Oil industry

“ Sell no oil to a vessel carrying a charter from any foreign government either at an American port or at any American bunker when that government does not sell oil at a nondiscriminatory price to our vessels at its bunkers or ports.
The oil industry is more distinctively American than any other of the great basic industries. ”

“ We live in a mechanical age, and without oil our bearings would run hot and civilization, as we know it, would stop. It is the very blood of the earth.
Oil production is a highly specialized industry, and it has developed a type of man with a type of mind quite as characteristic as the type of machinery employed in the drilling of wells. The latter, for instance, appears at first glance to be crude and awkward, but as a matter of fact it is amazingly ingenious and extremely efficient, and your oil-field operator is pretty much the same. ”

“ To develop the oil shale industry to a point where it could supply anything like the amount of oil now derived from oil pools would mean the building of great plants, including towns, railroads, and other equipment, equivalent to the plants of the coal mining industry. ”

“ Since 1895, however, a new stimulus was given to the industry by the modification of the mining laws, and from that date the oil industry has been gradually increasing, and only awaits the introduction of British capital to develop the enormous oil-fields. ”

“ CHAPTER IX No industry can boast a history more dramatic, more exciting, than that of oil. From the discovery of petroleum, on through the development of its usefulness and the vast expansion of its production, the story is one of intense human interest, and not even the story of mining has chapters more stirring or more spectacular. ”

“ In energy exploration, we have made it highly attractive for domestic and foreign investors to join the search for oil and other sources of energy. A Petroleum Board has been created, and the Oil Industry Commission has been attached to the NEDA, signifying the high rating given to oil in our priorities. ”

“ Nor is it a mere collection of dry facts and figures, set forth to show that the oil business is a pretty big enterprise. But it is a sincere endeavor to print something regarding petroleum, based largely upon personal observation, which may be worth saving from oblivion. The purpose is to give the busy outside world, by anecdote and incident and brief narration, a glimpse of the grandest industry of the ages and of the men chiefly responsible for its origin and growth. ”

“ The more immediate problems of the petroleum industry seem to the writer to be of rather different nature: first, whether the discovery and winning of the oil can be made to keep pace with the enormous acceleration of demand; and second, the adjustment of political and financial control of oil resources, the possession of which is becoming so increasingly vital to national prosperity. ”

“ There is no other oil-producing country in the world where the petroleum industry has reached such a highly organized state as in the United States. Each producing field is connected by means of underground pipe-lines with the trunk pipe-line system, by which it is possible to pump oil from the most distant fields direct to the Atlantic seaboard. ”

“ Under the improved conditions which were introduced in methods of boring and operating the oil-wells, the industry steadily expanded, the general awakening of boring enterprise being best reflected in the number of oil-wells in operation in subsequent years. ”

“ As the business grew it organized corporations under the laws of these states, to carry on the industry under corporate agencies. Manufactories were located at the seaboard for the export-trade. It was easier and cheaper to pipe crude to the coast than to refine it at the sources of supply and ship the varied products. Thus the refining of export-oil was done at the seaboard, just as iron is manufactured at Pittsburg instead of at the ore-beds on Lake Superior. The company aimed to open markets for petroleum by reducing the cost of its transportation and manufacture and bettering its quality. ”

“ They eliminated the jaded horses, oil-boats, wooden tankage, and slow freights, tedious methods, and questionable practices of handling petroleum, and substituted therefor the stem pump, the iron conduit, the steel tank storage, and systematic and businesslike methods which soon commanded the confidence and respect of all oil-producers. They extended their pipe-lines to practically every producing well and established a transportation system which serves the industry to-day as no other on earth is served. The advantages of the modern pipe-line to the oil-producer are obvious. ”

“ To-day, in every branch of the industry associated with petroleum—whether it be 42 in producing the crude oil, in transporting it, or in refining Nature’s product into those numerous commodities which are part and parcel of everyday life—the engineering aspect is one of very great importance. In fact, throughout the petroleum industry, engineering science is the Alpha and Omega. ”

“ We should give more facilities for the exploration and exploitation of our oil deposits. This is a promising industry. The world demand for oil is unlimited. I have sent abroad a special mission to study not only oil legislation but also methods and procedure of exploitation. I hope that our representatives will be helpful in the revision of our legislation on the subject. ”

“ The importance of gas in the oil-producing industry has, therefore, become a question of great concern to the industry itself and to government, to the end that its function may be fully utilized without waste. ”

“ Probable changes in practice that may be expected to affect the petroleum industry within the next ten years include an increased dependence by oil producers on geologic investigations in advance of drilling, the development of methods for deeper drilling than is now practicable, and the more efficient handling of individual wells and of entire properties, with a view to the ultimate recovery, at minimum cost, of a higher percentage of the oil originally present. ”

“ Assuming, as we may fairly do, that 3000 retorts are regularly at work, they will yield 21,800,000 gallons of crude oil, and distil 730,000 tons of shale annually; or, in other words, they will distil 13,000 to 14,000 tons of shale weekly. From the crude oil thus distilled there will be produced something like 10,000,000 gallons of refined burning oil annually, besides crude solid paraffin, and other products, such as naptha and lubricating oils. It is further calculated that the average wages paid in connection with this industry will reach between £400,000 and £500,000 per annum. ”

