The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-05-13
TALK WITH MAJ. DOXEY
HE REGARDS THE WASTE OF GAS
AS ENTIRELY UNNECESSARY.
Can BE Turned Into the Pipe Lines
from the OIL WeIIs-Virgin Terri
tory in the Gas Belt.

Mai. C. T. Doxey, of Anderson, is stay
ing in Indianapolis at present. Although he
has been too i'll to give much personal at
tention to business matters recently the
major takes keen interest in what occura.
He has read the papers closely since the
Alexandria oil excitement began and is par
ticularly indignant at the great waste OF
natural gas that is reported Major Doxey
is we'll informed with regard TO the natural
gas supply, as he has given the subject
considerable study since it was discovered
ten years ago. A great deal that is writ
ten and said about natural gas emanates
from men who know but little about the
subject. As he feels that some of the err
roneous ideas ought to be corrected, Major
Doxey consented to speak on the subject
last night.
Il notice in your paper to-day in a COM
munication from Anderson he said. that
the oil men have arranged with the Chicago
Pipe Line Company TO extend their lines to
Alexandria to take gas from the oil wells
Now this is good. if true, for two reasons.
First, it will demonstrate at once TO every
one that the gas and oil from a well can
both be saved and utilized so easy that
the w~ickedness in wasting either will be
apparent to every fair-minded and honest
person. Second, that while they are util-
izing the gas from these oil wells they will
be preserving it in other parts of the field.
1t is of little consequence whether the Chi
cago Pipe Line Company lake their gas
from one place or another, so long as they
are taking 1t from the Indiana field, and as
they are within eight miles of Alexandria
now it would not hurt Alexandria very
much.
THE Chicago Pipe Line Company has two
eight-inch lines with pumping stations.
Owing to the long distance and resistance
DX friction the utmost cdDdcltX OF the line
is about fifteen million feet per day. Five
average wells like the Carver we'll would
produce fifteen million feet a day, where
the gas was taken from the well freely by
pumps in order to produce the oil. Fifteen
more wells, under like conditions, would
supply the three indianapolis lines; five
more wells for manufactures at Alexandria
who could use the gas under low pressure
could be used in that way. With twenty
five wells you have pretty near every tam
gible market near Alexandria supplied with
gas. Other factory and pipe lines are not
near those and will have to pass six miles
of good gas land to reach alexandria, and
all the wells belonging to these manufac-
turerS at Alexandria and the pipe lines now
in use would be closed down, saving the
gas in other parts of the field. The aver
age we'll anywhere within ten miles of AL
eXandria is good for from three to eight
million cubic feet per day, if allowed to run
wide open, which they would have to do
to produce the oil"
Why are so many wells then used?'
L do not believe the pipe line companies
or the manufacturers use, on an average,
100000 feet a day from each well, hence the
large number of wells they require now.
Wells under such usage last anywhere
from three to ten years. 1t is necessary for
them to use a small amount from each
well in order that the pressure may keep
back the water and oil.
Should the oil wells come in favorably,
say one in three should be a good oil well,
there would be a hundred wells drilled in
the .>eXt ninety days, and in one year a
You would have a capacity for utilizing
the gas from twenty-five of these wells;
that from the other 975 would be wasted in
the air. If twenty-five wells pulled wide
open would produce gas for these four pipe
lines and the manufacturers at Alexandria
you can gain some idea what the nine hum
dred and seVenty-tive wells would waste.
There Is about twenty miles square or
four hundred square miles of the very best
of the gas territory, yet practically I'M
touched. While all the pipe lines are di-
rected toward it none of them have reached
It,. Making a conservative estimate of what
other gas wells in like territory have pro-
duced, these four hundred square miles have
under them $3.50, 000, 900 worth of gas. CONT
ing the gas at 10 cents a thousand. half
what 1T is actually worth. Putting the
gas at 20 cents a thousand, what it is ac-
tually worth, you have stored here $500, 000,-
900 worth of gas in natures great gas tank,
with nine hundred feet of shale, rock and
earth on top of it to hold it secure, so Sc
curely stored and protected that lightning
could not destroy it; nothing but an earth
quake or oil well drillers will destroy it,
by turning it loose in the air. / venture to
say if the gas is protected as it should be
that we will all have plenty of gas for eight
or ten years, but if it Is wasted indiscrim-
inately by oil well drillers there will not be
utilized or saved one-hfth of it, or say one
hundred million dollars worth of it, and
you will have but little gas in two years,
while four hundred million dollars worth of
it will be lost in the air. It would be a
less disaster to the State of Indiana
for every mandatory and every house
in Muncie, Anderson, Kokomo, Ma
rion. Elwood and Alexandria to go up in
smoke, without a dollar of insurance on
the property, than to waste this valuable
fuel. The factories and houses could all
be placed anew, greatly improved in arch
i~tectural beauty for two-thirds the cost,
but the gas could not replaced by man, and
/ do not think nature would come around
the second time with such a magnificent
gift after we had made such poor use OF
the first one as to waste it in the air"