OCS Study 

MMS 95-0031 

University Research Initiative 

Oil in the Gulf: 

Past Development, Future Prospects 

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Gulf of Mexico 

U.S. Department of the Interior cooperative Agreement AM Minerals Management Service ~umcan University Research Initiative 

Gulf of Mexico OCS Region Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium 
OCS Study 

MMS 95-0031 

University Research Initiative 

Oil in the Gulf: 

Past Development, Future Prospects 

Author 

Robert Gramling 

April 1995 

Prepared under MMS Contract 

14-35-0001-30470 

by 

Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium 

8124 Highway 56 

Chauvin, Louisiana 70344 

Published by 

U .S . Dep artment of the Interior Cooperative Agreement 

Minerals Management Service University Research Initiative 

Gulf of Mexico OCS Region Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium 
DISCLAIMER 

This report was prepared under contract between the Minerals Management Service (MMS), 

the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON) and the University of 

Southwestern Louisiana. This report has been technically reviewed by the MMS and 

approved for publication. Approval does not signify that the contents necessarily reflect the 

views and policies of the Service, nor does the mention of trade names or commercial 

products constitute endorsement or recommendations for use. It is, however, exempt from 

review and compliance with MMS editorial standards. 

REPORT AVAILABILITY 

Extra copies of the report may be obtained from the Public Information Unit (Mail Stop 

5034) at the following Address: 

U.S. Department of the Interior 

Minerals Management Service 

Gulf of Mexico OCS Region 

Public Information Unit (MS 5034) 

1201 Elmwood Park Boulevard 

New Orleans, Louisiana 70123-2394 

Telephone Number: 1-8Q0-200-GULF 

CITATION 

Gramling, Robert. 1495. Oil in the Gulf: Past Development, Future Prospects. OCS Study 

MMS 95-0031 . U.S. Department of the Interior, Minerals Management Service, Gulf 

of Mexico OCS Region, New Orleans, LA 72 pp. 

iii 
ABSTRACT 

This volume is a history of offshore oil development in the Gulf of Mexico and of the 

events and technological development that preceded and allowed that development to go 

forth. The book also traces the national and international events that shaped and limited 

offshore development in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as the impacts of that development in 

general and of the Federal Outer Continental Shelf leasing program, initiated in 1954, in 

particular . 

v 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 

List of Figures ix 

List of Tables ix 

Chapter 1 : The Early Technology and Politics of Offshore Oil 1 

Chapter 2 : Moving Offshore 13 

Chapter 3 : Political Storm Clouds : OPEC, California, and the Embargo 35 

Chapter 4: Boom and Bust in the Gulf 

References 

41 

59 

vii 
LIST OF FIGURES 

FIGURE DESCRIPTION PAGE 

1 Gulf Offshore Areas 47 

2 World Oil Production, 1969-1991 54 

LIST OF TABLES 

TABLE DESCRIPTION PAGE 

1 Installation and Removal of Production Platforms on the Federal Outer 

Continental Shelf 24 

2 Gulf of Mexico Outer Continental Shelf Activities 26 

3 Miles Traveled by Years of Residence, For Offshore Workers 28 

4 Population and Growth Rates, Coastal Louisiana and Texas 43 

5 Gulf Area by Leases Sold 46 

6 Fixed Platforms under Construction for 1975, 1978, and 1981 48 

7 Employment in Oil and Linked Sectors Coastal Louisiana 50 

8 Annual Income by Industrial Sector and Shift Work, 1980 53 

ix 
Chapter 1 : The Early Technology and Politics of Offshore Oil 

The first over-water drilling for oil occurred in 1896 at Summerland, California, from 

a wooden pier into the Pacific Ocean. The success of this endeavor brought quick emulation, 

and by 1902 a photograph of the Summerland development shows over 40 derricks on piers 

over the Pacific (Lankford 1971 : 1367). Although, technically, the drilling was over water, 

little modification of existing land-based technology was required because of the direct land 

connection. Over-water technology moved slowly in the Pacific. 

The 1901 discovery of the first major oil reservoir at Spindletop in Texas not only 

transformed the petroleum industry, it also focused attention on the Gulf coast and on the 

adjacent state of Louisiana and, eventually, led to the evolution in offshore technology . A 

decade later, this technological adaptation to the marine environment progressed with the 

development of the Caddo Lake field in northwestern Louisiana . By 1905 successful oil 

wells had been drilled surrounding the lake, and in 1910 the Board of Commissioners of the 

Caddo Levee District advertised for bids on leases on the lake bed . The big bidder was the 

newly formed Gulf Oil company, which leased 8,000 acres (Forbes 1946 ; Lankford 1971) . 

The Caddo Lake development required a solution to several technical problems that 

were later to prove useful in the move offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. First, because the 

reservoirs were deeper, the downhole pressures were higher than anything encountered 

before . Many of the early wells blew out, caught fire, and burned uncontrollably . This 

resulted in several State laws regulating drilling procedures and a withdrawal of further 

public lands in the area for development by the U.S . Department of the Interior's General 

Land Office (Lankford 1971) . The movement into the Caddo field was quickly followed by 

the emergence of increasingly reliable blowout preventors (Brantly 1971 : 1290-1305), a 

necessary precondition for movement into the high-pressure reservoirs along much of the 

Gulf coast . 

At Caddo, drilling and production had to occur without direct connection to land, 

although the initial exploration and development were again little more than creative 

utilization of existing land-based drilling technology . Platforms were constructed on pilings 

driven into the lake bottom, and drilling equipment was barged to the site . Finally, another 

technological innovation, underwater pipelines connecting the production wells to one of four 

gathering stations on the lake, was a precursor of the collection lines currently used offshore . 

The Summerland and Caddo experiences were the start of the offshore technology . 

Into The Marine Environment 

This technology moved ahead with the development of the Maracaibo field, one of the 

largest ever discovered in the western hemisphere, ultimately producing approximately 4.6 

billion barrels of oil (Lankford 1971) . Lake Maracaibo in northern Venezuela differed from 

Caddo Lake in three important ways . First, it was larger, approximately two-thirds the size 

of Lake Erie. Second, it was deeper, up to 120 feet . Third, it was connected to salt water. 

This latter characteristic required the first modification in drilling practices . In 1924, as the 

Lago Petroleum Company brought in the first well in Lake Maracaibo, drillers faced the 

problem of the teredo, or shipworm, which thrived in the brackish water of the lake and 

1 
destroyed wooden pilings in six to eight months. After experimenting with a variety of local 

timber to no avail, the material of choice became concrete . Concrete pilings were driven in 

as legs and as support under the drilling machinery, and a concrete base was cast in place 

(Lankford 1971). In later drilling on the lake, the concrete base was replaced with a steel 

deck, which eliminated the need for the central support pilings and, as greater water depth 

required, the pilings were replaced with hollow, steel reinforced-concrete caissons . Later, in 

the North Sea and North Atlantic, this technology evolved into gravity-based platforms . 

A large number of over-water wells were used to tap the huge reservoir under Lake 

Maracaibo. Following onshore practices, during the early years of the reservoir's 

development, wells were sunk by setting the drilling machinery on a platform and, later 

breaking it down and moving it to a new platform . The inefficiencies of this process led to 

the steam drilling barge . During drilling the derrick continued to be mounted on the 

platform, but the power supply and the machinery for drilling were mounted on a barge, 

which could be easily moved from platform to platform. This increased mobility led to 

considerable savings and provided a model for the drilling tenders first used in the shallow 

waters of the Gulf of Mexico. 

Early Development Along the Gulf Coast 

Following the massive discoveries in east Texas, and as nondestructive exploratory 

(seismic) techniques evolved in the 1920's, numerous salt domes were located by geophysical 

exploration along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast. Access to these discoveries was a 

problem, however, since as Lankford (1971 :1377) noted, "these inviting prospects were often 

situated in very uninviting terrain--marshes, swamps, and the shallow open waters of bays 

and lakes. " Neither the traditional land-based drilling techniques nor those evolving in 

Caddo Lake or Lake Maracaibo worked very well. The problem was the extremely fine silt 

laid down in great depth by the Mississippi River. The lower portion of Louisiana was a 

deltaic plain primarily comprised of this material. Over thousands of years, decayed 

vegetation had also become incorporated as a major element of this soil . Since the decayed 

vegetation absorbs water and the silt acts as a lubricant, the resulting "highly aqueous 

organic ooze" (Russell 1942:78) has a consistency slightly stiffer than chocolate pudding. As 

found in the shallow marshes, this material proved to be a problem for the land-based 

drilling techniques current in the 1920's . Since this material underlay the shallow open 

water comprising much of coastal Louisiana, the bottom became a major problem . The silt 

layer can be very thick and pilings driven into it have no solid foundation, relying entirely on 

the friction between the pilings and the mucky bottom . As Lankford (1971) notes, since 

platforms built on such pilings cannot be cross-braced below the water line and since drilling 

machinery produces significant vibrations, up to 250 pilings were needed for a single 

exploratory platform . As interest grew in deeper prospects, these techniques became cost 

inefficient for exploration, because the nonrecoverable cost of platform construction 

increased regardless of the outcome of the drilling . Nevertheless, exploration and 

development did go forth along the Texas coast and, to a lesser extent, along the more 

inhospitable Louisiana coast. 

2 
The technological breakthrough that facilitated exploration in the shallow coastal 

waters and marsh came in 1933 with the Texas Company's introduction of the submersible 

drilling barge . The Texas Company (later Texaco), like Gulf Oil, had been born out of the 

discoveries at Spindletop . It became a vertically integrated company to compete with 

Standard Oil which was dominating the world oil market, but lacking resources to compete 

fully on the world market, the company initially saw its interests and greatest potential as 

lying along the Gulf coast, including the environs of south Louisiana. In the late 1920's 

Texas leased large tracts of marsh from the Louisiana Land and Exploration Company, as 

well as submerged lands under the contiguous lakes and bayous from the State of Louisiana 

(Lankford 1971) . The problems with exploration and development remained, however, and 

Texas began to explore other solutions. During a routine patent search made after a Texas 

employee submitted plans for a mobile drilling barge in 1932, it was discovered that Louis 

Giliasso had been issued a patent for a submersible drilling barge four years earlier. Giliasso 

was located the following year, operating a bar in Panama, and an agreement for the use of 

the patent was struck . 

In theory, the submersible barge could be towed to the drilling site and sunk . Since 

the water at these locations was shallow, the barge resting on the bottom, provided a stable 

base for drilling . The elevated derrick was positioned over a rectangular vertical slot 

extending from one end of the barge to its center. Drilling proceeded down through this 

slot. Once drilling was complete, the barge could be raised and moved to a new location. 

The Giliasso (as the first barge was appropriately named) was built in Pennsylvania and 

brought down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to Lake Pelto, Louisiana, one of the protected 

estuaries behind Louisiana's barrier islands .' There on a State lease on November 17, 1933, 

the Lake Pelto No . 10 was spudded . The barge's success brought a new era in marine 

drilling (Williams 1934) . Although in retrospect the principle seems simple, the submersible 

drilling barge revolutionized the movement into the marine environment . The increasing 

demand for such barges throughout the 1930's and 1940's led to the emergence of a marine 

supply and construction infrastructure in coastal Louisiana and, once the technological 

problems involved with offshore drilling had been solved, this infrastructure allowed for a 

virtual explosion of offshore drilling . 

The Legacy of Exploration and Development in Inland Waters 

The deltaic plain was not empty in the 1920's and 1930's as initial exploration and 

development of oil was occurring . Soon after settlers of European descent moved into the 

area in the mid-1700's, the extraction of renewable resources from coastal wetlands became a 

major part of the regional economic picture . By the mid-1800's over 150 wetland-oriented 

communities were in existence in the Louisiana alluvial wetlands (Davis 1990) . Connected 

only by water transportation routes, this large, isolated, but permanent population harvested 

' Due to coastal erosion, Lake Pelto, once an enclosed coastal bay, is now an arm of 

Terrebonne Bay protected from the open Gulf by a series of barrier islands (Isles Dernieres) off 

the Louisiana coast . 

3 
shrimp, oysters, fish, furs, and a variety of other minor marsh commodities . The inhabitants 

of the marsh consumed marsh products and marketed them to settlements along Bayou Teche 

and in New Orleans via those same water routes (Comeaux 1972; Davis 1990) . 

Concomitant with, and aiding, the movement of oil activities into the marsh in the 

1920's and 1930's was the spread of the highway network. The increasingly attractive 

development along the long, thin ribbons of natural levees, parallel to the waterways crossing 

the marsh, attracted migrants from the more isolated locations in the deltaic plain and 

concentrated populations in long "string town" (Kniffen 1968) settlements . This 

abandonment of the more isolated locations in the marsh and the concentration of the 

population in more urban areas assisted the transition from subsistence activities in the marsh 

towards a more commercial harvest perspective . The growing population along the 

settlement strips also provided a local labor supply for expanding petroleum activities, which 

in turn reinforced their movement into the marsh. 

Movement into marsh environs was initially accomplished by the construction of 

"board roads. " The roads were set on a base of 12-inch wide by 20-foot-long planks laid 

perpendicularly to the direction of the road . Across the center of these planks, additional 

boards were laid (sometimes elevated on cross ties in the softer marsh) parallel to the 

direction of travel to form the road surface (see Nicholson 1942 for a detailed description) . 

Travel across the shallow open water of the deltaic plain with heavy equipment was equally 

problematic, but the introduction of the submersible drilling barge was quickly followed by 

the means to provide access not only to the open water bodies but also to marsh locations . 

In 1938 a barge-mounted dragline prepared the first marsh location for the new class 

of submersible barges (McGee and Hoot 1963) . It was usually much easier to dig canals 

across the marsh or through shallow estuaries, float equipment on barges to the site, and 

supply the operation via vessels through the newly cut canals than to prepare the marsh itself 

to support the weight of drilling locations and access roads and this new technology moved 

ahead with no regulation . 

In the four decades between 1937 and 1977 approximately 6,300 exploratory wells 

and over 21,000 development wells were drilled in the eight Louisiana coastal parishes . As 

Davis and Place (1983) note, most of these were in wetlands or inland water bodies . Thus, 

it was during the 1930's, following the introduction of the drilling barge and barge-mounted 

dragline, that the extensive networks of canals associated with oil development along the 

northern Gulf Coast (primarily in Louisiana) was initiated . The eventual extent of the 

destructiveness of this practice has yet to be completely assessed (see Turner and Cahoon 

1988, Gagliano 1973) . In lieu of virtually any permitting practices, private landholders and 

the State of Louisiana allowed almost unlimited access via barge to drill sites in the coastal 

zone, and a network of pipeline corridors through the same wetlands only exacerbated the 

problem. Barrett (1970) measured more than 7,300 km. of canals south of the Gulf 

Intracoastal Waterway in Louisiana alone, resulting in a direct land loss of over 190 square 

miles due to canal surface alone (Gagliano 1973) . There is little doubt that this 

channelization process, accompanied by erosion, alteration of the hydrologic regimes, and 

saltwater intrusion, has contributed greatly to the current annual loss of between 35 and 50 

square miles of wetlands in the state. 

4 
This damage can only be understood in light of the environment (both physical and 

social) in which it occurred. Movement into the Louisiana marsh in the 1920's and 1930's 

happened at a time when not only was the idea of protecting wetlands was nonexistent 

(Freudenburg and Gramling 1993 ; 1994), but the concept of the marsh as a valuable resource 

had not emerged . Resources are things that are valued by human cultures in a given place 

and time (Freudenburg et al . 1992) ; a scant seven decades before this period, petroleum itself 

was not much of a resource because it had little social or economic worth . The same was 

true of the marsh in the 1930's, a hostile environment that was seen with a "conquest of the 

frontier" mentality . This was an exuberant age with almost unlimited faith in technology 

(Catton and Dunlap 1980), and in this age the exploration and development of oil and gas 

occurred blind to any environmental consequences. 

In addition, the coast of Louisiana is simply not accessible in the same way that most 

other coastlines in the U.S . are . The same band of marsh that was viewed simply as a 

problem by the early oil developers effectively precluded "coastal" residents from reaching 

the coast . The entire deltaic plain from the coast of Mississippi to almost the Texas border 

was inaccessible by land (and to a large extent still is) . Thus, there was no conception by 

local residents of a "coast" and certainly not of a "beach," and this led to very different 

perceptions of the "value" of these "resources" by Louisiana coastal residents in the 1930's 

than are current in the U.S. today (See Freudenburg and Gramling 1993 ; 1994; Gramling 

and Freudenburg 1994 for detailed discussion of these issues) . 

Finally, from the time of the earliest non-native settlers in the region, economic 

exploitation of the swamps and marshes had been the mainstay of local residents' livelihood 

(Comeaux 1972) . While many of these resources (fish, crayfish, oysters, shrimp) were 

harvested in a sustainable fashion, others (primarily cypress lumber) were not. Timber is 

theoretically a "renewable" resource but, given the centuries necessary to replace it, this 

distinction becomes academic . As soon as technology evolved to the point where massive 

harvest of the cypress in coastal Louisiana was possible, massive harvest occurred . By the 

time oil was emerging as an exploitable resource in the coastal marshes, cypress was in 

decline, and by the late 1930's virtually all of the old growth cypress was gone (Comeaux 

1972 ; Norgress 1947) . Oil provided an alternative, and the shift from one harvest to another 

seemed natural (Freudenburg and Gramling 1993 ; 1994) .2 

By the late 1940's, the technology of the submersible drilling barge had expanded in 

several ways. First, the barges had gotten larger and more powerful, allowing them to tap 

the deeper oil-bearing formations along the Gulf coast . Drilling as deep as 18,000 feet was 

possible (Sterrett 1948a) . A second innovation allowed the larger size ; the operation 

occurred on two barges with half of the drill slot built into the starboard side of one barge 

and half built into the port side of the other. On site, the two barges were tied together to 

produce a single drilling unit, effectively doubling the available space but retaining the 

smaller size of the older rigs for easier transportation and handling. This also meant that 

canals dug through the marsh did not have to be any larger than with the previous technology 

Z Cypress logging as it was practiced in the coastal areas also frequently required digging 

canals for access . 

5 
(Oil Weekly Staff 1946a) . A third innovation meant more flexibility and power; dieselelectric rigs replaced steam engines . The diesel engines were used to turn generators, which 

supplied electricity for the electric motors that powered the various elements of the drilling 

operation (Humble Oil, Production Department 1946) . 

By the early 1950's these huge inland submersibles were over 200 feet in length and 

55 feet in width and were capable of drilling to 20,000 foot depths (Albright and McLaughlin 

1952; McLaughlin 1952) . A final introduction in 1952 of the tungsten carbide drilling bit 

added to the efficiency of these enormous machines, and by 1955 inland submersibles were 

setting world drilling depth records of 22,500 feet (Drilling Staff 1955a) . 