“ So conservative an authority as the Geological Survey estimates that the oil shales of the Western States alone contain many times over the quantity of oil that will be recovered from our oil wells. The retorting of oil from oil shale has been a commercial industry for many years in Scotland and France; in fact, oil was obtained from oil shale here in the United States before the first oil well was drilled. ”

“ These discoveries have brought also the gasoline and oil stoves, gasoline and gas engines and the automobile. Prom the industry has grown the Standard Oil company, one of the richest and most powerful commercial enterprises in the world. ”

“ As we move forward into that energy future, it will be important for all of us to understand that our oil and gas and coal resources are very much a part of the equation for that future. We cannot get from here to there without, frankly, developing the oil and gas resources that we have here in this nation – both on our lands as well as in some selected areas in the offshore area. ”

“ As men and means were found to put down wells, to devise and build tanks and boats and pipes and railroads for handling the oil, to adapt and improve processes for manufacturing, so men were found from the beginning of the oil business to wrestle with every problem raised. They came in shoals, young, vigorous, resourceful, indifferent to difficulties, greedy for a chance, and with each year they forced more light and wealth from the new product. ”

“ Already we are importers of petroleum. We are to be larger importers year by year if we continue—and we will—to invent and build machines which will rely upon oil or its derivatives as fuel. Our business methods have been and doubtless will continue to be developed along lines that make a continuing oil supply a necessity. Some of that oil must come from abroad, as nearly 40,000,000 barrels did last year, and for that we must compete with the world. ”

“ The ever-expanding uses of petroleum, which in their train have called for a continually increasing demand for crude oil, have given an impetus to the search for commercially productive oil-fields, which, in mining history, has no parallel. On the one hand, we have those important oil-producing regions which embrace enormous regions of the United States, Mexico, Russia, Roumania, the Dutch Indies, India, and Galicia ”

“ Space forbids my entering into details respecting the more recently developed or partially exploited fields of America, but it is safe to say that there is scarcely a single State that does not hold out hope for profitable oil development: this is evidenced by the large amounts of new capital which are to-day finding employment in regions which are only commencing their oil-field history. ”

“ Taking first the methods of oil transportation by land, in no other oil-producing country do we find such an elaborate system for dealing with enormous quantities of petroleum as in America, for it is safe to say that at least 500,000 barrels of crude oil have to be dealt with daily at the present time. ”

“ The fact, nevertheless, stands out tragically prominent that we as a nation have not developed our own oil resources in a manner we ought to have done, although everyone conversant with the oil business has been for years advocating the giving of serious attention to this important subject. ”

“ The Standard Oil Company never lowered the price of its oil except when compelled to do so by competition. The largely increased output of crude oil, the improved methods of refining, the greatly lowered cost of transportation would have lowered the price of coal oil without the philanthropy of the Standard Oil Company. ”

“ At every stage of its journey from the hole in the ground to the abode of the purchaser of kerosene, oil is handled with a view to the best results. The pipe-line relieves the producer from worry and fatigue and a large outlay, furnishing him prompt service and a cash market at his own door every business-day in the year. It enables the refiner to fill the consumer’s lamp at a trifling margin above the price of crude. For seventy cents a barrel—less than half it cost formerly to haul it a mile—the line collects oil from the wells, pumps it into the trunk-lines and delivers it in New York. ”

“ The use and export of crude oil is but a small proportion of the consumption, and time and money were required to re-establish this great product upon its former basis, and these people were glad to furnish all needed means to accomplish this end, as are also capitalists at other points not strictly within the Oil Region, yet upon your lines. ”

“ Bulk-boats, leaky barrels and long hauls through fathomless mud are superseded by pipe-lines, which pump oil from the wells to New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland and Chicago. The rickety stills and dangerous devices of former times have yielded to the splendid refineries that utilize every vestige of crude and furnish two-hundred merchantable commodities. For much of this important advance in tools, appliances and machinery the great Oil-Well Supply-Company is directly responsible. From small beginnings it has grown to dazzling proportions. ”

“ Under my Administration, we’re producing more oil than at any other time in the last eight years. We’ve quadrupled the number of operating oil rigs to a record high. And we’ve added enough oil and gas pipeline to circle the entire Earth and then some. ”

“ They have seen the four salt-and-oil wells at Tarentum and the solitary oil-well at Titusville multiplied into a hundred-thousand holes drilled for petroleum and a production almost beyond calculation. Do the gentlemen composing this little group occupy a position dramatic in the marvelous events they review? Is petroleum freighted with interest and a touch of romance at every step of its passage from the well to the lamp? ”

“ They have perfected such improvements in handling, transporting, refining and marketing their product that the major portion of Europe and Asia, outside of the czar’s dominions, is their customer. Nailing their colors to the mast and keeping their powder dry, the oil-interests of this glorious climate don’t propose to quit barking until the last dog is dead! ”

“ Every oil producer and every oil seller knows without any argument what he is up against that the Standard Oil Company can sell oil in as large quantities, as well refined, and at as low a price as he can afford and if need be a little lower. ”

“ Thirty thousand poods are equivalent to one hundred and twenty-five thousand gallons; multiplied by twenty-four it gives the unprecedented yield of three million gallons a day. Estimating thirty gallons to the barrel, we have a well flowing one hundred thousand barrels of oil daily! This is something never dreamed of by the wildest petroleum speculator in America. A single well of the Baku district is producing more oil than the aggregate of all the petroleum wells in the United States. ”