Gold Hill daily news. [volume] (Gold Hill, N.T. [Nev.]) 1863-1882, 1864-06-25
Oil Well SpccuIations.

At time like the present, when capital
is seeking investment, there is no end to
the impositions that have already been
practiced upon the public in the shape of
oil well companies, located on lands, many
of which are utterly hopeless as to pro-
ducing any oil at all, or at any rate are
not worth working. On the other hand,
those who suppose all the favorable loca-
tions to be taken up, or that the business
is overdone, are in still greater error. The
magnitude of the business surpasses all
the belief of those who have not visited
the spot.
The whole Pennsylvania oil region,
which in 1860 was supposed to amount to
eleven hundred and sixty-fve barrels per
day from the seventy-four principal wells,
or about 5O,OOO,0OO gallons in all, is now
about 1000, 900 barrels, or $500, 100000
gallons. Oil creek alone averages, l,2OO,-
0O0, 900 gallons, and yet the demand has
been increasing, thus far, faster than the
supply. Oil is now about IS per barrel.
and heavy bets have been laid that it will
be $40 before the end of the year. Ger
tainly no mining investment, not except
ing gold mines, ever made so great and
speedy return upon capital invested.
And yet probably there are five wells
sunk foolishly and hopelessly, to one that
pays, and what the public wants to know
is, how to discriminate the investments
of this sort that are likely to pay, from
those which are merely got up to
make money for the spectators. Oil
creek, below Titusyille, and the valley OF
the Allegheny, from Tarentum, twenty
miles above Pittsburg, up to Franklin,
and thence up into Warren county, has
Welded oil at certain spots when wells
have been dug, but not all in equal guam
tity or quality. Some wells yield now
eight hundred barrels per day, and Others
so little as not to pay the expenses OF
working, even where there is oil. Some
of the best and lightest oils from Oil
Creek are 46 degrees Baume's hydrometer.
But about Franklin they are heavier, say
from 33 to 36 degrees.
To know, therefore, whether an enter
prise of this sort is likely TO pay, it Is not
enough to be sure that there is OIL though
that is difficult enough. The cost of
working, of barrels and of transportation,
all have to be taken into consideration.
| On this last account some of the wells
right on the Allegheny river may possibly
prove eventually the most profitable of
any, because as the barrels cost upward of
two dollars each, wholesale at Titusville,
and where n single well has been known
to produce as much as eight hundred bar
rels per day, that item requires alone an
outlay of nearly half a million of dollars
per annum. But on the Allegheny river
| in favorable locations, wells are being
bored close to the river, and bulk boats,
as they are called, have the oil pumped
right into them, saving all the cost of bar
rels. Stuart, who owns one of the best
wells, has saved in the item Of barrels
alone about five thousand dollars the last
year by having his refinery close to his oil
well.
Round about Walnut Bend. right on
the Allegheny river, more than score OF
wells have been bored, and not one, it is
said, have failed to strike oil. So it is
above and below. Wells can be contracted
for and dug at SO per foot, hard and soft
together, so that $1,000 for each well
would be, perhaps, a fair average price.
Everything depends, therefore, upon get
ting favorable location. In some spots
the water is bold, so that at all stages of
the river the bulk boats can come right up,
and have the oil drawn directly into them
from the vats. Stuarts well is, perhaps,
one of the most desirable. 1t is at Titus
vile, and the oil comes out almost as clear
as water. He has refinery. however, on
the premises in direct connection with his
vats, and after losing forty per cent. in re-
fining, still sends off one hundred and
forty barrels per day-or did several
months ago. Many of the wells yield far
more than this in quantity, though moth
ing can exceed it in quality. Transports
ton is now the chief facility lacking; but
the railroad which must now shortly be
completed will convey it directly to Phila-
delphia and New York. So many and
various are the new uses to which it is
daily being applied, and so inexhaustible
appears to be the supply, that it is no
wonder capitalists are seeking to invest in
the enterprise. In few years, our steam-
boats, at least our ships of-war, will prob
ably be navigated by oil for fuel all over
the world. The chief danger is to those
who 90 into such adventures with too
small capital to stand disappointment, at
first, and competition.