Response to the New Technology 

The continued movement into the coastal marshes and estuaries led to two additional 

innovations, one technical and one social . The isolated location of wells along the Gulf 

Coast, with no access to roads and the necessity to move oil from wells to refineries, led to 

the emergence of extensive pipeline networks and to the adaptation of the pipeline to the 

marine environment . The first real marine application came with a 25-mile stretch of 

pipeline crossing Lake Pontchartrain, north of New Orleans, in 1941 . The solution of the 

logistical problems associated with positioning and assembling a continuous pipeline in a 

marine environment led to the early technology associated with "lay-barges" that work the 

Gulf today (Sterrett 1941) and the eventual proliferation of the massive pipeline network in 

the northern Gulf. A decade later, United Gas Company spanned over 25 miles of the open 

Gulf of Mexico to tie two offshore platforms into the pipeline network (Taylor 1951) . The 

following year the Texas Pipeline Company completed a 22-inch-diameter, 216-mile-long 

pipeline from near the Lake Pelto field to refineries in Port Arthur, Texas (Trove 1952) . 

Much of this line was through the coastal and marine environment . 

During this same period, the necessity for construction and drilling crews to work in 

isolated locations, where it was impractical to commute daily, led increasingly to the use of 

living quarters located near the work location and the division of work into concentrated 

working periods (e .g ., a week at work and a week off) . By 1941, Nicholson (1941 :30) was 

describing the luxury of the newest and largest of the remote living quarters, created from a 

converted river steamer and supplied by Gulf Oil near the mouth of the Mississippi, as 

providing "excellent food and sanitation" as well as "[f]ountains supplied with running ice 

water" and rooms with "reversible window fans . " By the mid-1940's, the larger of these 

living quarters had come to be described as "modern floating hotel[s]" (Oil Weekly Staff 

1946b:44) . 

The investment structure associated with work in the marine environment also affected 

work scheduling . The equipment associated with work in these environments was expensive, 

the ventures were capital intensive, and needed to return investment as quickly as possible . 

These factors led to 24-hour-a-day operations and the concentrated work scheduling now 

common offshore (Gramling 1989) . 

6 
Movement Offshore 

California 

As noted above, the first drilling for oil over water occurred from piers extending 

into the Pacific Ocean at Summerland, California, a few miles east of Santa Barbara . Oil 

had been found down to the shoreline, and natural oil seeps were found in the Santa Barbara 

Channel . By the 1920's, the State of California was leasing offshore tracts in the channel. 

When applications for offshore tracts got out of hand in the late 1920's and it became 

apparent that the State lacked the legal foundation to control offshore activities, leasing 

offshore was curtailed by the 1929 repeal of the California State Mineral Leasing Act. In 

1938 the State Lands Act was passed, giving the State the necessary legal control over 

offshore leasing, and limited development offshore resumed (Steinhart and Steinhart 1972) . 

Major offshore efforts, however, did not really begin again until after World War II . 

The Gulf of Mexico 

In 1938, a joint effort by Superior and Gulf brought in seven producing wells in the 

Creole field from a platform a mile offshore from Cameron Parish, Louisiana, in nine feet of 

water (Logan and Smith 1948) . This was the first attempt in the open Gulf, and it used a 

system similar to that practiced in Lake Maracaibo; the drilling was accomplished from a 

deck supported by pilings, and the support for drilling (crews, etc .) was primarily from the 

nearby shore. By the mid-1940's a number of proposals to extend the concept of the drilling 

barge to the open Gulf began to appear in the trade journals : self-contained, reusable drilling 

devices, illustrative of modern submersible drilling barges (Tucker 1946a), drill ships 

(Tucker 1946b), or even guyed production platforms (Shrewsbury 1945 ; Armstrong 1947), 

the latter approach not actually being used until the late 1980's . 

In spite of these visionary proposals, the first attempt to move the entire drilling 

support system offshore relied on more traditional technology . In 1945 the State of 

Louisiana held an offshore sale and the only bidder, Magnolia Petroleum Company (later to 

become part of Mobil), leased 149,000 acres offshore (World Oil Staff 1956a) . The 

following year, using a mixture of wood and steel pilings, Magnolia constructed a platform 

in the open Gulf on their newly acquired tract. The site was south of Morgan City, five 

miles from the nearest land . The platform was designed to withstand 150-mile-per-hour 

hurricane winds and a deck load of 2.25 million pounds. Drilling crews were rotated back 

and forth from one of the "floating hotels" anchored behind Eugene Island, ten miles away . 

This first endeavor foretold of changes in coastal occupations . 

For this work [initial survey] as well as the construction and drilling operations 

that followed, Morgan City's shrimp fleet proved most helpful, a number of 

these boats manned by seamen schooled in the Gulf Coast waters, being 

utilized for survey purposes as well as for transportation of personnel, supplies 

and equipment used in seismic and drilling operations. (Oil Weekly Staff 

1946c: 31). 

7 
Although the attempt was a dry hole, technologically it was a success by 

demonstrating that exploration in the open Gulf was feasible . The subsequent two decades 

that followed Magnolia's first Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) attempt saw the emergence of a 

full-blown offshore technology capable of working in 500 feet of water and over 60 miles 

offshore (Offshore Staff 1966a) . But, before this could happen, the question of who owned 

offshore lands had to be settled, and the question raised a heated national debate . 

The Tidelands Controversy 

As the technology evolved, allowing penetration into the coastal estuaries and bays of 

the Gulf of Mexico and the nearshore waters of the Pacific, the States of California, 

Louisiana, Texas and Florida quickly realized the potential for revenue. By 1929, California 

was issuing leases in nearshore waters and, in 1936, the Louisiana legislature created the 

State Mineral Board and directed the board to lease the waters adjacent to the state 

competitively . While exploration and development had not yet moved into the open Gulf, 

the technology existed for this step, and intensified activities in coastal Louisiana, 

particularly behind the barrier islands in Timbalier Bay, indicated that movement into the 

open gulf was not far away . Expectations in general were high that oil would be found 

under the open seas . 

Consequently the issue of ownership of subsurface lands arose .' While the States of 

Louisiana, Texas, Florida, and California assumed that they owned the sea bottoms, there 

were those in the Federal government who did not agree . Chief among these was Secretary 

of the Interior Harold Ickes . As early as 1937, at Ickes encouragement, a resolution passed 

the Senate directing the Attorney General to assert Federal ownership of offshore lands, but 

the House took no action on the matter, and World War II soon overshadowed the issue . 

Throughout the war, Ickes continued to push for Federal ownership of offshore lands, and 

shortly after the end of the hostilities approached Truman on the issue. Truman was 

sympathetic to Federal ownership and in 1945 issued a proclamation (Executive Order 9633, 

Federal Register 12304 (1945) ; 59 Stat . 885) asserting Federal ownership of the continental 

shelf. 4 In addition, Ickes persuaded Truman to initiate a suit against California in the U.S . 

Supreme Court. The states argued that they owned mineral deposits in the waters adjacent to 

their coasts as remnants of their jurisdiction over the marginal sea (the 3-mile strip of sea 

adjacent to a nation's coast) as original colonies . The Federal government argued that the 

3 For a detailed background see Bartley (1953), for a more concise discussion see Nash 

(1968) . 

4 The continental shelf is the comparatively shallow waters between the shore and the 

continental slope, which is the steeper drop into the deep ocean basin. The width of this shelf 

varies around the world from only several miles to several hundred miles . 

8 
marginal sea concept did not arise until after the revolution .' In spite of the Truman 

Proclamation and the impending suit, in the absence of clear legal precedent the State of 

Louisiana continued to lease offshore lands and Texas soon followed . By 1950 Louisiana 

and Texas had leased almost 5 million acres offshore (Mead et al . 1985) . 

In 1947 the Supreme Court ruled against California. Ultimately, the conflicting 

claims to the OCS were settled by this decision and a series of additional decisions between 

1947 and 1950 by the U.S . Supreme Court known as the Tidelands Cases . The Tidelands 

cases established the legal rights of the Federal Government over all U.S . offshore lands (see 

Cicin-Sain and Knecht 1987 for a detailed discussion of this conflict) . Throughout this 

period Congress struggled with the issue and a number of bills were introduced to address 

the conflict.' Early in 1952 Congress passed a bill allowing state claims, which Truman 

vetoed . 

In the wake of the Supreme Court decisions, Congressional action, and Presidential 

veto, the Tidelands controversy became a major issue in the 1952 Presidential election, with 

Eisenhower supporting the "state's rights" position and Stevenson coming down clearly on 

the side of Federal ownership . Within the oil industry, the sentiment ran heavily in favor of 

the states, and the specter of big government interfering in state and individual rights was a 

popular one . 

Supporters of the claims of California, Texas and Louisiana have 

warned that if the Federal government successfully consummated the tidelands 

seizures, no state or private property would then be safe from similar 

confiscation . Under this convenient doctrine of "paramount rights"' of the 

U.S . government, it was warned, a socialist-minded administration could 

easily nationalize all property and socialize the country. (World Oil Staff 

1951 :73 ; see also World Oil Staff 1952) 

5 While the suit was progressing, the issue came to the attention of the American public with 

Truman's nomination of Edwin Pauley as Under-Secretary of the Navy and Ickes, testimony that 

Pauley had offered to contribute $300,000 to the Democratic Party if Ickes would get the suit 

stopped . 

6 Interestingly, one of them proposed that the states should share in the revenue from 

royalties derived off Federal leases at the same 37 .5% that were in effect for Federal onshore 

lands within states (see World Oil Staff 1953a) . Although ultimately the states got none of the 

revenue from Federal offshore leasing, this revenue sharing from offshore Federal lands remains 

an issue to the present. 

The Supreme Court ruled that the Federal Government had paramount right to the nations 

seas . 

9 
The major oil companies believed it would be easier to deal with the states than with 

the Federal governments and undertook a major lobbying effort in support of states' rights . 

Along the Gulf coast and in California, the issue was a hot one, and as Solberg notes : 

Feelings ran highest in Texas, where the Tidelands issue topped all 

others . When Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson came out for Federal 

control in the face of crowds bearing placards "Remember the Alamo and the 

Tidelands Oil Steal . . . . . . Governor Allan Shivers announced that he could not 

support the party's candidate . With the hero born in benison, Texas, leading 

the way, the oil of the tidelands had much to do with detaching Texas from its 

historic allegiance to the Democratic party. (Solberg 1976 : 164) 

Federal Lands 

Several months later, with the threat of a veto removed, Congress passed the 

Submerged Lands Act (43 U.S .C § 1301-1315),9 which assigned to the states the title to the 

offshore lands that were within three miles of the shoreline, and Eisenhower quickly signed it 

into law to the relief of the industry (Logan 1953 ; World Oil Staff 1953a). Two current 

exceptions to this act involve Texas and the west coast of Florida, where the Supreme Court 

later ruled that the states had held title to three marine leagues (approximately 10 .4 miles) as 

sovereign nations before they were admitted to the Union. Although there were challenges to 

the Submerged Lands Act by states that did not stand to benefit (World Oil Staff 1953b; 

1954a), and conflicts between coastal states and the Federal government" (Logan 1953), 

and even between departments within the government (World Oil Staff 1954b) over just 

where state waters ended, the Submerged Lands Act eventually defined the limits of state 

ownership. 

While much attention was devoted to the states' rights issue, very little controversy 

centered on the submerged lands beyond the 3-mile limit . Because of the Supreme Court 

decision and in the absence of Congressional action deeding these lands or a portion of the 

8 Ironically, in most cases this has not been the case. With the exception of the central and 

western Gulf of Mexico, it has been the Federal Government that has pushed to lease offshore, 

and the states that have resisted it . 

9 The U.S .C . classification system refers to the volume and location within volume of the 

U.S . Code. Thus (43 U.S.C . § 1301-1315) refers to volume 43 of the U.S . Code, parts 1301-

1315 . While the U.S .C. classification refers to where the law is published, the other way in 

which Federal laws are referenced is by a "Public Law" citation which is assigned according to 

the Congress which passed them, and the order in which they passed . Thus, for example, (P .L . 

92-103) would designate the 103rd law passed by the 92nd Congress . 

'o In the first Federal sale off Louisiana the State offered some of the same tracts for bid 

after the Federal Government had advertised then for lease (World Oil Staff 1954a) . 

10 
revenue from them to the states, they soon passed into Federal ownership . Why this 

happened is not clear. By 1946 Magnolia Petroleum had demonstrated that drilling was 

possible beyond three miles offshore (Oil Weekly Staff 1946c), and by 1948 there were 24 

operations underway over three miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico (Logan and Smith 

1948) . The following year, technology had evolved to the point where a mobile offshore 

drilling rig was available and at work. Shortly thereafter, offshore drilling was known to be 

feasible in over 60 feet of water (Logan 1953), and industry reports were touting the 

resource potential of the OCS (World Oil Staff 1953c ; 1954c) . The States of Louisiana and 

Texas had already sold over 300 leases in the Gulf over three miles offshore (Minerals 

Management Service 1993), most off the Louisiana deltaic plain, and there was little doubt 

that the offshore lands would produce oil . 

The answer may lie in the fact that the action for Federal ownership was initiated by 

litigation, which, as Gramling and Freudenburg (1992a) have noted, tends to lead to 

intractable positions on both sides . Further, the legal battle came to be over the "Territorial 

Seas," which as a matter of international law had come to be defined as out to three miles 

(Cicin-Sain and Knecht 1987) . Thus, it may well have been not ignorance of the potential of 

these lands, and certainly not by those most directly involved in the industry and in the states 

of Louisiana and Texas, but rather lack of conceptual clubs with which to enter the 

legal/political fray, coupled with a rush by the Eisenhower administration to make good on 

campaign promises that led to the limiting of state lands to three miles . Whatever the cause, 

if the intent was to hand over the bulk of offshore resources to the states, the action was a 

failure . 

The second piece of offshore legislation that ultimately was of much more importance 

was the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) of 1953 (43 U.S.C . § 1331-1356) . 

This act authorized the Secretary of the Interior to lease, through competitive bidding, the 

offshore lands ("out") beyond the 3-mile limit, the "Outer Continental Shelf," for the 

development of the oil, gas, salt and sulphur resources found there and to subsequently 

administer these leases . The act served as the major legislation guiding policy for Federal 

offshore leasing starting in 1953 until it was amended in 1978. 

Within the Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and 

the U.S . Geological Survey (USGS) were given the shared responsibility for this task. 

Initially, after conducting a resource evaluation of a broad offshore area, an invitation to 

nominate tracts within that area was published in the Federal Register . Selection of a 

number of offshore tracts (each limited to a maximum of 5,760 acres, a 3-mile-square 

"block") was based on the ensuing indication of interest by industry and on the resource 

assessment conducted by USGS. Eventually a sale date and a final selection of tracts were 

also published . Although the OCSLA allowed some leeway, the Department of the Interior 

prior to 1978 generally used a cash bonus system with a fixed royalty rate of 163/a percent. 

This meant that bidders bid a cash amount to lease a tract and agreed to pay royalties of onesixth of any subsequent production (see Mead et al . 1985, for more detail) . 

The first OCS lease sale was held in the Gulf off Louisiana on October 13, 1954 . 

Ninety tracts were leased (Gould et al ., 1991), and the OCS development program was 

underway . Later that year, a lease sale was held off Texas, and in 1959, a lease sale was 

11 
held off Florida ." Although Louisiana and Texas went to court to block the 

implementation of the OCSLA and succeeded in delaying offshore sales in 1956, 1957 and 

1958, ultimately the states lost, although Louisiana continued the fight until the mid-1960's 

(Offshore Staff 1966a), resulting in sporadic lease sales during this period . With these early 

exceptions lease sales in the Gulf have been held at least annually and as frequently as five 

times a year (in 1974) (Gould et al . 1991) . Thus, with the settlement of the ownership of 

offshore lands and the initiation of the Federal leasing program, offshore development moved 

ahead rapidly in the Gulf. 

1' Ironically, the leases were sold in the vicinity of the Florida Keys, and three exploratory 

wells were subsequently drilled. In the 1980s drilling off South Florida was to become the 

source of a major conflict between Florida and the Department of Interior. 

12 
Chapter 2: Moving Offshore 

Emergence of the Offshore System: Technology 

Between 1946 and the settlement of the ownership issue in 1953, offshore 

development proceeded, albeit it at times in a legal vacuum. Following on Magnolia 

Petroleum Company's lead and using the same type of technology, Kerr-McGee brought in 

the first producing well on the OCS in 1947, 12 miles off the Louisiana coast in 18 feet of 

water. This sparked additional interest offshore, and by the middle of 1948, in addition to 

offshore production by Kerr-McGee and the Creole field initiated in 1938, 13 locations were 

in various stages of development off the coasts of Louisiana and Texas, two additional dry 

holes had been abandoned, and plans were under way for drilling in 14 other locations 

(Logan and Smith 1948) . Magnolia Petroleum Company and Kerr-McGee had emerged as 

the clear leader for continental shelf operations (Logan and Smith 1948 ; Seale 1948) . One of 

the more promising prospects underway in 1948 resulted not only in significant discoveries 

but also in the establishment of a support base on Grand Isle, Louisiana (Sterrett 1948b) 

which has remained in continuous operation to the present. With a success rate offshore of 

70% (World Oil Staff 1956a), almost 200 structures were in place on Federal waters by the 

time the first official Federal offshore lease sale was held in 1954 (Carmichael 1975) . All of 

these structures were in relatively shallow water, and many of them were simply platforms 

for exploratory drilling. A short two years later World Oil would proclaim the emerging 

offshore development "successful," and paint a rosy picture for future offshore development 

(Cram 1956 :78) . 

Throughout the early offshore development the basic technological problem faced was 

essentially the same as that faced in the marsh, prior to Texas Company's introduction of the 

mobile drilling barge in 1933 . Because drilling took place from a fixed platform, the cost of 

each offshore attempt was between $750,000 and $2,000,000, a considerable sum in the 

1940's, all sunk cost and lost in the event of a dry hole . Most offshore efforts had quickly 

moved to smaller (less expensive) platforms to house the drilling machinery and floating 

tenders moored to the platform, which contained crew quarters and storage . The tenders 

were at least mobile and reusable . Mobile drilling barges used in protected waters had 

reached considerable size and complexity by this time (Sterrett 1948a) . However they were 

not useful offshore, because of increased water depths and because wave action could move 

them laterally during storms . Platforms, which had by this time withstood hurricane-force 

winds (see Farley and Leonard 1950), derived strength not only from pilings driven deeply 

into the bottom, a firmer bottom than that found in the marsh and estuaries, but also because 

waves passed through the pilings dissipating little of their strength on the structure. 

The breakthrough, equivalent to Texas' Giliasso, came in 1949 when John Hayward 

designed an offshore drilling barge . The 160 by 54 foot barge was compartmentalized with a 

drilling slot similar to those used in protected waters . But the drilling platform, machinery, 

and crew quarters were mounted on a platform 20 feet above the deck, supported by a lattice 

work of braced columns or posts (leading vessels of this type to become known as "posted 

barges") . The barge was brought to the location, and its compartments were flooded in a 

controlled fashion to maintain stability . When resting on the bottom, the barge provided a 

13 
stable base for the drilling platform . Because, as with pilings on an offshore platform, wave 

action could pass through the columns, the barge was not moved off of its location during 

storms . Since this top-heavy structure was unstable during the flooding procedure, two large 

pontoons, running the length of the barge, were attached to columns on either of its sides. 

