Marietta daily leader. (Marietta, Ohio) 1895-1906, 1900-04-24
Oil Well Under the Sea.

great crude oil industry. This new
and radical departure, difficult and
expensive undertaking. to say the
least, has been successfully carried out
at Summerland, Cal, the only place
where 1t has ever been attempted. and
there the precious brown fluid is now
pumped from beneath the Pacific
Ocean at the rate OF about 100 carloads
per month, from scores of holes. while
many more wells are being bored. SO
it is not an experiment, this oil field
in or out of the water, but a sound
proposition yielding enormous finan-
cial returns, while the spectacle pre-
sented is unique in many respects, and
the only one of the kind to be seen in
the world. Heretofore oil men have
been content to confine their opera
tlons to terra firma, but now a new oil
field has been opened, and there is no
telling how many drills will soon be
going downward under seas and lakes.
Already at a number of points along
the coast of California preparations
are under way for sinking wells off
shore, oil men believing that prospects
are better there than upon dry land.
This belief is prompted by the fact
that every well drilled at Summerland
has proven productive. In few years
to come the waters along the Pacific
coast will doubtless be dotted with
derricks.
The development of the field was
brought about by peculiar. circum-
stances and commenced but a few
years ago. when the oil industry had
begun to boom in the East. The first
wells were drilled on the bluff where
oil had been discovered twenty years
previously in sinking for water, and
where there are still many good pro-
ducers But Summerland was a beau
tiful place, quiet little colony CT Spir-
| tualists, and they opposed the advent
Of greasy and unsightly derricks on
the hills. Besides it was observed
that wells were better the nearer they
luently the operators began to crowd
each other toward the water line. FL
nally S. w. Knapp, of Santa Barbara
conceived plan of getting ahead of
Ill his competitors by building a
| wharf.-the structure along the beach
md drilling cut where the Pacific's
Dut the well proved to be "gusher."
others followed Knapp's example, go
ing farther and farther out, until to-
day there are dozens of wharves ex-
ending a thousand feet into the sea.
'onected by structures running paral-
ell with the beach. And on these
wharves,, cften SO near each other as
10 be almost crowded, are the derricks
large ones for drilling and smaller
ones for pumping-and all in use.
AS to the extent and productiveness
If this strange ocean Gil field, an idea
may be CLEANED from the following fig
lres: There are nearly 300 wells, and
the average output per day is said to
De about 25 barrels, or a total of $500
barrels. This product is of a high
grade and sells for an average price cf
30 cents barrel, which means total
Of over $4,000 per day or about $780,
300 per month. Much of the oil goes
Inder long contracts to the immense
OXnard beet sugar factory, while
thousands of barrels are shipped to
San Francisco at short intervals. The
cost of pumping a we'll is only about
30 cents per day. To illustrate how
closely the derricks stand, it may be
stated that the Sea Cliff Oil Company.
producing 5000 barrels a month, has
l wharf 500 feet long and 10 wells.
The Treadwell Company has the lcng-
est wharf. extending 1900 feet from
shore, with a pumping we'll at the ex-
rene end and IS others at intervals
And there are a dozen other concerns
"lth NUMEROUS NHdINtH. Much Oh
) necessarily wasted under the pecul-
ar conditions which prevail, and this.
tripping upon the wharf, has the effect
Of making a considerable patch CT old
ocean as calm and smooth as a land
'ocked Lay. adding much to the strill-
ing oddity of the scene. Often when
lew wells are opened the gas pressure
is so strong that streams of oil spurt
cut and upon the water until the sur
face is black, in strange contrast with
The distant blue.
Such is the wonderful new phase OF
one of Americas vast industries
which IT remained for Summerland to
present, and of which the country at
large never has heard, because the
work has been carried on quietly. At
tention has been attracted to it in Eu-
rope, however by party of English
tourists, who appeared on the scene a
year ago, and new offers OF capital for
investment in ocean oil plants are
pouring into California frcm the finan-
cial centers of the old world II
would not be surprising, therefore, if
foreign syndicates would soon make
an effort to duplicate the oldest oil
field in the world.