ACCESS NUMBER: 85169 

STUDY TITLE: History of Offshore Oil Development in the Gulf of Mexico Phase II – 

Research and Synthesis 

REPORT TITLE: History of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry in Southern Louisiana: 

Interim Report; Volume I: Papers on the Evolving Offshore Industry. Volume II: Bayou 

Lafourche – An Oral History of the Development of the Oil and Gas Industry. Volume 

III: Samples of Interviews and Ethnographic Prefaces 

CONTRACT NUMBER: 1435-01-02-CA-85169 

SPONSORING OCS REGION: Gulf of Mexico 

APPLICABLE PLANNING AREA: Western, Central, Eastern 

FISCAL YEAR(S) OF PROJECT FUNDING: 2001, 2002, 2003 

COMPLETION DATE OF REPORT: August 2004 

COST(S): FY 2001: $41,730.06; FY 2002: $134,872.59; FY 2003: $18,397.35; 

CUMULATIVE PROJECT COST: $195,000 

PROJECT MANAGER: A.G. Pulsipher 

AFFILIATION: Louisiana State University, Center for Energy Studies 

ADDRESS: Energy, Coast & Environment Bldg., Nicholson Extension, Baton Rouge, 

Louisiana 70803 

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: A.G. Pulsipher 

KEY WORDS: Gulf of Mexico; Louisiana; offshore; oral history; oil and gas industry; 

outer continental shelf 

BACKGROUND: The Minerals Management Service (MMS) has sponsored and 

organized this study to evaluate and document how its activities and policies affect the 

communities and economies within which it functions. A comprehensive and accessible 

history of the evolution of the industry, and its effects on the people and institutions of 

the coastal economy will assist those who are responsible for planning and managing 

the development of the offshore oil and gas reserves and understanding the 

consequences of such development on coastal institutions and the economy. 

 

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this project is to study, document and explain the 

history and evolution of the offshore oil and gas industry in southern Louisiana in an 

objective and comprehensive way. 
ACCESS NUMBER: 85169 

DESCRIPTION: A critical element of the history of the offshore industry resides in the 

memories of the “old timers.” They were there. They remember how things were and 

how they have changed. Unfortunately, many of the people responsible for this 

phenomenal growth are passing away and their stories are being lost. There is a long 

list of innovators and pioneers from fabricators, port officials, helicopter pilots and 

catering crews, to divers, truckers, suppliers, boat captains and able-bodied seamen. 

They are all part of the growth and development of the industry. There are also civic 

leaders, business owners, spouses and family members who felt firsthand the impacts 

of this industry. Researchers have spent thousands of hours with people responsible 

for the offshore oil and gas industry in southern Louisiana. They recorded interviews, 

collected written documents, and obtained digital copies of photographs and video from 

the early days. 

SIGNIFICANT CONCLUSIONS: Numerous interviews have been conducted with 

people from different sectors of the oil and gas industry. These interviews indicate that 

exploration can be characterized by preoccupation with risk, failure, innovation, and 

fortune. The exploration of oil and gas has gone from hunches and luck to the use of 

sophisticated technology to find prospects. 

One area of change occurred when the Gulf of Mexico was hit by major hurricanes. 

The industry moved into the Gulf during a decade of few storms and learned the hard 

way that wave height and wave force could be far worse than they had predicted. While 

wave height and wave force were always a major consideration in the design of 

platforms, the industry had underestimated the size of the waves that could occur and 

never considered damage that could be caused by mudslides during intense hurricanes 

thus causing the industry to set platforms higher and to account for the force of 

mudslides in their design. 

A second area of change occurred while the government and industry were learning to 

do business. It was a cooperative working relationship. Shell had secretly developed a 

deepwater drilling rig and lobbied the federal government to offer a larger area for 

leasing including acreage beyond the 300 foot contour. The Federal government 

agreed although it believed that there would be no bids on deepwater areas because of 

existing technology; however they were unaware of the new drilling technology. The 

sale turned out to be monumental in size and the government realized that offering 

large areas for lease could create millions for the U.S. Treasury. Shell was the only 

company that bid on the deepwater leases and Federal managers determined that they 

could not lease the deepwater areas because there was no competition. Consequently, 

Shell decided to share their technology with other companies realizing they would never 

have the opportunity to explore the outer reaches if there was no competition. 

The offshore industry could not have progressed as it did, had it not been for the 

adventurous and entrepreneurial spirit of commercial divers. As soldiers returned from 

World War II they were able to apply what they had learned in the Navy to diving for the 

oil and gas industry. The risk to divers was enormous and companies operated at the 

margins of safety, but injuries, deaths, and expanding liability caught the attention of the 
ACCESS NUMBER: 85169 

oil companies. Rapidly rising insurance costs and fear of government intervention and 

of unionization among the divers led companies to organize the Association for Diving 

Contractors to develop industry standards and address safety concerns. 

STUDY RESULTS: The project fills a gap in the existing literature by addressing the 

growth and development of the petroleum industry and the related service industries in 

Louisiana that took exploration and development into the coastal zone and, then, into 

deeper and deeper offshore waters. In addition to its published reports and documents, 

this project is creating an organized archive of materials that can be used efficiently by 

other scholars and researchers. State agencies and local communities will also be able 

to use the materials to better understand the historical context of issues and problems 

of interest to them. 

STUDY PRODUCTS: Austin, D., B. Carriker, T. McGuire, J. Pratt, T. Priest, and A.G. 

Pulsipher. 2004. History of the offshore oil and gas industry in southern Louisiana: 

Interim report; Volume I: Papers on the evolving offshore industry. U.S. Dept. of the 

Interior, Minerals Management Service, Gulf of Mexico OCS Region, New Orleans, LA. 

OCS Study MMS 2004-049. 98 pp. 

McGuire, T. 2004. History of the offshore oil and gas industry in southern Louisiana: 

Interim report; Volume II: Bayou Lafourche – An oral history of the development of the 

oil and gas industry. U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Minerals Management Service, Gulf of 

Mexico OCS Region, New Orleans, LA. OCS Study MMS 2004-050. 148 pp. 

Austin, D. and T. McGuire. 2004. History of the offshore oil and gas industry in 

southern Louisiana: Interim report; Volume III: Samples of interviews and ethnographic 

prefaces. U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Minerals Management Service, Gulf of Mexico OCS 

Region, New Orleans, LA. OCS Study MMS 2004-051. 74 pp.