These pontoons remained floating (providing stability) until the barge was firmly on the 

bottom, and then they too were flooded, adding additional stability on the bottom. Raising 

the barge involved reversing the procedure, floating the pontoons first for stability before the 

main hull was raised . When the Bretton Rig 20 (as the first barge was named) moved off its 

first location in the Gulf and on to the second location (there was considerable skepticism 

that the barge would ever be successfully re-floated), the "revolutionary" nature of the barge 

was noted (Wolff 1949) . All of the previous technological innovations (mobility, 

transparency to wave action, offshore scheduling of work, and the inclusion of living 

quarters) came together for the first time in the Bretton Rig 20 to produce the first self 

contained, reusable, offshore drilling machine . 

Throughout the early 1950's, in spite of the success of the Bretton Rig 20, the 

offshore drilling picture was dominated by fixed platforms with floating tenders (World Oil 

Staff 1954d) . A number of innovations increased the efficiency of offshore drilling : for 

example installing two drilling rigs on one platform, doubling the drilling speed but not 

doubling the costs, as the tender and much of the support equipment could be shared 

(Kastrop 1950) . Submersible rigs became the dominant type of mobile offshore exploratory 

drilling rig during the decade following their introduction, although the three alternatives to 

submersibles (jackup rigs, drill ships and barges, and semi-submersible rigs) all appeared in 

the 1950's and early 1960's . 

Growth of the Offshore System: Technology 

Exploration 

By the time of the first Federal sale in 1954, four submersible rigs, similar to, and 

including Bretton Rig 20 were operating in the Gulf. These had been joined by the first 

jackup rig and one floating drilling barge, which was only used to take cores (geological 

samples) for survey work (Howe 1966c) . All exploratory drilling not done by the five 

exploratory rigs was accomplished by the traditional technique of constructing a platform in 

place . The basic problem with the submersible rigs of the Bretton 20 design was the 

limitation as to how high above the barge the drilling platform could be mounted and still 

retain stability while afloat . This limited the water depth in which such barges could work. 

Kerr-McGee commissioned and operated a larger barge late in 1954 capable of operating in 

up to forty feet of water (Gibbon 1954), but that appears to be about the practical limit of the 

design . There were also developments in drilling from fixed platforms, the most notable 

being the construction of modular units which could be loaded onto completed platforms and 

bolted together to begin drilling . By the mid-1950's the entire offshore drilling machinery 

structure was available in four units ranging from 30 to 184 tons . Each of these could be 

lifted by crane onto a completed platform and bolted together . Time needed to begin drilling 

was measured in hours . Still, the fixed platform's limitation remained the initial cost . Given 

14 
the restricted depths in which submersible barge could operate four new designs emerged 

during the 1950's and early 1960's, which addressed these limitations . 

The first of these was the jackup rig . This design, which was tested in 1953 (World 

Oil Staff 1953d), first appeared in 1954 (Howe 1966b) with prototypes theoretically capable 

of use in waters up to 100 feet by 1955 (Davidson 1955) . The arrangement consisted of a 

barge on which the drilling equipment, machinery, and crew quarters was mounted . The 

barge was towed to the drilling site, and legs along the periphery of the barge were extended 

to the bottom, lifting the barge clear of the water, above wave action . Drilling occurred 

either through an opening in the barge or over one of the sides. The first jackup tested was 

a standard 300 foot barge with six 100 foot long legs on each side (World Oil Staff 1953d), 

but by 1955 the design had evolved to the tripod arrangement in use today. With this 

design, first evidenced by Zapata Offshore's Rig No. 1, three legs, each consisting of several 

vertical pipes braced with a latticework of smaller tubular braces, were positioned to lift a 

much lighter triangular platform (Hanna 1955). Although the three legged structure was 

assessed as "unusual in design" while it was under construction (Drilling Staff 1955b :68), the 

design became the industry standard following its successful deployment off Aransas Pass in 

1956, and the survival of 100 mile-per-hour winds from Hurricane Audry by a similarly 

designed rig off Cameron, Louisiana in 1957 (Drilling Staff 1957) . 

The rapid rate of the evolution of offshore technology can be made by comparing 

industries comments on the design of the "unusual" rig in 1955 . Three years later, in 1958, 

when the same firm unveiled a much longer-legged version it was described as "similar in 

appearance to the conventional LeTourneau design (Drilling Staff 1958 :84 emphasis added) ." 

Following the longer-legged tripod version, jackups have evolved into massive structures 

which today can commonly work in up to 300 feet of water. 

The second innovation in offshore drilling was the drillship . Introduced in 1953, the 

first drillships were converted offshore barges or small ships with the derrick mounted over 

the bow (barges) or over the side (ships) . A number of vessels were converted in 1955 and 

1956 for core drilling to obtain geological information in the Pacific off California and by 

1957 were drilling in over 1,000 feet of water (World Oil Staff 1957a) . By the early 1960's, 

drillships were being built from the ground up with center line derricks for drilling through 

the center of the vessel and with dynamic positioning equipment replacing anchors . The 

third innovation occurred in 1956 when Kerr-McGee introduced the "bottle" type submersible 

drilling rig . The drilling platform was mounted on the top of "bottles" (large cylindrical 

bottle shaped tanks, similar in shape to a wine bottle, which were connected by a latticework 

of pipe and positioned around the periphery of the rig) . When empty, the bottles floated the 

platform high over the water . Towed into position, the bottles were flooded, and their 

bottoms sat on the sea floor to provide a stable base for drilling . Because the bottles were 

mounted around the periphery of the drilling platform and even when empty were half 

submerged from their own weight and the weight of the drilling platform, the design was 

very stable . Since the platform sat on the narrow necks of the bottles, the narrow necks 

offered little resistance to wave motion when sitting on the bottom. This design ultimately 

resulted in rigs capable of drilling (with 25 foot deck clearance) in 175 feet of water (Howe 

1966a) . 

15 
Finally, in 1962 semi-submersible drilling rigs were first used . Early semisubmersibles were converted bottle-type submersibles, which were partially submerged, for 

stability in deep water and anchored in place . Later designs involved multiple, parallel, 

submerged cylindrical hulls (like submarines) connected together and to a drilling deck with a 

latticework of shafts . Because the majority of the weight was below the water line, the rigs 

were very stable and because the only surfaces subjected to wave action were the columns 

connecting the hulls to the deck, this design was able to operate in rough water. These later 

designs are also self-propelling and like modern drillships are capable of transporting 

themselves to virtually any region of the world. 

Although there were a number of proposals for other types of offshore mobile rigs, 

such as totally submerged drilling rigs which operated below the surface (Martin 1956), early 

forerunners of the gravity-based platforms used later in the North Sea (Gregory 1955), and 

even innovative uses of existing technology, such as transporting offshore and using a 

submersible drilling rig designed for inland waters from a converted dry dock (Drilling Staff 

1956a), the four standard designs came to dominate the U.S . offshore picture during the 

1950's and 1960's . Jackups continue to be the most common offshore rigs with 

semisubmersibles emerging as the choice for rough water and drillships the choice for greater 

water depths . 

In addition to the technological changes in the design of the rigs, there were 

corresponding changes in drilling operations and in support facilities . Marine radar and 

radio emerged as commercial products following World War II and were promptly adapted 

by the offshore support and communications sector . The concept of moving the drilling rig 

to different locations on the offshore platform in order to drill multiple wells without moving 

the platform emerged almost concurrently with the Federal leasing program (Drilling Staff 

1956a) . Safety regulations for offshore structures were first promulgated by the U.S . Coast 

Guard in 1956 (Drilling Staff 1956b) . 

By 1966, a little over a decade after the Federal offshore leasing program 

commenced, there were an estimated 150 mobile drilling rigs in operation, most of them in 

the Gulf (Howe 1966a ; 1966b ; 1966c) . Most of the continental shelf in the Gulf, at least out 

to 500 foot depths (Offshore Staff 1966a), was open for exploration. Submersible rigs ceased 

to be built by the late 1950's . Although jackups, drillships and semi-submersibles have 

continued to evolve, the basic designs were in place by the mid-1960's . Also by the mid 

1960's the dominant offshore drilling companies had emerged and had specialized in the type 

of rigs they continue to use . Global Marine was the dominant drill ship company in the 

world with ODECO (Ocean Drilling and Exploration Company) capturing the recently 

emerging semisubmersible market, and The Offshore Company, Penrod Drilling, and Zapata 

Offshore dominating the deep water jackup market . 

While the rate of technological development in offshore rigs between 1955 and 1965 

was astounding, it was not without mishaps . During this same period there were 23 "major 

mishaps" involving the capsizing and or sinking of offshore rigs (Howe 1966a) . The early 

jackup rigs were the most vulnerable ; six were lost in 1965 alone. 

16 
Production 

All types of mobile drilling rigs are used during exploration or, later, to drill 

additional wells on existing platforms . Once oil or gas is discovered and the extent of the 

field has been delineated, a production platform is put in place. Production platforms 

provide a stable base from which to drill production wells and to mount the necessary 

equipment to control production from the wells . Early production platforms were the same 

platforms constructed for exploratory drilling and, of course, were built in place (i .e ., piles 

were driven into the sea bottom and a deck was constructed on top of them) . These 

platforms also provided mooring for barges to take the crude oil to onshore processing 

facilities . Both the on-site construction of platforms and the transportation of oil by barge 

began to change by the mid-1950's . 

Offshore production in the Gulf underwent a transformation similar to that for 

exploration in the decade following the first Federal lease sale . The most fundamental 

change came because it was not practical to build production platforms in place in deeper 

water. Because the pilings could not be effectively braced below the water line after they 

were driven, sufficient stability to support the weight and vibration involved in offshore 

drilling could only be accomplished in relatively shallow water . This meant that, for deeper 

water, the entire production platform had to be fabricated on land and set in place offshore . 

By 1955, one year after the first Federal lease sale and six years after the first submersible 

drilling barge, a number of these "self-contained" platforms (because they did not require 

tenders during drilling) were in place in the Gulf (Hanna 1955) . That same year the 

McDermott facility, the first fabrication yard solely for the construction of offshore 

platforms, opened east of Morgan City, Louisiana, on Bayou Boeuf. Eventually this facility 

expanded to over 1,000 acres (Davis and Place 1983). It is still in operation today . 

The technology for the production and installation of these platforms developed 

quickly . Also in 1955, McDermott produced a marine crane capable of lifting 800 tons, 

touted as the "largest single mechanical lift ever created" (Drilling Staff 1955c :93), for use in 

the installation of offshore platforms . McDermott had installed platforms in 100 feet of 

water late that same year and in 200 feet of water by 1959 (Clark, 1963) . 

Platforms are designed for a specific location and offshore field and are ordered after 

exploratory drilling and the characteristics of the field are known. In the U.S ., the "steel 

jacket" production platform is the norm. Early platforms were simply rectangular structures 

consisting of a series of parallel upright columns supporting a deck and connected by a 

latticework of smaller pipes. As production moved farther offshore by 1956, the basic 

design of the jacket (that portion that extends from the sea floor to above the water line) had 

been modified to resemble a slender truncated pyramid still constructed of a latticework of 

upright columns and braces but with the base being wider than the top of the structure to 

provide increased stability (World Oil Staff 1956b) . The size and configuration of the jacket 

are based on the depth of the water, bottom support condition, the number of wells and the 

processing equipment required. Whatever the size, the jacket and the deck (the portion of 

the platform above the water line, with all the production equipment, living quarters, etc.) 

17 
are constructed separately . After the jacket is barged offshore" and secured in place by 

pilings driven through the vertical columns, the deck is brought out and installed . While the 

description implies a simple operation, steel-jacketed platforms have been installed in up to 

1,350 feet of water . The largest ("Bullwinkle") platform is 1,615 feet tall 13 and 400 feet 

across at the base. 

Transportation and Supply System 

Through the 1950's most offshore operations in the Gulf brought oil ashore via 

barges, and for a while there was considerable interest in offshore submersible storage tanks 

(Lacy 1957; Lacy and Estes 1960). As oil and gas production moved farther and farther 

offshore, however, so did the pipeline network . In 1951, the first large-diameter pipeline for 

offshore production was laid in the Gulf (Clark, 1963), and by 1958 the development 

offshore had reached the point that the construction of underwater gathering lines was 

beginning to be economically feasible (Edmondson 1958) . Pipelines are laid from a specially 

designed "lay barge ." The lay barge has an anchoring system, which allows it to be pulled 

across the area that the pipeline is to traverse . As it moves over the area, sections of pipe 

are welded to the end of the pipeline, coated to prevent rust and marine growth, and are 

passed along a ramp that is built into the barge, and over the stern of the vessel . Once in the 

water, the pipe rides along a supporting ramp, or "stinger," to the bottom where it is buried 

under the sea floor. As the pipeline networks moved into deeper water, the lay barges 

became larger and more sophisticated. Like offshore drilling rigs, the lay barge constitutes a 

system that must be constantly supplied from shore with sections of pipe ; coating material, a 

rotating labor supply, fuel, food, and water . 

The earliest offshore attempt, in what is now Federal waters, made by Magnolia 

Petroleum in 1946, used local expertise and vessels (primarily shrimp boats) for 

transportation of personnel and supplies . Following World War II, Navy LSTs became 

available as government surplus, and these were quickly purchased by a number of offshore 

operators and pressed into service as offshore tenders (Hanna 1955) . Concurrent with the 

spread of offshore activities, methods of supply evolved quickly and, as with mobile drilling 

rigs, the prototypes for offshore vessels were soon apparent. Some of the necessary vessel 

types for offshore operation, such as marine tow boats (for moving exploratory rigs, and 

steel jackets on barges) were already available, but others quickly materialized . The two 

vessels most closely associated with the offshore industry are the "crew boat" and the 

"supply boat," both of which appear to have evolved from their military equivalents, "PT" 

boats and "LSTs. " By 1956 crew boats and supply boats built specifically for offshore oil 

and gas activities were becoming the norm (Craig 1956 ; World Oil Staff 1957b) . 

lZ Jackets are built on their side and barged offshore also on their side . Once in position 

the specialized barge(s) is selectively flooded, tipping the jacket upright. 

'3 By contrast the Sears Tower in Chicago is 1,454 feet tall, and the World Trade Center 

and Empire State Building, 1,353 and 1,250 respectively . 

18 
Crew boats are fast planing hulls ; originally wooden and 50 to 60 feet long, they are 

today usually constructed from aluminum and are up to 150 feet long. Although, as the 

name implies, they were first commonly used to transport crews offshore, as helicopters 

gradually took over that role they are more commonly used today to transport specialized 

equipment and smaller quantities of supplies that do not merit a supply boat. Supply boats 

are larger displacement" hulls with raised bows for crew quarters and low flat decks for 

carrying heavy loads (such as drill casing or cement) extending over the back two-thirds of 

the vessel . They frequently have built-in tanks below deck for water or drilling mud. 

Typically in the Gulf of Mexico, supply vessels are 180-220 feet in length, although in some 

areas of the world, such as the North Sea, they are frequently over 250 feet in length 

(Alderdice 1969) . 

By 1955, a year after the first Federal lease sale on the OCS the helicopter had made 

its appearance (Monroe 1955), and it quickly became an integral part of the offshore 

transportation picture (Hanna 1957) . With the rapid expansion offshore in the 1960's and 

early 1970's and the increasing distance from land involved in the movement into deeper 

waters, helicopters became the standard means of transporting crews and specialized 

personnel offshore. The expansion of all of these forms of transportation created a 

burgeoning transportation sector in the northern Gulf of Mexico with the construction and 

leasing of vessels and leasing of helicopters constituting a major economic activity in their 

own right. By the late 1970's, Petroleum Helicopters, based in Lafayette, Louisiana, had 

become the worlds largest helicopter company . Far more than with most industrial sectors, 

transportation is an integral part of offshore oil and gas activities, and that necessary mobility 

has a number of implications that emerged early in the Gulf of Mexico . 

Mobility 

In contrast to the more geographically specific types of development (a generating 

plant is built, a mine is opened, etc.), offshore energy exploration and development tends to 

be a highly mobile phenomena, and this has major implications for areas in which it 

develops . Not only does this mobility tend to disperse both the positive and negative social 

and economic impacts associated with its activities but, as we will see, if economic or 

resource availability factors dictate, much of the offshore sector can relocate . This mobility 

is evidenced in four basic areas . First, the development itself is highly mobile. Offshore 

" aThe difference between planing and displacement hulls is both a function of performance 

and design. Planing hulls usually have sharp entries ("V" bows) to cut through waves and are 

relatively flat over the back two-thirds of the bottom . The propeller shaft(s) extends through the 

bottom of the hull, and can thus push the boat up to where it is planing over the surface of the 

water and still maintain a bite in the water . Planing hulls are fast but necessarily more top 

heavy than displacement hulls . Displacement hulls are more rounded with lower centers of 

gravity . The propeller shaft(s) extends through the transom of the vessel (like a ship) and thus 

cannot push the vessel up to plane over the surface . Displacement hulls are slower than planing 

hulls but are more seaworthy and can carry heavy loads. 

19 
drilling rigs can be, and frequently are, moved to virtually any coastal area in the world. 

The exploratory drilling phase, through the development drilling and completion phases of 

offshore activity, is the most labor and resource intensive, leading to most of the employment 

associated with OCS activity . During this time, drilling activities offshore must be supplied 

with labor, drilling mud, casing and drill pipe, fresh water for drilling, food and potable 

water for human consumption, fuel, and a variety of specialty tools and equipment. It is also 

during this period that platform construction will take place, and pipeline to connect the 

platform to the existing network will be laid . Once the wells are tied into pipeline networks, 

the actual production of petroleum offshore and the maintenance of platforms are much less 

labor intensive and provide considerably fewer jobs . Thus, the basic economic activity upon 

which development hinges is a highly mobile phenomenon. Additionally, the primary 

support sectors must also shift the concentration and delivery pattern of their products to 

follow development. 

A second factor in the mobility of the offshore energy production industry is the 

transportability of many of the products, that the industry and support sectors buy . While 

the transportation of products is characteristic of most industrial development, with the 

exception of the transportation industry (shipping, railroads, trucking), rarely are the 

construction projects themselves transportable . Three types of construction projects are 

commonly purchased and transported by the various industrial sectors associated with 

offshore energy production: drilling rigs of various types, production facilities (jackets, 

platforms), and support vessels . Since these products must be constructed on land and 

transported to a site offshore, they are designed to facilitate mobility . Since they can be 

produced in any coastal region in the world, the construction or fabrication associated with 

offshore development does not necessarily have to occur in the vicinity of that development . 

