt Company to survey mainland Venezuela, separated by 15 miles from Trinidad. Arnold hired 52 young geologists to assist him in this venture, most of whom were recent graduates of his Alma Mater, Stanford University. The undertaking would be the first time in history that the oil industry utilized geologists on a large scale to initiate a surface hunt for oil. Over the next few years Arnold and his boys, as he was accustomed to call them, were exposed to disease, accidents, and the possibility of early death. Arnold survived all these risks. He accompanied his men on their travels to eastern part of Venezuela, it’s arid northwest,all the way to the shores of oil-rich Lake Maracaibo, and into the tepid jungles that border with Colombia, where later a number of oilmen would die at the hands of the hostile Indians. They walked countless miles of uncharted wilderness. In 12 months time Arnold submitted his report but no action was taken on it as the General Asphalt Company based in Philadelphia was in financial difficulty following the death of its president. No one in the United States was willing to advance further capital for the complete survey still to come.

The Company turned to England for financial backing and the young President of Royal Dutch Shell, Mr. Henry Deterding, agreed to invest ten million dollars in the project. The details of the deal were kept secret and ownership in the Company was 75-25%, not 51-49% as was publicly stated. However solvency allowed Arnold to continue his work and between 1911 and 1916 he visited Venezuela six times. He and his men were unable to take extended work tours of duty, due to the prevalence of malaria, dysentery, typhus and yellow fever, and the total lack of availability of clinics in the oil rich zones. Most of his men usually stayed no more than a year. When someone fell ill the only haven was the Dutch Island of Curacao, 20 miles north of the northwestern Venezuelan coastline.
(But 200 miles from south of the Maracaibo Lake).

The prospecting initiative was successful and large oil fields were predicted and discovered in eastern Venezuela and the full potential of the lake Maracaibo basin also received detailed attention. All this field work soon was confirmed in November 1914 by the blowout of the Zumaya # 1 exploratory well, near the village of Mene Grande on the eastern shores of Lake Maracaibo which produced between 20,000 and 40,000 barrels of oil per day, only to be followed by the building of oil camps at Tarra, Mene Grande, Inciarte, La Paz, and other locations which transformed the Maracaibo basin into Venezuela’s largest oil producing area for over seventy years. One of Arnold’s boys (Charles “Chas” R. Eckes) drilling in the waters of Lake Maracaibo discovered large deposits. Another geologist was upset when the Caribbean Petroleum Company (Shell) sold the rights of the eastern oil camps that he had prospected, to Standard Oil of New Jersey, which would become Standard Oil Company of Venezuela and the company’s greatest source of revenue in Venezuela until the follwonig decade.

After 1916, Arnold was paid as retainer by the Caribbean Petroleum Company, mainly as means of securing his know-how, but with no specific responsibilities. Many of his former employees returned to the United States where they became petroleum consultants, tool inventors, oil prospectors, etc. One third of them would die young due to the diseases they contracted in the Venezuelan jungles. While a few became bitter about their experiences, most were accomplished professionals, and at least four became founding members of AAPG: Richard A. ‘Dick’ Conkling, (1885-1952), Charles R. ‘Chas’ Eckes (1885-1952), Lewis, J. Whitney, and H. Harper “Harp” McKee. Arnold himself was a lontime AAPG member.

On his return to the United States Arnold went back to prospecting, and also spent time in Mexico. He later dabbled in politics with the Republican Party and was an ardent supporter of Herbert Hoover am ining engineer and one of his friends of past Stanford days. Politics and the Big Depression hurt him for the rest of his life, and he never recovered financially. Early in the 1940s his wife died, and their two only daughters were away from his home. That was when he decided to start writing his autobiography. It was the fine advice of two of his young colleagues, A. Faison Dixon and H. Harper McKee (both AAPG members), that at about that time he decided to write about his geological exploits in Venezuela and other countries and for the next 10 years would cajole and entice stories, photographs, and information from 21 of his colleagues, who were spread out over the world. The task was difficult as a number of them had become ill and were passing away. Arnold was also a great photographer and had almost 5000 pictures of Venezuela, Trinidad, Curacao, and Panama, many of which he used in his first publication in english. It was his intention to publish 500 of the photographs but only 330 were included on his book. In 1957 he sought financial assistance from the Venezuelan government for getting the manuscript published in Spanish but that effort failed. The original book was published in English in 1960, one year before Arnold died. Never a title said it so straight: The first big oil hunt.

The Spanish edition which finally came out in 2009 is more than a mere translation. The pictures were enhanced and a more added; typo mistakes were found and corrected; and the names of people and places were correctly spelled out and completed. Research was done at the Huntington Library in California where Arnold’s manuscripts are held. However, we feel the full story of oil exploration in Venezuela will not be complete until all of the journals of Ralph Arnold and his companions’ lives are published. Most importantly, there is still a large collection of original photographs that need to see the light of day yet to publish the best pictures that remain unpublished. We plan to continue on this work ,in order to honor Venesuela's pioneer oil geologist, Dr. Ralph Arnold.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90142 © 2012 AAPG Annual Convention and Exhibition, April 22-25, 2012, Long Beach, California