Early Over-Water Drilling in the United States (1862-1917)

Abstract

Photographers and small town newspapers documented early over-water drilling in the United States. Drilling on sand bars and within shallow creeks occurred as early as 1862 with wells drilled in Oil Creek north of Oil City, Pennsylvania. V-shaped baffles were built alongside the wells, pointing upstream, to deflect debris floating down the creek.

Over-water lake drilling in the United States occurred as early as 1891 in Grand Lake, Ohio as drilling in the prolific Lima-Indiana oil trend progressed to the southwest. Over 100 wells were drilled in the lake and operators had to contend with storms and ice. Grand Lake’s oil production was short-lived and by 1911 most of the lake’s oil production had ended. In early 1898 a pier was constructed 300 feet out into the Pacific Ocean in California and a mounted standard cable-tool rig began drilling. A few months later the first oil was produced from the offshore portion of the Summerland field. Fourteen additional piers were constructed and many more wells were drilled and completed.

Oil was discovered at Goose Creek east of Houston, Texas in 1908, but in 1916 multi-thousand barrel per day oil gushers brought attention to the area. Drilling progressed from the onshore banks of Goose Creek and the shoreline of Tabbs Bay, to the bay’s islands, and then into the shallow waters of Tabbs and Black Duck bays. The first oil gusher in Tabbs Bay was the Gulf Production Company No. 4 Stateland, drilled 200 feet out in the bay. The well came in on July 28, 1917 with an estimated flow of 8000 to 12,000 barrels of oil per day. The building of wooden piers into the bays for drill sites was not reported as anything innovative or a “first” for Texas, probably because of similar operations several years earlier in Louisiana’s Caddo Lake. The first oil discovery in this lake is credited to the Gulf Refining Company’s Ferry Lake No. 1 drilled to a depth of 2,185 feet and completed at a rate of 450 barrels of oil per day in 1911. There is some evidence that drilling operations in Caddo Lake began even earlier. A portion of Oklahoma’s famous Cushing oil field lay beneath the Cimarron River. As early as 1913, wells were drilled on sand bars and within that river. The term “river-bedding” was used for this drilling. Early postcards and newspaper articles documented the risk and cost involved with these operations, as 1915 spring floods destroyed several oil derricks in the Cimarron River.

AAPG Datapages/Search and Discovery Article #90323 ©2018 AAPG Annual Convention and Exhibition, Salt Lake City, Utah, May 20-23, 2018