While extensive local fabrication has been associated with offshore development in Louisiana 

and Texas, this occurred because this was the first area where offshore oil was developed 

(Freudenburg and Gramling 1994). 

Louisiana was the primary location for offshore exploration. As activities moved into 

more distant environs, existing equipment had to be modified and redesigned . The need was 

local, the conditions were local; this encouraged the development of a strong fabrication and 

shipbuilding sector of the economy with little competition from a world market. Recently, 

however, areas of the world with much lower labor cost have become extremely competitive 

in the production of offshore drilling rigs, platforms, and vessels, and this trend will 

undoubtedly continue for the foreseeable future . When planning was underway for the 

development of the massive Hibernia field off Newfoundland, there was considerable debate 

leading to intervention of the provincial government, as to whether the production platform 

would be a gravity-based" concrete platform (which would be constructed locally), or a 

's Gravity-based platforms are constructed of giant reinforced hollow caissons, which are 

turned upright and fastened to one another to form a rectangular structure, similar in shape to 

a grain elevator . From the top of these caissons a comparatively slender column(s) supports a 

deck on which production machinery and crew quarters are located . When the caissons are 

empty they float upright and can be towed to the offshore production site . There some of the 

20 
floating fabricated-metal platform that would probably have been built in Asia. Pressure 

from the government helped to turn the tide for a gravity platform and local jobs . 

Thirdly, the products themselves, oil and gas, are also very mobile . With few 

exceptions, production platforms in the U.S. are tied directly into pipeline networks, and the 

products are brought ashore via pipeline . As pipelines can be run practically anywhere, 

secondary treatment, refining, scrubbing, etc ., can also take place far from the actual 

recovery activities . The exception to this, off-loading directly to tankers, actually provides 

an even more mobile alternative. 

Taking all three of these factors into account means that the impacts of offshore 

activities, jobs and economic development may or may not accrue to the communities closest 

to that development. Thus, offshore activities in many cases act as a distribution mechanism, 

distributing both positive (jobs, income, and other economic activities) and negative (stress 

on community infrastructure, family problems) impacts far beyond the geographic area in 

which primary development occurs . This leads to a fourth and final type of mobility, that 

associated with the labor force employed in offshore and related sectors, which is discussed 

in detail under "Social Environment" below. 

Development of the Onshore Support System 

Infrastructure and the Physical Environment 

There are a number of factors that shaped the evolution of the infrastructure 

supporting offshore development in the Gulf. Because the system for offshore oil and gas 

production evolved in the Gulf of Mexico, there was no precedent, and the equipment and 

structures used for offshore exploration and development had to be locally constructed (often 

from the ground up) to meet local needs . Moreover, because of the rapidity with which the 

industry moved offshore during the 1950's and early 1960's, design and engineering were in 

a constant state of flux. The result of these factors was that, unlike areas of the world where 

offshore production came later and where past experience made planning at least possible if 

not always successful (Manners 1982), the onshore support system in the northern Gulf 

emerged with no systematic planning . 

An additional factor was the nature of the physical environment itself. The deltaic 

plain of Louisiana from where most of the activity was supported was aptly described by 

Davis and Place: 

East of Vermilion Bay, sediment accumulation has resulted in the 

sequential development of a delta system. Known as the deltaic plain, the area 

is the site of a series of six major deltaic lobes that extended seaward at 

different times during the last 7,000 years . Each lobe advanced into the 

caissons are flooded and the structure sits on the sea floor . Some of the caissons may be used 

for the storage of crude oil. The structure is designed so that the caissons are below the surface, 

and wave action, and the deck is held well above the surface and wave action . 

21 
shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico. . . and was distinguished by numerous 

distributaries . . . These channels continued to bifurcate aiding the distribution 

of the river sediments and progradation of the coast . Natural levees formed 

along the channels and served as favorable settlement sites. 

Two distinctive plant communities have influenced development of the 

deltaic plain by the oil and gas industry -- flotant and roseau cane . . . Flotant 

communities, distinguished by abundant "plant species tolerant of frequent and 

sustained flooding," are "anchored in a relatively thin, matted layer of 

decomposing vegetable debris that is either truly floating on water or 

supported by highly aqueous organic ooze" (Russell 1942 : 78-79) . Roseau 

cane marsh communities, on the other hand, are dominated by tall grasses and 

reeds and essentially is land; it can support a man's weight. . . while flotant 

"trembling prairie" is a quagmire underfoot. The ease of excavation of flotant 

marsh has facilitated development of networks of canals associated with the 

144,900 ha [approximately 560 square miles] classified by the USGS as 

extractive land, a category almost synonymous with the oil industry in coastal 

Louisiana . (Davis and Place 1983 : 4,8) 

The nature of the terrain restricted settlement and industrialization to the many 

scattered natural levees of current or previous waterways, and while at times high ground 

was at a premium, access to the Gulf certainly was not. Anywhere one of these strips of 

high land met an existing waterway was a potential construction or support site, and these 

sites sprung up like mushrooms as offshore development moved ahead . The result was that 

the emerging support, transportation and fabrication sector was scattered across southern 

Louisiana and later Texas . Fabrication yards ranged from the 1,000+ acre sites near 

Morgan City to operations the size of half an acre with a welding truck and a portable toilet . 

Staging areas similarly ranged across the coast, and concentrations quickly materialized at 

Venice, Bayou Lafourche, Morgan City/Berwick, Intracoastal City, Cameron, Orange and 

Port Arthur. Wherever road or rail met waterways, local docks and staging areas appeared . 

Some of these areas, like Morgan City/Berwick and the towns along Bayou 

Lafourche, were fishing communities before the turn of the century . The towns grew 

rapidly, often with few zoning regulations . Existing settlement patterns were altered, 

transportation networks were extended, and community services were quickly overwhelmed. 

Morgan City became a textbook example of rapid community expansion (Stallings et al . 

1977 ; Manuel 1980 ; Gramling and Brabant 1986a) with housing shortages, inadequate utility 

networks and social services, and an economy almost totally tied to offshore support 

(Gramling and Freudenburg 1990) . 

Other areas like Venice and Intracoastal City had little in the way of indigenous 

populations in the 1950's, and as a result became commercial settlements with staging areas 

and company offices but little in the way of a permanent population . Lafayette, centrally 

located and able to offer more amenities, became a corporate headquarters city for the 

offshore industry during this period (Gramling 1983 ; Gramling and Brabant 1986a) . Coastal 

Texas, which had already been transformed by the oil industry, received new impetus during 

this period, with Houston becoming the financial center for oil-related activities (Feagin 

22 
1985) and major fabrication yards springing up in the Beaumont, Orange and Port Arthur 

areas. 

By the early 1960's, over 100 platforms a year were being placed offshore in everdeeper water (see Table 1) . This meant that not only were over 100 platforms fabricated 

each year and moved offshore and supplied while production drilling was proceeding, but 

also that each year an additional 100 platforms were added to the growing base of offshore 

facilities that had to be serviced and maintained. 

Through the analysis of telephone directories, Davis and Place (1983) identified over 

3,500 businesses in coastal Louisiana alone directly serving the petroleum industry by the 

early 1970's . This was up from approximately 1,200 businesses in the mid-1950's, a growth 

rate of over 100 businesses a year. These firms were located on over 28,000 acres of land 

given over to industrial and commercial uses scattered throughout the coastal zone of the 

state . If all of this marine activity and the associated support and managerial activity had 

been concentrated into one port, it would have been by far the busiest commercial port in the 

world from the late 1950's through the mid-1980's . 

The Push For Development 

By 1957 there were 101 offshore drilling rigs operating in the U.S ., 96 off Louisiana 

(with five off Texas and one off California), most of them off the deltaic plain (World Oil 

Staff 1957c), when an increasingly active Federal leasing program began to kindle what 

would become an offshore boom . Table 2 shows production, leasing and exploration and 

development well trends on the Gulf OCS from 1954 through 1990. 

Starting from the 275 tracts leased by Louisiana and Texas prior to 1954, a total of 

237 tracts was offered during the first year of the OCS leasing program (1954), and of these, 

109 (46%) were leased . As can be seen from Table 2, there was a number of years in the 

late 1950's and early 1960's when there were no lease sales in the Gulf. However, the 

stipulations associated with the leases served to smooth the offshore development curve and, 

in general, drive it steadily upward . The primary term of the lease was for five years, 16 but 

the lessee could retain the lease beyond this period if the tract was producing or, with 

approval of the Department of Interior, as long as drilling operations were underway (43 

U.S .C . 1337(b)) . Thus, once a lease was obtained, the lessee had to have exploratory 

drilling underway within five years or risk losing the lease . Because of limitations on 

available offshore rigs, the lag time involved in planning offshore operations and the fact that 

the major players held many leases and had to balance their attention between them, there 

was no one-to-one annual correspondence between leases sold and offshore activity . There 

was, however, a pressure to begin exploration on a lease within five years, and if 

commercially feasible quantities of oil or gas were found, then there was financial incentive 

to bring the tract into production. In the Gulf, the average time between lease sale and 

'6 Some of the more recent leases in more difficult terrain (deeper water or in Alaska) are 

for ten years. 

23 
Table 1 

Installation and Removal of Production Platforms on the 

Federal Outer Continental Shelf 

Gulf of Mexico Pacific 

Installed Removed Installed Removed 

1953-1960 474 7 0 0 

1961 111 0 0 0 

1962 123 0 0 0 

1963 86 2 0 0 

1964 130 0 0 0 

1965 126 5 0 0 

1966 116 2 0 0 

1967 134 0 1 0 

1968 107 1 3 0 

1969 105 1 1 0 

1970 124 1 0 0 

1971 101 4 0 0 

1972 121 6 0 0 

1973 98 1 0 0 

1974 52 18 0 0 

1975 100 32 0 0 

1976 111 31 1 0 

1977 116 15 1 0 

1978 164 25 0 0 

1979 159 43 2 0 

1980 169 32 3 0 

1981 171 24 2 0 

1982 192 21 0 0 

1983 177 36 1 0 

1984 229 47 1 0 

1985 214 68 3 0 

1986 109 33 1 0 

1987 119 24 1 0 

1988 178 102 0 0 

1989 188 100 2 0 

1990 174 107 0 0 

Total 4,578 788 23 0 

Source : Gould et al ., 1991 ; American Petroleum Institute 1993 ; Minerals Management Service 1993 . 

24 
production over the entire history of development in the Gulf is about five years (Minerals 

Management Service 1993). 

This relatively short time between sales and production, the difficult logistics involved 

and the number of leases being sold, all combined to become a driving developmental force 

in the Gulf. They created a growing demand for improved technology (in order to explore 

and develop more rapidly, and in ever deeper waters), greater numbers of exploratory rigs, 

more efficient ways to bring development platforms on line, pipelines to transport offshore 

production, and a massive support sector to support these other demands . The economic 

forces at work brought about integrated changes in the technology, infrastructure base, 

physical environment, and concomitant changes in the social and economic environments of 

the coastal Gulf of Mexico. Together these factors worked to produce a massive 

offshore/onshore system in a remarkably short period of time . Nor was all the Gulf of 

Mexico development exclusively for the Gulf. Because of the mobility, noted above, early 

offshore efforts in other regions of the world were supported from the Gulf of Mexico . Of 

the four production platforms in place in the Pacific at the time of the Santa Barbara spill, 

two of the steel jackets and two of the decks were built in Morgan City, Louisiana (Gould et 

al. 1991) . In a similar fashion, not only was early exploration in the North Sea supported by 

vessels and equipment from the Gulf of Mexico, but the evolution of altered forms of work 

scheduling meant that many of the experienced personnel from the Gulf were involved in the 

expansion of offshore activities around the world, a trend that continues to the present. 

The Social Environment 

The movement offshore required support from a number of social and economic 

systems, which in some cases had to develop new ways of operating, new networks of supply 

and support, and new ways of adjusting to the impacts of the growing offshore sector . 

Certain occupations, primarily associated with transportation or military endeavors, have 

historically required individuals to travel considerable distance in association with their 

employment . However, the movement into the marsh and estuaries of the Louisiana deltaic 

plain provided a situation that had not really existed before . Here, the development was 

large scale, intense, and relatively permanent, but it was happening in environments where 

human settlement was not really possible . At the same time, the isolation of the activity and 

the time and expense of commuting meant that its range would have to be limited by a point 

of diminishing returns . It is precisely this consideration which has been responsible for the 

concept of "labor force" being defined geographically, as an area in which people can 

commute to work (Killian and Tolbert 1993) . If, however, time at work and time away from 

work can be concentrated, then space between work and residence can be increased since 

trips must be made less frequently . 

Extended presence at the place of employment has also occurred historically . As perhaps 

the most notable example, sailors commonly live and work aboard ships for months or even 

years at a time . Like ships, drilling operations in the marine environment required 24-hour 

manned operations to be cost efficient, but three major factors worked against the "ship 

model" of development for marine petroleum activities as they emerged in the Louisiana 

deltaic plain. First, the movement was from traditional land-based activities out toward the 

25 
Table 2 

Gulf of Mexico Outer Continental Shelf Activities 

Year Troff Acroff Trlsd Acdsd Total $ $/Ac Exwell Devwell Prod-Oil Prod-Gas 

a b c d e f g h i j 

1954 237 860608 109 461870 139735505 303 3 61 33 56 .3 

1955 210 674095 121 402567 108528726 270 18 117 6.7 81 .3 

1956 0 0 0 0 0 NA 41 182 11 .0 82 .9 

1957 0 0 0 0 0 NA 47 282 16 .1 82 .6 

1958 0 0 0 0 0 NA 56 172 24 .8 127.7 

1959 118 539813 42 171300 89746992 524 86 213 35 .7 207.2 

1960 385 1610254 147 704526 282641815 401 114 259 49 .7 273.0 

1961 0 0 0 0 0 NA 110 335 643 318.3 

1962 830 3718115 420 1929177 489481061 254 148 351 97 .4 451 .9 

1963 0 0 0 0 0 NA 188 357 104.6 564.4 

1964 28 34028 23 32671 60340626 1847 200 474 122 .5 621 .7 

1965 0 0 0 0 0 NA 169 619 145 .0 645.5 

1966 70 263891 41 139773 188010893 1345 260 596 188 .7 1,007.4 

1967 206 971489 158 744456 510079178 685 287 604 221 .9 1,187.2 

1968 195 775375 126 570983 743767835 1303 294 651 269.0 1,524.1 

1969 65 190153 36 108657 110945535 1021 215 607 312 .9 1,954.5 

1970 161 666845 138 598510 945064773 1579 201 628 360.6 2,418.6 

1971 18 55872 11 37222 96304523 2587 254 556 418.5 2,777.0 

1972 210 970711 178 826195 2251347556 2725 296 545 411 .9 3,038.6 

O~ 1973 276 1514940 187 1032570 3082462611 2985 291 527 394.7 3,211 .6 

1974 1006 5006881 356 1762158 5022860815 2850 336 459 360.6 3,514.7 

1975 1143 5989734 265 1369828 670821011 490 310 517 330.2 3,458.7 

1976 193 942092 77 337413 555125455 1645 278 782 316.9 3,595.9 

1977 223 1074536 124 605427 1170093432 1933 322 851 303.9 3,737.8 

1978 362 1865423 206 1052467 1666298621 1583 305 808 292.2 4,385.1 

1979 247 1166118 171 812702 3160826960 3889 334 753 285.6 4,672.9 

1980 273 1367883 183 934977 4094889184 4380 349 754 277 .4 4,641 .4 

1981 421 2159295 258 1308213 3893097504 2976 327 808 289.7 4,849.5 

1982 378 1952417 171 871478 1802832942 2069 372 792 321.2 4,679.5 

1983 13023 71153488 1040 5393997 4906889551 910 378 717 348.3 4,040.7 

1984 20816 115413886 970 5125178 2478473398 484 559 710 370.2 4,537.8 

1985 15754 87028709 670 3529325 1542346514 437 490 617 368.3 4,000.9 

1986 10724 58670104 142 734427 187094747 255 263 396 389.2 3,948.9 

1987 10926 31846415 640 3447825 497247006 144 399 416 366.1 4,425.6 

1988 11282 61492451 917 4829523 514083346 106 550 423 320.7 4,309.9 

1989 11013 60097672 1049 5580867 645646870 116 475 501 305.2 4,200.3 

1990 10459 56788766 825 4263446 584301918 137 451 

(a) Tracts offered (b) Acres offered (c) Tracts leased (d) Acres leased (e) Total bonuses collected (f) $ per acre collected (g) Exploratory wells (h) Development wells (p Production of oil, millions of barrels (j) Production of 

gas, trillions of cubic feet 

Sources: Gould et al . 1991 : American Petroleum Institute 1993 . 
marine environment. As noted above, early marine operations with similar types of 

scheduling, though less uniform in nature, had been in effect in maritime operations since ere 

supported by fishing vessels, simply because the maritime expertise did not exist in the oil 

industry . Thus, whileprobably before recorded history, the scheduling of operations in the 

marsh and later offshore did not directly come out of these experiences. Second, ships 

isolated at sea are designed to be virtually self sufficient, needing no supplies or additional 

personnel while in route. In contrast, drilling locations must be constantly supplied not only 

with a variety of products, but also with specialized personnel to respond to various stages 

and potential scenarios throughout the drilling procedure. This means that constant 

transportation avenues must be maintained, and thus regular exchange of personnel is 

possible . Finally, ships are designed for maximum personnel efficiency to utilize as few 

people as possible . Marine drilling operations require many more activities than does the 

piloting of a ship and as a result are both more labor intensive, and require a more diverse 

labor force . 

In response to these unique variables, a form of concentrated work scheduling evolved 

around marine petroleum activities in the Gulf of Mexico . The common pattern for offshore 

work is for the employee to meet at a pre-arranged site to "go offshore" either by boat, or 

more recently, by helicopter . The stay offshore varies but is typically for seven, fourteen, or 

twenty-one days . Following the stay offshore, the employee is returned to the meeting site 

and has a period of time off, typically the same length as the stay offshore . When offshore, 

the crew is divided into two shifts that are on for twelve hours and off for twelve hours 

alternately. In effect there are four complete crews for each operating rig, two of which are 

offshore at any given time . More specialized personnel, who are not part of the crew 

necessary for the basic operation of the drilling rig (downhole logging, etc .), may work other 

schedules, such as on-call 24 hours a day . Offshore employees work, eat, sleep, and, in 

short, live at the place of employment. This concentration of work scheduling, which 

became the model for offshore development, was one of the necessary elements of social 

engineering for development in the isolated environs of the continental shelf. This pattern of 

employment has been operational in the Gulf of Mexico for over four decades (Gramling and 

Brabant 1986a) . The intent of this practice was to minimize transportation time and cost, but 

over time two unanticipated consequences have emerged . 

First, because of the temporal scheduling of offshore work, employees can 

realistically seek and obtain employment considerable distance from where they live . If, for 

example, one works a fourteen on and fourteen off shift, the round trip between place of 

residence and place of work must only be made once every twenty-eight days. This 

decreased rate of commuting allows considerably more time and money to be spent in transit 

before a point of diminishing returns is reached. 

Gramling (1980) conducted a labor survey in the eastern part of St Mary Parish, one 

of the most heavily involved parishes in Louisiana in the support of offshore activities, 

during the height of the offshore boom in 1980." Because concentrated work scheduling 

" The survey was a stratified random sample of businesses in east St . Mary Parish, stratified 

by Standard Industrial Classification Code (U .S. Department of Commerce 1979) and number 

27 
Table 3 

Miles Traveled by Years of Residence, For Offshore Workers 

Miles Traveled Years of Residence 

0-1 years 2-5 years 6-10 years 10 + years 

0-25 miles 10 4 5 18 

26-50 miles 1 1 5 

51-99 miles 10 22 6 25 

over 100 miles 38 64 34 120 

Totals 58 91 46 168 

allowed long-distance commuting, some of these high-paying jobs were in communities far 

from where individuals were employed. Table 3 shows distance traveled to work as related 

to the number of years that individuals had lived in their community of residence at the time 

of the survey . Not only does the table show that a fairly large portion of the sample 

commuted from over 100 miles away, but that over 70% (120 out of 168) of these longrange commuters had been doing so for over ten years when they were surveyed in 1980 . In 

fact, the sample contained individuals living in 18 states and communing to work offshore in 

Louisiana from such improbable locations as New York and California . 

Gramling and Brabant (1986b) noted that less than one-third (30%) of the 381 offshore 

workers in their sample lived within one hundred miles of where they met to go offshore . 

Over eleven percent (11 .5%) of the employees lived more than 500 miles from where they 

worked. Similarly, Centaur Associates (1986) found that of the estimated 21,847 employees 

working offshore in waters off the State of Louisiana in 1984, 2,167 (9 .9%) did not live in 

the State of Louisiana, and the overwhelmingly majority did not live in the parish (county) 

where they were employed . 

Second, this nontraditional scheduling of work allows decisions concerning the site 

selection of drilling activities to be made with less regard to human settlement patterns, since 

decision makers can count on long-distance commuters . These two points are obviously 

different sides of the same coin: the first refers to decisions by employees, the second, to 

of employees. All employees of each sample firm were asked to complete a questionnaire 

involving basic social and economic characteristics (e .g ., age, sex, marital status, place of 

residence, income, occupation number of miles traveled to work, etc.) . Of 152 sampled firms 

107 or 70.4 percent cooperated with the survey resulting in 1,560 completed employee 

questionnaires or about 11 .1 percent of the total estimated labor force in East St. Mary Parish . 

For details of the sampling, administration and coding procedures, see Gramling (1980) . 

28 
decisions by employers. By increasing the length of the period of intensive work, and 

correspondingly the period of time off, a particular economic activity, such as an offshore 

drilling rig, can be sited literally in any coastal region of the world, and the labor force to 

man the platform can be from any other region of the world . Initial development off the 

North Slope of Alaska was staffed largely by experienced offshore drilling crews from 

Louisiana and Texas . The scheduling of work was simply changed to thirty days on and 

thirty days off to allow feasible commuting. Likewise, as offshore exploration and 

development moved off the North American Continent (to the North Sea, the Persian Gulf, 

Indonesia, etc .), work scheduling was extended to ninety days, and the same individuals who 

had obtained their experience in the northern Gulf of Mexico were employed in these 

locations. 

In fact, in the North Sea, where U.S . companies dominated the early offshore 

activities, it quickly became obvious that the corporations preferred to employ their overseas 

labor from the experienced labor force located near the Gulf of Mexico. The corporations 

involved profited because they were relieved of the necessity to train or relocate employees. 

Thus, few of the people employed in early North Sea development were citizens of, or lived 

in, those countries . As a result those countries did not gain from the benefits of those jobs . 

Once this trend became clear, the countries involved, led by Norway, moved legislatively to 

require that quotas of local residents be employed and local supplies purchased in virtually all 

offshore activities . This led to an economic development model, which Noreng (1980) calls 

the North Sea Model and House (1984) refers to as regulated capitalism. 

The point is that this particular altered form of work scheduling produced such a 

successful combination of a geographically separated economic activity and a labor force that 

legislative intervention was required to alter it . For certain highly skilled individuals in the 

oil industry this pattern has become a way of life . Much like experienced construction 

foremen or consultants, these individuals work wherever the action is . Unlike construction 

foremen, they continue to "live" in a traditional place of residence . Unlike consultants, their 

employment is regular and frequently with the same corporation and in the same location for 

years . Thus, in the offshore industry and certain highly skilled individuals have literally 

become part of a worldwide labor market independent of the geography of oil . 

While these operations were supported by maritime operations, these were not a part 

of these operations, and neither the oil worker in the marshes in the 1930's and 1940's nor 

the vessel operators and crews that got them to work were a part of the long tradition of 

labor relations that had built up around seafaring (Forsyth 1989 ; Forsyth et al. 1984; Forsyth 

and Gramling 1987) . While this may seem to be a minor point, it is not. The emerging 

occupational structure of work associated with oil and gas extraction in the marine 

environment both diverted from and shared with elements of the more traditional maritime 

industry . These shared elements and diversions have shaped labor relations and the legal 

environment of offshore work to the present. The gradual extension of land-based oil 

extraction activities in the 1930's and 1940's into the marine environment, the support of 

those activities by an emerging class of vessels that were too large to be considered "boats" 

and too small to be "ships," and the isolation of this system in inaccessible areas, along with 

traditional southern antagonism toward unionism, meant that this emerging industrial issue 

was left behind . 

29 
The late 1930's and early 1940's saw the growth of the union movement in the U.S ., 

following the passage of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, and although the earliest 

maritime unions can be traced to the late 1800's, the primary thrust for the seaman unions 

paralleled the time period of the union movement in general (Forsyth 1989) . By this time 

established patterns of employment surrounding oil and gas extraction activities had 

developed in the coastal Gulf of Mexico, and several features of that activity ensured that, 

unlike seamen, these and later offshore workers in the U.S . never became unionized. 

Shrimpton and Storey (1987 ; see also Storey and Shrimpton 1986) summarize the 

problems with unionization at isolated mine sites in Northern Canada where both the 

scheduling of work (Gramling 1989) and the isolation are very similar to that in offshore oil : 

The problems that 'fly-in' [there are no roads, so miners fly in to work] pose 

for unionism centre on the facts that the entire mine site, including the mine, 

camp and airstrip, are under company control, and that at any one time only 

half the workforce is at the site (half of whom are working), while the other 

workers are at home in a large number of widely dispersed communities. 

Access to the site has to be negotiated with the employer, or achieved through 

government intervention, and it is difficult to hold meetings and votes, achieve 

group solidarity, and provide union training . In the case of a labour dispute it 

would be very difficult to picket, prevent the use of non-union labour, or 

maintain solidarity among the dispersed workers . There is also no 

'community' support, in the form of the support from the spouses and children 

living in the single-industry town that has proven so important in numerous 

labour disputes . (Shrimpton and Storey 1987 : 4) 

Although offshore workers in Europe are largely unionized, the offshore industry in 

Europe (North Sea) developed in the 1960's, around relatively mature technology and was 

organized along the lines of the existing shipping industry and the accompanying maritime 

unions. Maritime unions have been successful, at least partly, because of licensing 

requirements for every entry into critical jobs and the comparative labor scarcity created by 

these entrance requirements . 

In addition, ships (because of their draft, and the facilities needed to load and unload 

them) come into a limited number of ports . Union halls were established in the 1930's in all 

of these major ports, which provided a gathering point for seamen and a focus for union 

activities . There is no comparative point of concentration or licensing requirement for those 

involved in offshore oil and gas activities in the U.S . As noted above, because of the 

smaller scale and limited requirements, early marsh and offshore activities were spread out 

over numerous local waterways across the Mississippi deltaic plain. Thus, in the United 

States, where the offshore industry evolved as a gradual extension of onshore practices, the 

industry has successfully avoided unionization throughout its 60-year history . 

What the industry did not avoid that was a direct result of the gains of the maritime 

union was protection for injured workers under the Jones Act, a quirk of the U.S . judicial 

system that has led to a plethora of personal injury suits in the Gulf of Mexico (Beer 1986) . 

Following the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 and the outbreak of World War I in 1914, 

30 
national attention focused on the protection of sea lanes and on seamen who manned 

American vessels (Beer 1986) . In 1920 Congress passed the Merchant Marine Act, (section 

33 of which has come to be named the Jones Act), which provided a recourse (including a 

trial by jury) for "seamen" for the collection of damages for injury suffered "in the course of 

his employment" (46 USC § 688(a)) . Congress recognized the seaman as a special type of 

plaintiff for two reasons: the seaman's exposure to the perils of the sea and the relative 

isolation from recourse and remedies (Caffery 1990) . As a consequence the Jones Act makes 

it easier for seamen to establish employer negligence and to claim damages than with other 

occupations . Neither "seaman" nor "vessel" were defined by the act. 

In 1955 a suit was brought against the Texas Company in U.S . District Court by the 

estate of a worker who was killed on a submersible drilling barge, and the court returned a 

settlement under the provisions of the Jones Act. Although the Fifth Circuit Court of 

Appeals overturned the decision, the Supreme Court upheld the original decision . The effect 

was to define submersible drilling barges (and later offshore rigs) as "vessels," and 

employees on these vessels as "seamen" entitled to protection under the Jones Act. Because 

work in the oil field in general and offshore in particular is dangerous, this decision touched 

off a wave of Jones Act litigation in coastal Louisiana and Texas, which continues to the 

present (Beer 1986) . 

Working Offshore 

The geographic job mobility noted above constitutes one of the better examples of 

both positive and negative impacts distributed by offshore development. One of the most 

positive impacts of the concentrated work scheduling associated with working offshore is that 

it allows individuals living in depressed economic areas, sometimes far from the coast, to 

maintain a high-paying job offshore while continuing to live in (often rural) communities 

with their family and social networks (Gramling 1989) . 

There are, however, a variety of individual problems that occur with offshore 

employment, such as lack of privacy on the job, loneliness, limited recreational facilities, 

physical risk and arduous labor in the midst of hostile elements . In addition, time off the job 

may also be unrewarding . Extended periods of leisure time, when all of one's friends are 

working, are less than ideal . Boredom probably leads to more second jobs by offshore 

workers than does financial need . 

Individuals generally compartmentalize their lives in many ways, but a common one 

is to divide time between work and leisure . Shift work interrupts this normal 

compartmentalization and interrupts the individual's interaction within a variety of social 

institutions (Laska et al ., 1993 ; Gramling and Forsyth 1987) . There have been some 

attempts by local institutions to adjust to this interruption . For example, the University of 

Southwestern Louisiana at Lafayette, Louisiana, near the center of offshore production, 

offers classes which meet every other week for those employed offshore . However, the most 

difficult adjustment for offshore workers is with their family life . 

Gramling (1984) noted some specific family problems related to decision making, 

child rearing, and sex that are associated with offshore work, but Gramling and Forsyth 

(1987), in a more comprehensive approach, examined the general relationship between work 

31 
scheduling and family interaction. In this study they assume that successfully arriving at a 

consensual definition or an agreed upon set of ground rules is an ongoing enterprise as each 

new situation that the family faces must be defined and rules worked out for how members 

should act in these situations . "Problems" arise in families when they are unable to arrive at 

a set of agreed upon rules" . The process is essentially one of negotiation, requiring human 

interaction. Thus, for a viable definition or set of rules to emerge, the presence of those to 

whom the definition or rules will apply is necessary . Offshore work interrupts the presence 

of one member of the family, usually the male . These prolonged and periodic absences 

mean that inevitably new problems and resolutions will arise and be made accountable while 

one family member is not present. Because of the situational nature of these "solutions," the 

absent member may not understand why and how decisions were made and may disagree 

with them . If these absences continue it may become impossible to maintain a single 

coherent set of rules for the social system of a specific family . 

Often the families of offshore workers involve two discrete social systems with two 

sets of rules . One set of rules defines areas of competence, lines of authority, and guidelines 

for interaction when the offshore worker is absent; the other is in operation when he is 

home. The relationship between these two situations seems to fall into a limited number of 

adaptations (Forsyth and Gramling 1987 identify five), ranging from quasi-replacement of the 

husband/father in the decision-making process during his absence (usually by a male kin) to 

the acquisition of the "periodic guest" role by the husband/father when he is home with little 

input into the day-to-day operation of the family. There are also almost inevitably areas 

where the two constructs conflict . 

Economic Adaptations to Mobility 

While the development offshore, starting in the 1950's, generated tremendous 

economic growth along the northern Gulf of Mexico, the interaction of the mobility of that 

activity with the structure of ownership by the major multinationals produced a relatively 

unique economic environment in the Gulf. The major multinationals, because of their 

immense capital potential, own (or through the leasing process acquire control of) the 

potential oil and gas resources in the reservoirs and the refineries required to produce a 

marketable product . In addition, they may own the means of delivering raw materials to the 

refineries and the distribution system allowing the marketing of finished products from the 

wholesaler to the Texaco station on the corner . What these fully integrated corporations 

most notably do not own are the corporations and equipment that address the various pieces 

of the process necessary to get the resource in the ground to a point where it is available to 

'8 Using the construction of reality approach (Berger and Luckmann, 1966; Berger and 

Kellner, 1964), the family was conceptualized as a small social system, which in modern 

industrialized cultures is less and less guided by traditional norms and increasingly must operate 

by a set of rules, which are largely negotiated, by the members of the family . These continually 

updated rules or constructs define appropriate behavior for each individual family member, as 

well as what constitutes appropriate interaction among family members. 

32 
be transported to a refinery . Although the necessary capital for the first offshore operations 

was only available from the largest oil companies, the concept of equipment leasing 

(including offshore drilling rigs and support vessels) and independent offshore supply 

companies (e .g., to supply drilling mud, water, etc .) quickly emerged as offshore operations 

began to standardize in the 1950's (Lietz 1956 ; Drilling Staff 1956c) . It is here in this most 

temporary of situations where the opportunity for the myriad smaller players in the offshore 

game exists and where much of the expertise in the Gulf infrastructure remains . 

For example, let us say British Petroleum is the successful bidder on an offshore 

tract. British Petroleum will contract with an offshore exploration company to do the seismic 

exploration and, if the results warrant, perhaps with another company to do the necessary 

exploration for underwater hazards . Then they will contract with an offshore drilling 

company to drill an exploratory well . The drilling company owns offshore rigs but contracts 

with a host of other specialized companies to support the drilling operation, providing 

support vessels, catering, potable water, drilling mud, casing and drill string, and even 

crews . Many of these companies further contract with still another level of support 

companies to provide additional services . Thus, a corporation that owns and leases offshore 

supply boats will probably engage another company to provide offshore safety classes for 

their employees . 

If the exploratory well finds commercially feasible quantities of oil or gas, then the 

oil company will contract with a fabrication company to produce an offshore production 

jacket and perhaps with another company to produce the deck. Additional companies may 

move the completed jacket and install it, requiring support (e .g . a diving company) 

throughout the process, and install the completed deck structure on the jacket . At this point, 

perhaps, another drilling company gets involved drilling the production wells, also being 

supported by many firms through a process that may last several years . After completion, a 

pipeline company connects the platform to the existing pipeline network, also being 

supported with crews, fuel, water, pipe, coating, divers, etc . throughout. If something 

breaks down during any of these operations or later modifications need to be made, a host of 

additional corporations swing into action with specialized services and tools . Once the 

resource is available to be delivered, the oil company again assumes primary control and 

profit . 

Several attributes of this process are noteworthy . First, it is in this niche between 

initial ownership and availability for transportation (exploration development) that the 

primary opportunity for local entrepreneurial activity exists . Second, this is one of the more 

capital intensive aspects of the enterprise, and products that facilitate the process are very 

valuable . Third, this part of the process from acquisition of lease to availability for refining 

is the most temporary . Finally, because of the uncertainty involved at each stage of the 

exploration development process and the necessity to rely on services outside one's control, 

many jobs cannot be bid at a fixed cost, as say the construction of a house or road can be . 

A supply vessel company cannot bid a fixed price for supplying a drilling rig, because they 

do not know how long the operation will take and often cannot even give a daily rate in 

advance, because they do not know what difficulties will be encountered (up to and including 

such factors as the weather) and, as a consequence, what vessels will be required and for 

how long. Personal services are similarly constrained, as are the production of individual 

33 
specialized products used in the system . Thus, the whole support sector works on an hourly 

or daily basis and on a high markup for specialized products. 

Given these attributes and the Federal leasing program, a unique and transient 

entrepreneurial environment arose surrounding offshore activity in the northern Gulf of 

Mexico . Because payment was on an hourly or daily basis, and because of the large 

markups, the emphasis came to be on speed, not costs. When a $60,000+-a-day offshore 

drilling rig is down for lack of a part, the question is not how much but how soon . Similar 

metrics are at work to a lesser scale with a $6,000-a-day supply vessel or with skilled labor, 

when the demand for a product is high. The fabrication yards in Morgan City were paying 

$18 an hour for welders in the mid-1970's and could not get enough. Thus, while the 

economic environment provided jobs, entrepreneurial opportunities, and in many cases 

fortunes the adaptation was to a narrow niche which proved to be problematic later. 

By the mid-1960's, the offshore system was a mature industrial complex, fully 

integrated into coastal Louisiana and Texas. Operations were underway in the Pacific off 

southern California and had started in the North Sea. In less than two decades, the industry 

had evolved into a system capable of working throughout the world . During the next 

decade, while this world-wide expansion continued, operations in the Gulf grew at a steady 

pace. Lease sales proceeded on an annual basis in the Gulf, and the steady annual average 

increase of over 100 platforms continued to drive the development of the support and 

construction sectors of the economy . Although the January 28, 1969, spill in the Santa 

Barbara Channel halted additional OCS lease sales in the Pacific and postponed initial sales 

in the Atlantic and Alaska, the spill did not affect the Gulf. For the next five years, while 

the OCS of most of the U.S. was closed to leasing, the leasing program in the Gulf and the 

accompanying developmental pressures moved steadily ahead ." 

19 The Santa Barbara spill provided at least partial impetus for the National Environmental 

Policy Act (NEPA), Earth Day, much of the subsequent environmental movement in the U.S., 

and eventually the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act Amendments (OCSLAA) in 1978 . 

34 
Chapter 3 : Political Storm Clouds : 

OPEC, California, and the Embargo 

The Formation of OPEC 

Exploration and production technology moved ahead faster than consumption . 

Production on the Gulf of Mexico OCS was in full swing by the late 1950's, discoveries 

were still being made in coastal Louisiana and Texas, and the Middle East was found to have 

enormous reserves . With reservoirs close to the surface and close to the sea, which 

facilitated transportation by tanker, production costs in the Middle East ranged from five to 

ten cents a barrel and the resulting profits encouraged production . In addition, Soviet oil 

was beginning to come on the world market . 

The transportation structure of the market was also changing. Following World War 

II and the Marshall Plan's funding of the transition from coal to oil, much of Europe was 

supplied with Middle Eastern oil via the Suez Canal . When Nasser closed the canal in 1956 

in response to the British and French invasion to retake it, the progenitor of the super tanker 

was born. The industry moved quickly to build 250,000-ton tankers . These ultimately 

proved to be so cost effective that eventually it became cheaper to bring oil from the Middle 

East to Europe around Africa . 

By the late 1950's concerns about oversupply began to emerge . In 1959, following a 

series of unsuccessful attempts at voluntary controls Eisenhower announced a quota on 

foreign oil . The quota resulted in a decline in the demand for Middle Eastern oil, and the 

following summer Exxon abruptly announced a 14-cent-per-barrel cut in its posted price for 

Persian Gulf oil (Atkins 1973) . This simple profit-motivated action had far reaching 

consequences. In September of 1960 the Ministers of Oil of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi 

Arabia had met in Baghdad, and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) 

was born (Ghanem 1986) . OPEC had little initial success in establishing quotas, and the 

world surplus of oil continued . The major oil companies consulted with the new Kennedy 

administration to be certain that they would have the permission of the antitrust division of 

the Justice Department to act jointly if OPEC became a problem (Senate Subcommittee on 

Multinational Corporations 1974). 

Offshore California 

During this same period, events were unfolding on the west coast that were also to 

eventually alter the OCS program (Cicin-Sain et al . 1992) . By 1957 the Monterey-Texas 

Company had producing wells in the Pacific from an artificial island off Seal Beach (World 

Oil Staff 1957d). In 1958, borrowing from Gulf of Mexico technology,2° the first true 

offshore platform in the Pacific (Hazel) was set at 100-foot depth in state waters, offshore 

from Summerland. By 1966 the State of California had leased all state offshore lands from 

2° The first production platform in over 100' of water was placed in the Gulf of Mexico four 

years earlier, in 1954 (Clarke 1963) . 

35 
Point Conception on the West eastward to the Ventura County line, practically the entire 

coastline of the Santa Barbara Channel. The exception to this was a 16-mile sanctuary, 

adjacent to Santa Barbara and the Goleta valley, where the strongest protests against offshore 

development forced the State's hand (Steinhart and Steinhart 1972) . To date, there have 

been over 3,500 development wells drilled in state waters off California (American 

Petroleum Institute 1993) . 

Spurred by this growing movement offshore into state water, the first Federal lease 

sale in the Pacific was held in May of 1963 (Gould et al . 1991) . Although 41 tracts off 

central and northern California were leased in this first sale and 101 in a sale off the 

Washington and Oregon coasts the following year, exploratory drilling found no 

commercially feasible quantities of oil . In 1966 a one block "drainage" sale in the promising 

Santa Barbara Channel area was held, over local protests . This sale was to counteract the 

effects of production on state leases adjacent to Federal waters, and industry response 

expressed their views of the perceived potential of the Pacific OCS. A consortium of three 

of the major oil companies2l bid $21,189,000 for a 1,995 .48 acre tract, or $10,618 .50 an 

acre (Offshore Staff 1967a) . 

With the 1968 Santa Barbara sale the Department of Interior began to face the first 

real opposition to its offshore leasing program. The proposal for Sale P4 (originally 

scheduled for 1967) brought substantial protests within Santa Barbara County and a county 

report opposing the sale (Steinhart and Steinhart 1972). As a result Interior delayed the sale 

and agreed to a two mile buffer around the Santa Barbara sanctuary. Industry optimism 

concerning the Pacific was evidenced by the five mobile drilling rigs that lay idle in 

California ports during the delay (Offshore Staff 1967b) . 

The delayed February 6, 1968 sale turned out to be a record one from a financial 

perspective . Total bonus for the leased blocks of over $602 million surpassed all previous 

Gulf or Pacific sales (Gould et al . 1991). Within weeks of the sale, two drilling rigs were 

on location and working (Armstrong 1968) . About a year later, on January 28, 1969, on 

Union Oil's Platform A, a blow out occurred around the casing below the sea floor. The 

strata below Platform A continued to leak throughout much of 1969, although the worst was 

over by mid-March . Estimates of the total spill range from one to three million gallons. 

The Santa Barbara oil spill became a national media event throughout the spring of 

1969 . Scenes of helpless birds mired in a layer of oil became common and, coupled with the 

inability of either the oil companies or the Federal government to stop the flow, had far 

reaching effects (Molotch 1970). The spill has been variously credited with lending support 

to the emerging environmental movement (Dunlap and Mertig 1992), Earth Day in 1970, and 

the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act in the waning days of 1969 . As a 

result of the spill, lease sales were suspended in the Pacific, and proposed sales in the 

Atlantic and off Alaska were postponed . The immediate effect of the suspension was to halt 

the planned development on the OCS outside of the Gulf of Mexico and consequently to 

enhance the importance of Middle Eastern oil . 

z' Continental, Cities Service, and Philips 

36 
Background to the Embargo 

Another critical, less publicized, event that was ultimately to have far reaching 

implications for the offshore leasing program also happened in 1969 ; the rise of Muammar 

el-Qaddafi to power in Libya through a military coup (see Anderson and Boyd 1983 for 

details of this period) . Following the closing of the Suez Canal during the 1967 Arab/Israeli 

war, Libya, since it was located on the Mediterranean, became the centerpiece of a strategy 

to provide an alternative to Middle Eastern oil for Europe . A key player in this strategy was 

the Occidental Petroleum Company, which had major holdings in Libya and markets in 

Europe . By the end of 1969, Qaddafi had announced what essentially amounted to the 

expulsion of the British and U.S . air bases. 

In January of 1970 Qaddafi demanded an unprecedented 40-percent price increase for 

Libyan oil, a larger share of the profit to Libya, and threatened to stop production if his 

demands were not met. Several factors worked in Libya's favor. First, Nigeria's production 

was low due to a civil war. Second, an unusually cold winter in Europe had drawn down 

supplies . Third, the building of tankers for the trip from the Middle East by going around 

Africa had not yet caught up with the transportation bottleneck caused by the second closure 

of the Suez Canal. This put Libyan oil, which could be delivered across the Mediterranean 

at a premium, and Occidental Petroleum in a bind. Realizing this, Qaddafi began to cut 

Occidental's production. By early September Occidental capitulated . Most of the major 

buyers of Libyan oil followed this capitulation and met Qaddafi's demands before the end of 

the month. 

With Qaddafi's success, the members of OPEC had a new model for negotiations with 

the multinationals, and they lost no time in applying it . Demands similar to the gains 

secured by Libya were soon made to the oil companies with similar threats of shutting down 

production or even nationalization of holdings if demands were not met. Initially the oil 

companies closed ranks against the demands but, by the middle of February, conditions 

similar to those won by Libya were in effect for the Persian Gulf members of OPEC . By the 

end of March, Qaddafi had made new demands, which the companies met (Anderson and 

Boyd 1983) . With the events in Libya and the Middle East during 1969-1970, control of the 

world oil production passed from the cartel of multinational corporations to the producer 

states . Between 1971 and 1973 the price of Middle Eastern crude doubled . 

There were, however, warning signs on the horizon. In 1970 Nixon signed the Clean 

Air Act, which began to move the country away from coal, and toward cleaner fuels, 

particularly natural gas. Gas, however, continued to be federally regulated at what many 

thought was an artificially low price, and there had been no big push by industry to increase 

available supplies . In addition, the projected development curve of the OCS outside of the 

Gulf of Mexico had been severed by the moratoria following the Santa Barbara spill. 

Finally, to the extent that long range planning was being undertaken, the projected 1 .7 

million barrels a day, which would ultimately flow through the Trans-Alaskan pipeline, had 

been delayed by heated opposition and the failure of the partners in the venture to come up 

with an acceptable environmental impact statement (Gramling and Freudenburg 1992b) . 

The Embargo 

37 
Throughout 1971 and 1972, the producer nations moved to solidify their position 

through "participation" (increasing nationalization of corporate holdings) with the 

multinationals . As part of these agreements, the producer nations were transporting and 

refining increasing amounts of their oil . This forced the companies to curtail some of their 

long-term supply contracts to utilities, independent refineries, and other large users which, in 

turn, forced these buyers into the more volatile spot market. 

On October 6, 1973, Egypt and Syria invaded their occupied territories, and their 

initial success led Israel to call on the U.S . for support. Representatives of the oil industry 

warned the White House that support for Israel would bring an embargo (Sampson 1975), 

but Nixon called on Congress for aid to Israel . Soon after this the Arab members of OPEC 

initiated an embargo against the U.S. Although the embargo was over by the spring of 1974, 

its effects continue to the present. When the volatile spot market reacted and demonstrated 

to the OPEC members that the market would bear much more than the current posted price 

of oil, OPEC raised the price. In a three month period from October of 1973, to January of 

1974, Middle Eastern oil prices soared from $5 .12 a barrel to an official OPEC price of 

$11 .65 a barrel and at times much higher on a nervous spot market . This came on top of the 

doubling of price between 1971 and 1973 (Darmstadter and Landsberg 1976) . These 

increases were only the beginning of a steady climb that would see crude oil peak at over 

$30.00 a barrel seven years later. 

The impact of this trend on the OCS program was twofold . First, and quite directly, 

in the Gulf of Mexico where leasing had continued after the Santa Barbara oil spill, the 

rising prices within a year drove the bids on leases and exploration and development 

activities up (see Table 2 above ; Gould et al 1991) . A more circuitous impact came from the 

Nixon administration's response to the crisis . 

In response to the situation, President Nixon presented a "quick fix" to the shortages 

and price rises following the embargo by offering the American public Project Independence, 

which was proposed to bring energy independence by 1980 . In addition to a renewed call 

for the Trans-Alaska pipeline, the plan instructed the Secretary of Interior to increase the 

OCS acreage offered for lease to 10 million acres for 1975 (about three times what had been 

planned) and to begin lease sales in "frontier" areas, those that had never seen leasing and 

those that were closed following the Santa Barbara spill . A Senate staff report (Magnuson 

and Hollings 1975) noted a number of problems with the plan. First, there was the overly 

optimistic estimates of the reserves on the OCS and hence the questionable ability of the OCS 

to meet the nation's energy needs . Second, the report noted that the increased offerings 

would probably result in lower dollars per acre for bonus bids for OCS leases . Third, there 

was also the possibility for increased impacts on coastal areas as a result of the increased 

activities . Finally, the industrial capacity to explore the increased acreage (drilling rigs, 

support vessels, etc .) simply did not exist (Magnuson and Hollings 1975) . This latter fact 

was also recognized by the industry (Offshore Staff 1974) . President Ford continued Nixon's 

OCS policy, although lease sales never approached the 10 million acre goal. In 1975 sales 

38 
resumed on the Pacific OCS and on the Atlantic OCS in 1976 .ZZ The first Alaska sale also 

occurred in 1976. In the Gulf, acreage sold in 1975 exceeded that of any previous year 

(Gould et al . 1991) . 

Outside of the Gulf, OCS leasing had become an increasingly unpopular activity. The 

initial sales in Alaska and off the east coast and the resumption of sales in California in the 

mid-1970's met with resistance from various interest groups and state governments . In 

California, the Santa Barbara spill had galvanized local groups and increased pressure 

statewide for protection of the coast. In 1972 California passed Proposition 20, which 

created the California Coastal Commission with authority over almost all types of 

development on the coast and out to the three mile limit of state waters . The Commission's 

first task was to develop a plan detailing acceptable uses of the coastal zone. The plan went 

before the State legislature in 1976, and after a bitter fight passed. While the plan had no 

direct control over OCS lands, the process set up by the Coastal Commission provided access 

to a variety of information, rallying points, and communication vehicles for various users of 

the coast . In short, it made organization to oppose OCS activities easier (Kaplan 1982), and 

opposition began to re-emerge shortly after the announcement of the proposed resumption of 

leasing . The initial sale in California after the moratorium (Sale 35), proposed for 1974, was 

opposed by the State,, which sued, maintaining that the requirements of NEPA had not been 

met. The State ultimately lost, but in the meantime two sales proposed for 1976 and 1978 

were dropped . The next sale (48), originally proposed for 1977, was delayed until 1979, 

after a suit brought by the County of Santa Barbara failed to halt it . During the same period, 

proposals to establish marine sanctuaries (excluding OCS oil and gas activities) surrounding 

the Santa Barbara and Farallon Islands went forth to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration, under the 1972 Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act. 

Sale 48 raised an issue that was not resolved until 1990--the relationship between OCS 

leasing and federal consistency under the 1972 Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA) . 

Under this voluntary program, states with federally approved coastal zone management 

programs would receive federal funds for planning and management in their coastal zones. 

A clause in the CZMA required that federal activities be consistent with the requirements of 

the state programs . Thus, the consistency clause in the CZMA requires that the federal 

agency certify that its activity is consistent with state guidelines and submit that certification 

to the state for verification . While there was general agreement that OCS exploration and 

development fell under the activities requiring consistency, with Sale 48, the California 

Coastal Commission requested the Secretary of the Interior to certify that the sale itself met 

consistency . Interior refused, arguing that the sale itself produced no potential impacts . 

California countered that all other activities flowed from the sale and that the purchase of a 

lease implied a right to develop, since Interior could hardly lease a tract and then deny the 

lessee the activity for which they had purchased the lease . In addition, the stipulation of the 

22 The first sale on what is now considered the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf actually 

occurred in 1959, when 23 tracts were leased and three exploratory wells were drilled south of 

the Florida Keys without incident . The wells were dry holes, and all have been plugged and 

abandoned. 

39 
leases required timely development. A Justice Department review of the issue and later a 

Department of Commerce opinion both agreed with California, but because no tracts were 

actually in dispute (i .e ., California would have agreed with the consistency determination), 

the issue was not resolved (Kaplan 1982). 

40 
Chapter 4 : Boom and Bust in the Gulf 

Throughout the 1960's and early 1970's, offshore exploration and production 

continued to increase in the Gulf of Mexico . It was during this period that offshore energy 

development expanded to become a worldwide phenomena. Exploration in the North Sea 

began in the late 1950's, and by the mid-1960's leasing and development were underway . 

During this same time period, exploratory drilling was proceeding in the Persian Gulf, off 

Africa (Nigeria), the Far East (Japan, Borneo, Australia), and Cook Inlet in Alaska . 

Still the major development was in the Gulf of Mexico . The expansion in the Gulf 

during this period was primarily from off the Louisiana deltaic plain westward to western 

Louisiana and Texas and southward into the deeper waters of the Gulf. The Louisiana 

deltaic plain was the clear leader both in leases sold and in platforms sited until the late 

1960's and early 1970's, when western Louisiana and Texas began to catch up. 

Continuing Technological Development 

Driven by forecasts of growing energy consumption (Offshore Staff 1966b; 1966c), 

evolution of the offshore industry continued with an emphasis on movement into deeper 

water and more hostile environments . The loss of the drilling rig Sea Gem in the North Sea 

in 1965 (Offshore Staff 1966d) indicated the dangers associated with the new environments, 

and the adaptation of Gulf of Mexico technology to the more hostile conditions elsewhere, a 

process that was already underway, received new impetus. By 1966, the first of a new 

generation of massive offshore semi-submersibles and drillships began to be available for 

work virtually anywhere in the world, many of them constructed in the Gulf of Mexico 

(Offshore Staff 1966e ; 1966f; 1966g ; 1966h) and many of them going to the North Sea 

(Offshore Staff 1967c) . The North Sea scene had actually begun in 1959 with the 

announcement of Groningen gas field off Holland. By 1962 the enormous size of the field 

was recognized and, by the mid 1960's, a multi-million dollar drilling effort that was in full 

swing (Offshore Staff 1967d) . By 1967 the extent of the potential for the North Sea was 

beginning to be realized as new strikes were reported (Offshore Staff 1967e) and the first 

North Sea production came ashore (Offshore Staff 1967 . 

This same period saw the beginnings of sophisticated underwater survey techniques 

(Hill 1966), including side-scan sonar (Offshore Staff 19661), and technological advances in 

deep-water diving and pipeline laying (Black 1966 ; Lahm 1966), which supported the 

direction the offshore industry was headed . By 1967 there were 75 countries worldwide 

exploring for offshore oil and gas and 20 producing offshore (Weeks 1967) . 

Throughout the 1960's, however, the primary action was in the Gulf of Mexico, and 

Gulf technology was state-of-the-art . A number of offshore "giant" reservoirs (producing 

over 1,000 barrels a day and estimated to contain over 100 million barrels) had been 

41 
identified in the Gulf" (Offshore Staff 1967g) . A controlled Federal leasing program was 

leasing tracts for top dollars (Offshore Staff 1967h; Schempf 1968a) and much optimism was 

being expressed by operators in the Gulf (Offshore Staff 1969a) . 

Gulf technology had little competition. By 1967 McDermott had built, in their Bayou 

Bouef yard near Morgan City, two platforms for Shell Oil and installed them in over 300 feet 

of water in the Gulf (Offshore Staff 19671) . In 1968 the Glomar Challenger, a state-of-theart drillship, built in Orange, Texas, began a series of worldwide trips for the Scripps 

Institute to take deep bottom cores for research purposes. The technology involved was 

inconceivable only several years before . Before the trips were over the Glomar Challenger 

would drill an almost 3,000-foot hole in over 16,000 feet of water (Offshore Staff 1969b) . 

Construction of offshore drilling rigs began what can only be described as an 

incredible construction boom with most continuing to be built in the Gulf. During 1966 

shipyards around the world had 34 drilling units (17 jackups, 10 submersible/floaters, and 7 

drillships) under some phase of construction (Offshore Staff 1967j), a figure that climbed to 

40 by the following year (Schempf 1968b) . 

Because of the oversupply of drilling rigs due to moratoria on offshore drilling in 

most areas other than the Gulf of Mexico, many of the major oil companies looked to other 

areas of the world for offshore discoveries . This reinforced an already extensive move 

overseas by the drilling and support companies (Offshore Staff 1968) . By the mid-1970's, 

75% of the world's offshore drilling operations were abroad, and the North Sea was the 

prime offshore area (Feder 1974). Through a deliberate government initiative, Norway 

began to surface as a leader in offshore technology, and Norwegian companies began to 

compete with their U.S . counterparts for a world market during the 1970's (Offshore Staff 

1967k; Hansen et al., 1982) . As early as 1973, 34 percent of the semisubmersiblesz4 under 

construction were for Norwegian firms, and 24 percent of the semisubmersibles under 

construction were in Norwegian yards (Thobe 1973) . 

The Boom 

The rapid growth in OCS activities in southern Louisiana and in the North Sea 

resulted in tremendous demands for goods and services and in increased employment 

opportunities. These, in turn, resulted in immigration and population growth (see Table 4) . 

The growth of the population and commercial activities placed strains on existing 

transportation networks, community infrastructures, and the delivery of social services . The 

impacts of OCS activities were not uniform throughout the coastal Gulf of Mexico . The 

communities hit hardest by the OCS boom were those traditional settlements that had become 

staging areas for offshore activities (Morgan City, Berwick, Patterson, Houma, Larose, 

23 At Bay Marchand block 2, Eugene Island block 126, Grand Isle blocks 16 and 47, Main 

Pass block 69, South Marsh Island block 73, South Pass block 24 and 27, Timbalier Bay (in 

State waters), and West Delta block 30. 

24 More suitable for the rough North Sea waters 

42 
Table 4 

Population and Growth Rates, Coastal Louisiana and Texas 

w 

Population of Select Coastal Zone Parishes 1940-1990 Percentage Change 1940-1990 

Parish/County 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 40/50 50/60 60/70 70/80 80/90 

Louisiana 

Assumption 18541 17278 17991 19564 22084 22753 -6 .8 4.1 8 .7 12.9 3 .0 

Calcasieu 56506 89635 145475 145415 167223 168134 58.6 62 .3 0 .0 15 .0 0.5 

Cameron 7203 6244 6909 8194 9336 9260 -13 .3 10 .7 18 .6 13 .9 -0 .8 

Iberia 37183 40059 51672 57397 63752 68297 7.7 29.0 11 .1 11 .1 7.1 

Jefferson 50427 103873 208769 337568 454592 448306 106.0 101 .0 61 .7 34 .7 -1 .4 

Lafayette 43941 57743 84656 111745 150017 164762 31 .4 46.6 32 .0 34 .2 9.8 

Lafourche 38615 42209 55381 68941 82483 85860 9.3 31 .2 24 .5 19 .6 4.1 

Orleans 494537 570445 627525 593471 557515 496938 15 .3 10 .0 -5 .4 -6 .1 -10 .9 

Plaquemines 12318 14239 22545 25225 26049 25575 15 .6 58.3 11 .9 3 .3 -1 .8 

St . Mary 31458 35848 48833 60752 64253 58086 14 .0 36 .2 24 .4 5 .8 -9 .6 

Terrebonne 35880 43328 60771 76049 93393 96982 20.8 40.3 25 .1 22 .8 3 .8 

Vermilion 37750 36929 38855 43071 48458 50055 -2 .2 5.2 10 .9 12 .5 3 .3 

Louisiana 2363880 2683516 3257022 3643180 4205900 4219973 13 .5 21 .4 11 .9 15 .4 0.3 

Texas 

Brazoria 27069 46549 76204 108312 169587 121862 72.0 63 .7 42 .1 56.6 -28 .1 

Calhoun 5911 9222 16592 17831 19574 19053 56.0 79.9 7.5 9.8 -2 .7 

Cameron 83202 125170 151098 140368 209727 260120 50.4 20.7 -7 .1 49.4 24.0 

Chambers 7511 7871 10379 12187 18538 20088 4 .8 31 .9 17.4 52.1 8.4 

Galveston 81173 113066 140364 169812 195940 217399 39 .3 24.1 21 .0 15 .4 11 .0 

Harris 528961 806701 1243158 1741912 2409547 2818199 52 .5 54.1 40.1 38.3 17 .0 

Jefferson 145329 195083 245659 244773 250938 239397 34 .2 25 .9 -0 .4 2.5 -4 .6 

Matagorda 20066 21559 25744 27913 37828 36928 7.4 19 .4 8.4 35.5 -2 .4 

Nueces 92661 165471 221573 237544 268215 291145 78.6 33 .9 7 .2 12 .9 8.5 

Orange 17382 40567 60357 71170 83838 80509 133.4 48 .8 17 .9 17 .8 -4 .0 

San Patricio 28871 35842 45021 47288 58013 58749 24.1 25 .6 5 .0 22.7 1 .3 

Texas 6414824 7711194 9579677 11198655 14229191 16986510 20.2 24 .2 16 .9 27 .1 19 .4 

US . 131669275 150697361 179323175 203225299 226549448 248709873 14 .5 19 .0 13 .3 11 .5 9.8 
Golden Meadow, and Grand Isle), and managerial centers for offshore activities (primarily 

Lafayette) . Some of the traditional port cities of Louisiana and Texas (New Orleans, Baton 

Rouge, Lake Charles, Port Arthur, Houston [see especially Feagin 1985], and Galveston) 

also experienced growth of both staging and managerial activities, but because of their larger 

size and more diversified economies, the impact was less than in the rural coastal 

communities on the deltaic plain. 

Particularly hard hit were some of the communities in the eastern part of St . Mary 

Parish (Morgan City, Berwick, Patterson) and the eastern part of Terrebonne Parish 

(Gramling and Brabant 1984 ; 1986a; Gramling and Freudenburg 1990) . Housing became 

critically short and real estate prices escalated, as demand far exceeded supply . The 

provision of public utilities and services, water supplies, sewage treatment, utilities (Johnson 

1977 ; Durio and Dupuis 1980), transportation (Stallings and Reilly 1980), recreational 

facilities (Reilly 1980), and medical facilities (Gramling and Joubert 1977) lagged behind the 

population growth throughout the 1960's and 1970's . One of the hardest hit community 

services was public education. The educational system in Louisiana has never been 

sufficiently funded. The influx of students into systems that were already marginal at best, 

led to teacher shortages, overcrowding, and scarce supplies . Because demand increased 

more rapidly than the tax base, there was little way for the supply of these services to catch 

up (Gramling and Reilly 1980; Brabant 1984) . 

The offshore activity attracted transient labor for work offshore, and the economic 

growth in general attracted significant numbers of the transient, chronically unemployed 

(Brabant 1993a; 1993b ; Brabant and Gramling 1985 ; 1991) . Labor camps, which provided 

lodging, food, and job contacts for exorbitant prices, were in operation in the Morgan City 

area. Shelters and social service agencies that provided basic human services (food, 

clothing, shelter) were often taxed beyond their capacity (Brabant 1993b) . Crime rates rose. 

By the mid-1970's the violent crime rate in Morgan City ranged from two to three times the 

average rate for cities of comparable size in the U.S . By the mid-1970's portions of coastal 

Louisiana exhibited many of the characteristic stresses and strains associated with the classic 

boom town syndrome (Gramling and Brabant 1986a; Gramling and Freudenburg 1990; 

Seydlitz et al ., 1993a) . The region received national attention during this period, and articles 

appearing in major tabloids encouraged even more in-migration of transient labor. 

The Embargo 

The 1973-1974 oil embargo by the Arab members of OPEC against the U.S . and the 

Netherlands in retaliation for their support for Israel during the 1973 round of the 

Arab-Israeli war became a major stimulus for offshore development in the Gulf and in the 

remainder of the U.S . While crude oil production on the Gulf OCS had actually peaked and 

began to decline by this time (although natural gas production was still climbing; Manuel 

1984), offshore activity continued to grow . By the time of the embargo the offshore industry 

was a worldwide enterprise, although the Gulf of Mexico continued to be a dominating 

influence for the next decade. 

Two factors directly affected OCS operations: 1) the dramatic rise in the price of 

crude oil following the embargo provided increased economic incentive for exploration and 

44 
development on the OCS, and 2) Project Independence, President Nixon's proposed fix for 

the shortages and price rises. OCS sales resumed in Pacific, the Atlantic, and in Alaska 

following the initiation of Project Independence . Table 2 (above) shows the marked increase 

in exploratory and production drilling (the most labor-and resource-intensive phases) 

following the 1973-1974 embargo . As a result of the new impetus provided by the 

skyrocketing price of crude oil and an aggressive Federal leasing system, the offshore 

industry expanded its operations . In the U.S., in spite of Federal encouragement, this 

expansion was limited primarily to the Gulf of Mexico. 

Table 5 shows the pattern of lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico over the history of 

leasing on the OCS While the majority of the early sales were off the Louisiana deltaic plain 

(Figure 1), by the mid-1960's sales had increased in western Louisiana and the shallow areas 

off Texas . Following the embargo and the increased Federal offerings, movement into these 

areas increased, along with sales in deeper water off both Louisiana and Texas . 

Looking at the second panel in Table 5 we can see, however, although sales moved 

into other regions in the Gulf of Mexico, that the primary area of actual development (i .e ., 

siting of production platforms) continued to be off the deltaic plain with accompanying 

movement into western Louisiana waters . This geographic trend in lease sales and 

development was paralleled by construction of offshore production platforms . 

Table 6 shows the number of offshore production platforms under construction 

worldwide in 1975, 1978, and 1981 . Several important trends are noticeable. First, as in 

sales and development, by 1975 the offshore fabrication industry had begun to move out of 

the Louisiana deltaic plain into Texas, a trend that accelerated over the next decade and a 

half. Second, throughout this period following the embargo until the peak of the offshore 

boom in 1981, the Gulf of Mexico continued to be the site of almost half of the world 

offshore production platform construction. Third, throughout this period Louisiana 

dominated the market for fabrication of production platforms within the Gulf. In a similar 

fashion Louisiana dominated the fabrication of offshore support vessels, becoming a world 

leader in the construction of thousands of crew boats, supply boats, push boats, tow boats, 

and various other more specialized offshore vessels (Ocean Industry Staff 1974; Tubb 1978) . 

45 
Table 5 

Gulf Area by Total Leases Sold 

Gulf Area by Leases Sold 

DELTA DELTA EAST WEST DEEP COAST EX DEEP AL NO MIDL SO 

LA" EX-LA" LA` LA ° LAO TXf TXg TV MS' FLT FL' FL' 

Before 1954 169 0 13 96 0 97 0 0 0 0 0 0 

1954-1959 115 0 0 98 0 46 0 0 0 0 0 0 

1960-1964 219 108 37 173 0 59 0 0 0 0 0 0 

1965-1969 110 45 56 31 0 124 36 0 0 0 0 0 

1970-1974 112 133 42 272 52 23 169 14 3 39 26 0 

1975-1979 117 59 28 229 24 157 121 3 0 9 16 14 

1980-1984 267 218 137 425 576 499 206 146 47 92 7 89 

1985-1989 267 259 108 473 1293 465 261 207 33 78 8 13 

1990-1993 179 154 79 336 456 252 99 57 11 74 19 0 

TOTAL 1555 976 500 2133 2401 1722 892 427 94 292 76 116 

Gulf Area by Lease Date With At Least One Platform Installed by 1992 

DELTA DELTA EAST WEST DEEP COAST EX DEEP AL NO MIDL SO 

LA" EX-LA' LA` LA' LAO TV TXe TXh MS' FLT FL' FL' 

Before 1954 80 0 5 31 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 

1954-1959 41 0 0 15 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 

1960-1964 100 33 11 42 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 

1965-1969 36 8 15 8 0 4 2 0 0 0 0 0 

1970-1974 49 47 9 115 7 6 59 3 0 0 0 0 

1975-1979 43 20 14 83 4 48 27 0 0 0 0 0 

1980-1984 86 26 50 117 13 110 17 1 17 0 0 0 

1985-1989 27 14 12 49 6 55 8 0 5 0 0 0 

1990-1993 2 1 2 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 

TOTAL 464 149 118 461 31 236 113 4 22 0 0 0 

Gulf Area by Lease Date With At Least Ten Platforms Installed by 1992 

DELTA DELTA EAST WEST DEEP COAST EX DEEP AL NO MIDL SO 

LA" EX-LA' LA` LA' LA` TX' TXs TV MS' FIJ FL k FL' 

Before 1954 19 0 2 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 

1954-1959 2 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 

1960-1964 10 0 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 

1965-1969 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 

1970-1974 2 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 

1975-1979 2 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 

1980-1984 2 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 

1985-1989 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 

1990-1993 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 

Total 39 0 4 11 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 

Source : Minerals Management Service 1993 

(a) Deltaic Plain Louisiana (original offshore areas) (b) Extension Areas off the Deltaic Plain (e .g ., Grand Isle South Addition) 

(c) Louisiana, Mouth of the Mississippi and eastward (d) Louisiana West of Vermilion Bay 

(e) Deep Water Louisiana (south of the original "south additions" to the limits of U .S . waters) 

(f) Coastal Texas (original offshore areas) (g) Extension areas off Texas (h) Deep Water off Texas 

(i) Off Alabama and Mississippi (j) Northern and Western Florida offshore areas (including Destin Dome and DeSoto Canyon areas) 

(k) Middle Florida (including the Florida Middle Grounds) (1) South Florida (including Pulley Ridge) 

46 
.A 

Figure 1 . Gulf Offshore Areas 

ALMS 

TEXAS WEST DELTA 

EXTENSIONS LA PAIN 

LA ' 

NORTH " 

FLORIDA 

COASTA ' V" W 

TEXAS LOUISI A EXTENSJ 

CENTRAL 

FLORIDA 

DEEP LOUISIANA 

DEEP TEXAS 

SOUTH 

FLORIDA 

Lr" s .`~ // 
Table 6 

Fixed Platforms under Construction for 1975,1 1978,2 and 19813 

Totals Percentage 

Location 1975 1978 1981 1975 1978 1981 

California 1 0 2 0 .6 0 0.6 

Louisiana 61 55 94 37 .4 37 .4 30.4 

Texas 9 20 52 5 .5 13 .6 16 .8 

Outside U.S . 92 72 161 56 .4 49.0 52 .1 

Total Worldwide 163 147 309 100 100 100 

Source: Davis and Place 1983 . 

' January 

z March 

3 March 

In spite of this dominance in offshore construction and support, the geography of the 

deltaic plain did provide one limitation . Between the Calcasieu River and the mouth of the 

Mississippi, a nautical distance of approximately 200 miles, that includes the area of heaviest 

offshore development, there are no deep-water ports . The single exception to this is the 

Atchafalaya River, which has a 20-foot-deep channel as far inland as Morgan City25 . Even 

here, the actual frontage on the river is extremely limited with most of the connections to the 

major fabrication yards, both in Morgan City and throughout the deltaic plain, being via the 

Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, which is only guaranteed to 12-foot depths . This does not pose 

a problem for the fabrication of steel jacketed production platforms, which are fabricated on 

their side, loaded onto a barge(s) of less than 12 foot draft, and taken offshore . It does mean 

that no facilities for building large ships have emerged . 

Unlike production platforms, exploratory drilling rigs must be fabricated and floated 

to their initial destination, and virtually all of the deep-water rigs require more than 12 feet 

of water . As the offshore rig technology evolved, by necessity construction moved out of 

Louisiana. By 1976 much of the U.S . construction of exploratory rigs was taking place in 

Texas and Mississippi (primarily Pascagoula and Vicksburg), a general trend that continued 

into the 1980's (Ocean Industry Staff 1976 ; Tubb 1977) . In addition to direct activities 

occurring in the Gulf, movement into many of the "frontier" regions, under the new push for 

25 In the last decade Bayou Lafourche has been dredged to 20 foot depths for several miles 

near its mouth. 

48 
offshore development on Federal lands, continued to be supported from the Gulf. 

Experienced offshore workers and even decks for production platforms off California 

continued to come from the Gulf (Gould et al ., 1991) . 

In spite of the rapid economic growth with its heated entrepreneurial conditions 

(Gramling and Brabant 1986a; Gramling and Freudenburg 1990), the direction of the growth 

was one that in one respect would be an almost textbook example of regional development 

success. As Lovejoy and Krannich (1982) have noted in summarizing the economic 

development debate, often the success of a particular economic development scenario hinges 

at least as much on the ability of the region to capture spin-off and spill-over activities, as on 

the primary development. These linked activities, both upstream (those that supply the 

primary activity) and downstream (those that use the product produced by the primary 

activity) can generate jobs and capital that supplement the primary activity and result in a 

more diversified form of development. 

Since the Gulf of Mexico was the primary area for offshore development throughout 

the 1950's, 1960's and much of the 1970's, and since the problems faced were local, most of 

the technological and human capital development was also local. Because much of the 

support for these activities had to be local, the capture of spin-off was almost inevitable . 

The extent to which this happened can be seen by examining offshore-related employment 

(often a more important indicator of development than population growth, Gramling 1992) in 

one of the areas most closely tied to offshore development, the Louisiana deltaic plain, west 

of the Mississippi River delta. Table 7 shows total employment, employment in oil and gas 

extraction, and employment in three of the sectors most directly related to offshore activity, 

metal fabrication (platform construction), ship and boat building and repair, and water 

transportation for Lafayette, Lafourche, St Mary and Terrebonne Parishes . These are 

certainly not the entire employment associated with offshore oil . In fact, examination of only 

these limited sectors misses much of the employment directly related to offshore development 

(e.g., offshore catering, marine diesel mechanics, hot-shot drivers, etc .) and most of the 

secondary and tertiary employment (e.g. land transportation, construction, insurance, 

accounting, etc.) . Nevertheless, the marked increase in employment in only these sectors in 

the late 1950's and early 1960's as the offshore system of development was emerging, and 

the steady proportion of total employment (22-28 percent) through the mid-1980's are 

indicative of the extent to which the social and economic environment along the coastal Gulf 

was affected by offshore trends . The growth of employment in oil and gas extraction 

exploded following the settlement of the litigation between Louisiana and the federal 

government and the resumption of an extensive Federal leasing program in 1959 . While 

employment grew slowly during the 1964-1974 decade, it again jumped significantly 

following the 1973-1974 embargo . Employment in the linked sectors grew more steadily 

throughout the 1959-1979 period and by 1974 had actually exceeded employment in the 

primary sector in some parishes . 

49 
Table 7 

Employment In Oil and Linked Sectors Coastal Louisiana 

Lafayette Parish 

YEAR Totals Oil/Gash %O/G` Links % Linke 

1959 14426 621 4 .30 0 0.00 

1964 18487 2747 14.86 265 1 .43 

1969 25071 3627 14.47 188 0.75 

1974 35441 2362 6 .66 859 2.42 

1979 62572 7620 12.18 1303 2.08 

1984 76644 10073 13 .14 1430 1 .87 

1989 65615 5710 8 .70 781 1 .19 

Lafourche Parish 

YEAR Totals Oil/Gash % O/G` Link % Linke 

1959 7497 608 8 .11 655 8.74 

1964 10269 2149 20.93 1106 10.77 

1969 10610 1122 10.57 1763 16.62 

1974 13622 940 6 .90 3149 23 .12 

1979 18605 1081 5 .81 5638 30 .30 

1984 17418 845 4.85 4135 23 .74 

1989 15137 175 1 .16 3588 23 .70 

St . Mary Parish 

YEAR Totals Oil/Gash % O/G` Links % Link' 

1959 7750 755 9.74 922 11 .90 

1964 12139 2943 24.24 1762 14 .52 

1969 16477 3219 19.54 2537 15 .40 

1974 19374 1812 9.35 4420 22 .81 

1979 31212 3552 11 .38 8436 27 .03 

1984 25181 1373 5 .45 8095 32 .15 

1989 17519 981 5 .60 4146 23 .67 

0.00 0.00 

Terrebonne Parish 

YEAR Totals Oil/Gash %O/G` Links % Linke 

1959 8032 165 2.05 507 6 .31 

1964 12528 2821 22 .52 945 7 .54 

1969 16443 3926 23 .88 1310 7 .97 

1974 26331 6641 25 .22 3573 13 .57 

1979 33598 6294 18 .73 3976 11 .83 

1984 31663 4904 15 .49 2495 7 .88 

1989 28143 3834 13 .62 1651 5 .87 

Sources : U.S . Department of Commerce 1959, 1964, 1969, 1974, 1979, 1984, 1989. 

(a) Total Employment (b) Employment in Oil and Gas Extraction (c) Percentage Employed in Oil 

and Gas Extraction (d) Employment in Linked Sectors (water transportation, metal fabrication, ship 

and boat building and repair (e) Percentage Employment in Linked Sectors . 

50 
Rebuilding the Environment 

The growth in both the primary and the linked industrial sectors through the 1970's 

demonstrated vigorous growth. However, that growth was predicated on an extractive 

economic activity . When the OCSLA passed in 1953, Lafayette was the distribution center 

of the traditional "Acadiana" region, having recently been transformed from a railroad town 

to the center of a highway network (Gramling 1983) . Morgan City was the self-proclaimed 

"shrimp capital of the world" and most of the remainder of the region was primarily oriented 

toward agriculture or the harvesting of renewable resources : shrimp, fish, crawfish, etc. 

(Comeaux 1972). Over the next three decades, offshore activities gradually came to 

constitute the most important primary sector of the economy (both in the Acadiana area and 

eastward along the coast) and secondary and tertiary support sectors developed in response to 

the growth opportunity . 

Brabant sums up the change : 

Alexander Godunov, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Rudolph Nuriyev--names 

associated with stages in New York, San Francisco, possibly Chicago, 

Washington D.C ., maybe New Orleans--but Lafayette, Louisiana? Yet 

between 1982 and 1986, each of these internationally acclaimed ballet 

superstars appeared on the stage of the Lafayette Municipal Auditorium. . . 

How could this be? The answer is simple--oil . (Brabant 1993a: 161) 

The change was pervasive . Trade schools altered their offerings (in response to 

demand) to teach ever more specialized skills, marketable primarily offshore and in offshore 

support sectors (Gramling and Reilly 1980) . High school education (or less) was sufficient 

for good wages with these types of skills and, as a result, many entered the labor force early 

but with few transferable skills . The director of an area economic development association 

noted this clearly in retrospect : 

The downside to the oil industry as I see it from economic development 

has been the deterrent in education. Because so many of our people -- high 

school students, drop-outs, those types, were able to get such good jobs -- as 

a roustabout working in the oil industry -- that they didn't finish their 

education . They've come back . They've either been sitting on the 

unemployment roll or we've convinced them to go into other types of training 

--skilled labor training (Freudenburg and Gramling 1994: 40) 

Even with no skills, labor in offshore development or in many of the support sectors was 

well paid. The opportunities were extensive, since the primary activities, drilling and 

production, were massive economic undertakings and, as noted, cost was a secondary 

consideration to time. 

Thus, new investment (some of it massive) centered around the needs of the offshore 

sector . Fabrication yards sprang up on the banks of local bayous as offshore production 

platforms, offshore drilling rigs, support vessels, and metal fabrication of all types were in 

51 
great demand . To attract the fabrication and construction industries associated with offshore 

activities and thus produce local jobs, communities approved long-term bond issues for the 

construction of the marine equivalent of local industrial parks (small ports) contiguous to the 

waterfront near the community, committing local resources to the continuation of the 

offshore sector . In addition to fabrication yards, many other types of companies were 

chartered and thrived during the offshore boom. These included offshore catering, drilling 

mud service, oil field tubing (drill pipe, casing), transportation (water, land, and air), and 

various types of specialized equipment (compressors, tanks, etc .) and instrumentation (down 

hole logging) companies. New development was not the whole picture, as conversion of 

existing facilities, such as dock space, also significantly altered the environment. By the 

mid-1970's, Morgan City, the self-proclaimed "shrimp capital of the world" in the 1950's, 

had no resident shrimp fleet and no operating shrimp processing plants . 

Under these circumstances, local social and economic systems adapted and did so at a 

variety of levels . On an individual level, people made career decisions based on the 

expectation that past trends would continue . Seventeen-year-olds dropped out of high school 

to gain and use (often specialized) skills in the support and fabrication sectors surrounding 

offshore activities . Those who graduated often pursued specialized types of skills (associated 

with the offshore and support sectors) at the expense of other skills or more flexible higher 

education (Seydlitz et al . 1993b) . 

The incentive to move into the offshore support sectors was high. Employment 

offshore and in the oil-related sector in general paid well. Table 8 compares income 

distribution for those who work in a concentrated scheduling format (e.g ., seven and seven) 

across sectors of the economy directly related to oil production and sectors not directly 

related to oil production. In general, it is quite clear that both working shifts and working in 

sectors of the economy directly related to the production of oil influenced income positively. 

In addition to changes in individual careers, adaptation occurred within organizations . At the 

small business level, businesses tended toward specialization . Mechanic shops became 

marine diesel repair facilities (with considerable investment in tools and equipment to make 

the transition) . New specialty businesses opened to take advantage of the growing 

opportunities (offshore catering services, hot-shot drivers", etc .) . Both of these trends 

happened in an economic environment of such unparalleled prosperity that good business 

practices were not necessary for success . With profit margins high enough, inventory 

control, billing, machine and equipment layout, etc., could be marginal, and still enterprises 

prospered (Freudenburg and Gramling 1992a) . As one informant put it, "people made 

money in spite of themselves, and unfortunately came to believe that they were good 

businessmen. " 

21 "Hot-Shot" drivers deliver the more portable equipment used offshore (e.g ., pumps, 

compressors and specialized offshore drilling tools) between the source of the equipment and 

offshore staging areas . Most of the drivers have a pickup truck and a large trailer, and work 

"on call" 24 hours a day. This economic niche is possible because of the necessity to get 

equipment offshore as quickly as possible in order not to shut down an expensive offshore 

operation . 

52 
Table 8 

Annual Income by Industrial Sector and Shift Work, 1980 

Shift Work 

No Yes 

0-4,999 

5,000-9,999 

10,000-14,999 

15,000-19,999 

20,000-24,999 

25,000-29,999 

30,000-34,999 

OVER 35,000 

Totals 

Source: Gramling 1980 . 

Non-oil Oilfield Non-oil Oilfield 

147 S 8 6 

293 30 5 32 

168 39 59 

80 54 2 120 

78 20 2 100 

31 11 1 42 

12 8 19 

31 17 12 

840 187 18 390 

Adaptation also occurred at the regional level, as the interaction between the 

resources associated with human and social capital, skills, knowledge, experience, teamwork, 

networks of supply and distribution and the physical capital of buildings, equipment, and 

other physical infrastructure developed quickly and in response to the potential for profit . 

The 3,600 advertised business activities directly connected to oil and gas activities that Davis 

and Place (1983 :1) located in coastal Louisiana were indicative of this trend. 

Simply put, the northern Gulf of Mexico was by 1980, hands down, the most 

developed, and impacted, area in the world with regard to offshore oil and gas activities . It 

was also the most specialized area in the world with regard to offshore activities, raising the 

specter, as Freudenburg and Gramling (1992b) noted, that with extractive economies, even 

those with the extensive development of linkages, a region could find all of its linked 

economic eggs in one falling basket . As U.S . demand for petroleum products began to fall 

in the late 1970's, resulting in a crash in oil prices in the mid-1980's, this lesson became 

quite apparent. 

In addition to individuals, businesses, and the infrastructure associated with 

communities, overadaptation may also be characteristic of smaller social systems, such as 

families . Forsyth and Gramling (1987) examined the adaptation strategies that families 

utilize to adapt to the periodic absence of one member of the family (usually the male) in 

situations such as those associated with employment in the offshore oil sectors (see also, 

Gramling and Forsyth 1987 ; Forsyth and Gauthier 1991 ; 1993 ; Storey et al ., 1986 ; Fuchs et 

53 
al ., 1981) . Their basic conclusion was that the resulting interaction within families, while 

different from families experiencing more traditional forms of work scheduling, was not 

evidence of pathology but of adaptation . Adaptation to these altered forms of work 

scheduling is a source of stress for families and is one of the most frequently mentioned 

problems with work in the "oil patch." The point is that certain forms of development (here 

extensive offshore oil and gas development) can lead to altered forms of interaction within 

the family (such as minimal involvement of the male in day-to-day activities), which are maladaptive if the situation changes and offshore work is no longer available . 

Beginning of the End 

Following the oil embargo, the price of crude oil rose steadily throughout the 1970's, 

and the rising value of the commodity had two predictable results . First, motivated by an 

obvious profit motive, the major players in the world oil market sought to increase their 

production and were quite successful. Figure 2 shows the increase in world production 

during this period . In 1979 world oil production peaked at levels that have not occurred 

since . 

The second predictable result of skyrocketing oil prices was a fall in consumption . 

Oil is what economists call an elastic commodity . Unlike commodities that are driven by a 

fixed need, like milk, and show little variation in consumption as price changes, oil 

consumption (or more properly consumption of its refined products) varies considerably with 

the price of the product. However, in the case of petroleum products, this decline in 

consumption shows up gradually as consumers replace their automobiles with more fuelefficient models, buy better insulated homes (or insulate the ones they own), and make a host 

of other travel- and energy-related decisions. The average mileage for automobiles per 

gallon of gasoline was 13 .1 in 1973 ; by 1985 it had risen to 17 .9, a 36 .6 percent increase 

(Beck 1988) . As a result of this trend, by 1981 consumption of petroleum products in the 

U.S . had fallen to below pre-embargo levels . 

With the growing production of oil and the falling consumption of the refined 

products, the stage was set for the collision of these two trends, and that collision came in 

early 1986. The price of oil had fluctuated between 1982 and 1985 ; by December of 1985 

oil was still $24 .51 per barrel, but by July of 1986, it was $9 .39 . The growth-related 

problems in the coastal Gulf of Mexico began to moderate somewhat when crude oil prices 

began to fall in 1982 . However, with the crash in crude oil prices in 1986, it became 

evident that the integration of the offshore industry into the local communities had resulted in 

a significant modification of the social, economic, and physical environment, and a whole 

new set of problems . 

The decline in prices on the world oil market demonstrated the vulnerability of the 

offshore oil and gas related activities, and accompanying development, to trends in the 

commodities market, and the extent to which coastal Louisiana and Texas had become 

dependent on these activities (see Manuel 1980 ; Gramling and Freudenburg 1990) . Over 90 

percent of the variance in total employment in some coastal Louisiana parishes over the last 

two decades can be statistically explained using only national and international indicators of 

the world oil market, world rig count, average annual price of oil, etc . (Gramling and 

54 
Freudenburg 1990) . This means that in these coastal parishes, events completely beyond 

their control largely dominated their economies . What it also means is that much of this 

development and many of these skills are not directly transferable . 

Figure 2. World Oil Production 

25000000 

20000000 

a1 15000000 

w 0 

10000000 

0 

5000000 

0 

Source: API 1993 

1969-1991 

The Bust 

The fall in crude oil prices in late 1985 and early 1986 hit coastal Louisiana and 

Texas hard . Much of the investment and accumulation in both financial and human capital, 

associated with the rebuilding of the physical, social and economic environment, was lost . 

The reaction along the coastal Gulf of Mexico was near panic. Unemployment in the most 

heavily affected coastal parishes in Louisiana, which had remained in the four-to-five percent 

levels for decades, exceeded 20 percent in some cases by the end of 1986. Table 7 also 

shows the downturn in employment in the most heavily affected parishes in Louisiana. 

The region received national attention again due to the local recession, the effects of 

which were sufficient to bring Senate hearings to the region (Senate Committee on Energy 

and Natural Resources 1987) . A more poignant local indicator was when the formerly 

exclusive Petroleum Club in Lafayette was forced to open its membership to non-oil industry 

55 

1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 

YEAR 
members (The Times of Acadiana 1993). Once again social services came under pressure but 

for different reasons . Whereas before local organizations were hard pressed to respond to 

the needs of migrants looking for jobs, now these same local organizations were finding that 

their clients were formerly well-employed local residents, newly unemployed and looking for 

jobs . 

Brabant quotes one informant: 

We had massive unemployment. We had people standing in line all the way 

out the door and into the streets. We didn't have near enough staff to service 

the people coming in. We were hiring temporary people . . . We had engineers, 

people with Ph.D.'s, geophysicists, geologists, people making upwards to 

$250,000 a year coming in and filing claims for unemployment insurance for 

$205 a week . . . . If you or a member of the family are a stockholder in a 

company, you must prove that the company has been dissolved . People had 

board meetings at the interviewer's desk to dissolve their companies right here 

in the office so they could qualify for the unemployment insurance. It was 

really a hard thing to look out and see . (Brabant 1993a:184-85) 

The bust forced many to leave to look for work, and since the same people who 

migrated in are not necessarily the ones to leave, this often resulted in the separation of 

extended families whose descendants had been in the area for over two centuries . 

Current Trends 

Throughout the history of OCS production in the U.S ., several statistical trends are 

clear. First, the vast majority of petroleum products produced on the OCS have been 

produced in the Gulf of Mexico (well over 90 percent of the oil and approximately 99 

percent of the gas; Gould et al . 1991). Second, within the Gulf, most OCS production (97 .6 

percent of the oil and 88 .1 percent of the gas) has been within the Central Region of the Gulf 

(Gould et al . 1991) . Third, within the Central Region, the overwhelming majority has been 

produced from waters adjacent to or supported from Louisiana . Fourth, by all indications, 

current trends will continue into the foreseeable future . The majority of proven reserves on 

the OCS are in the Central Gulf Region (Gould et al . 1991), and the Central and Western 

Gulf Regions are the only OCS regions where federal offshore leasing has to date 

encountered little resistance to lease sales and to OCS activity in general . 

However, some changes in the patterns of offshore activities in the Gulf are 

occurring . Most notably, new production in the central and western Gulf has moved into 

deeper and deeper water over the last several decades . New finds are increasingly on the 

margins of the continental slope, and at the margins of development technology. Operations 

at these 1,000+ foot depths are expensive, and only the larger reservoirs are profitable to 

develop. The push into deeper water is driven by the same dynamics that have operated 

historically, with the depletion of the reservoirs that are more readily accessible, and closer 

to shore. As a result the shallow water reservoirs with sufficient resources to be 

commercially exploitable are already under production, and new discoveries in these areas 

56 
are increasingly unlikely . In short, while production in the central and western Gulf will 

continue for some time, from fields currently in production, exploration and development has 

almost surely peaked under almost any foreseeable price scenario . The OCS is certainly not 

exhausted, and there are even positive signs for production on it . New three dimensional 

seismic techniques allow better visualization of geological structure and have already resulted 

in the location of new reservoirs from areas in the Gulf of Mexico thought to be depleted or 

in decline . The recent announcement of a large discovery in the central Gulf, indicates that 

reserves on the OCS may be larger than thought. 

The 1992 Energy Policy and Conservation Act (42 U.S .C . § 6201) provides for 

greater use of alternative fuels for the federal vehicle fleet, and significant tax incentives for 

service stations that install alternative fuel refilling facilities . The most likely alternative fuel 

for automobiles is natural gas, and these initiatives to encourage natural gas usage will 

eventually lead to more of these resources in the Gulf being tapped . There are also plans 

underway for development in the eastern Gulf, south of Fort Walton Beach and Destin . 

However, the number of offshore rigs operating in the Gulf is near historic lows (since the 

statistics have been kept), and many of the rigs are moving out of the Gulf to South 

America, Africa, and southeast Asia . 

57 
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World Oil Staff. 1953b . "Legal Barriers are Still Holding Up Offshore Exploration ." World 

Oil September, 1953 :100 . 

71 
World Oil Staff. 1953c . "Continental Shelf Could Be A Major Resource For U.S . Oil. World 

Oil April, 1953 :64-65 . 

World Oil Staff . 1953d. "Is This the Answer To Offshore Operations?" World Oil June : 116. 

World Oil Staff. 1954a . "Tidelands Suits Certain." World Oil October, 1954:107-108 . 

World Oil Staff. 1954b. "Tidelands Tiff Denied ." World Oil August, 1994 :98 . 

World Oil Staff. 1954c . "Offshore Work Receives a Boost." World Oil April, 1954 :72. 

World Oil Staff. 1954d. "Majors Speed Offshore Efforts ." World Oil June:95-100 . 

World Oil Staff. 1956a . "Why Louisiana's Offshore Prospects Look Better ." World Oil 

April : 163-166. 

World Oil Staff. 1956b. "New Platform Has Slanted Piling For Deepest Gulf Drilling ." 

World Oil July : 116-117 . 

World Oil Staff. 1957a. "Offshore Drilling Goes Deeper. " World Oil November : 130-131 . 

World Oil Staff. 1957b. "Transportation Practices ." World Oil May: 122-123 . 

World Oil Staff. 1957c. "Offshore Picture ." World Oil May: 118-121 . 

World Oil Staff. 1957d. "Drilling Practices . " World Oil May: 132-147 . 

72 
NT OFTy ~'y~ The Department of the Interior Mission 

p As the Nation's principal conservation agency, the Department of the Interior has responsibility for 

~ most of our nationally owned public lands and natural resources . This includes fostering sound 

use of our land and water resources; protecting our fish, wildlife, and biological diversity; 

4 e 

preserving the environmental and cultural values of our national parks and historical places; 

qCH 3 ~ and providing for the enjoyment of life through outdoor recreation . The Department assesses our 

energy and mineral resources and works to ensure that their development is in the best interests 

of all our people by encouraging stewardship and citizen participation in their care. The 

Department also has a major responsibility for American Indian reservation communities and for 

people who live in island territories under U.S . administration . 

The Minerals Management Service Mission 

~brr or Tye 

As a bureau of the Department of the Interior, the Minerals Management Service's (MMS) primary 

respons ibiliti es are t o manage th e m i nera l resources l oca t e d on th e N a ti on ' s O u t e r Continental Shelf 

(OCS), collect revenue from the Federal OCS and onshore Federal and Indian lands, and distribute 

those revenues. 

cf' <e'~4tiwcew~t6 `e Moreover, in working to meet its responsibilities, the Offshore Minerals Management Program 

administers the OCS competitive leasing program and oversees the safe and environmentally sound 

exploration and production of our Nation's offshore natural gas, oil and other mineral resources. 

The MMS Royalty Management Program meets its responsibilities by ensuring the efficient, timely 

and accurate collection and disbursement of revenue from mineral leasing and production due to 

Indian tribes and aflottees, States and the U.S . Treasury . 

The MMS strives to fulfill its responsibilities through the general guiding principles of: (1) being 

responsive to the public's concerns and interests by maintaining a dialogue with all potentially 

affected parties and (2) carrying out its programs with an emphasis on working to enhance the 

quality of life for all Americans by lending MMS assistance and expertise to economic development 

and environmental protection .