The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-11-25
PASSING OF TIE OIL BOOM
TEXAS PRODUCT YET LACKS 4 MARKET.
Texas Anti-Trust Laws Hamper De-
 volopment.

Texas Anti-Trust Laws Hamper De-
 volopment.
 The oil country of southeast Texas has settled down to it's normal calm, and is now preparing to profit by the wonderful discovery made there last January. The speculators, financiers, agents and fakirs who crowded the lit tie Texas town of Beaumont to suffoca- tion three months ago have emigrated, and Beaumont, lately the most fever ish town in the Union, is now. fairly quiet. The boom has passed; the spec ulation is over; but the town has lost nothing by. the departure of the specu- lators On the contrary, it has now got down to steady business and is reallz- ing on its great mineral wealth. or rath- CT preparing to realize, for the problem of how to export and market it's oil mas not yet been solved. It will require tens perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars to do this; and the owners or the gushers are securing the North ana Europe to secure the necessary capital or trying to arrange some form of com bination or syndicate that will not vlo- late the very stringent and farfreach- ing laws of Texas, enacted against com binations and aimed at the trusts.
 These laws stand in the way of the rapid development of the oil fields, or rather, of the marketing of the oil and it Is not improbable that the legislature will be urged to modify them so as to encourage this new industry, Whlch promises to bring so much wealth 10 the state But the legislature is likely to be obstinate at this point. Having rejected emphatically the proposal made by the recent New York com mercial and financial visitors to amend it's antitrust laws, it is not likely to yield to local influence. Indeed, It mas gone so far in the other direction as to place tax on the oil coming from the Beaumont wells, so that the state may get it's share of the great mineral find in Texas.
 In the meantime the continuation or 20 of the smaller companies has been made, and agents have been sent by the combine to Europe to seek capital to handle the product of these compan- les. The handling of the oil calls for
 
 is needed for the construction of the necessary pipe lines to the seaooaro' the erection of wharves, and the pur- chase of tank steamers. Port Arthur is the natural point of shipment, Tor It is the nearest, but the wharfage area there is small and is understood to De mainly in the hands or under the con trol of the Standard oil company which the Texas oil men still view with sus- picion For this reason some Of the companies are disposed to go further and make Galveston or even New Or leans the port of export for their oil. A pipe line to New Orleans is being strongly urged. It is pointed out that by having tanks along the route the company would be able to do, a splendid business with the sugar plantations which use the oil for fuel purposes. At New Orleans it could hope to supply many millions gallons of oil to the local factories to take the place of coal and to the steamers coming to this port.
 The present state of affairs at Beau mont is interesting. The Lucas well was begun on October 27, 1900, and oil was struck on January 10, 1901, at l160 rect 5QGDCH. lHS pOIii oloi sSN " e'N'S gusfer caused companies to drill TOT oil for a distance of 400 miles around Beaumont How many companies were organized in the Southwest to dlg TOT oil and how much money was sunk III this way it is impossible to estimate ac- ohirately Some slight idea Of the eX- tent of the craze may be fromed from the operations of the companies around Beaumont. There were organized alto- gether 476 companies to work in the Beaumont field, and they were capital ized at $242,672,50o.
 Many of the companies died early Some did not even complete their 1ncor- poration During April and May the oil companies picked up practically all the surplus or loose money in the South- west. and in some regions there was actually financial stringency, so much money had gone into oil com nanies. In New Orleans between $2,- 100000 and $3.OO0,OOo was thus placed If was noted at the time that the sub- scriptions were in small amounts ana that the women had the craze worst. A rough calculation would place the total investments in Texas oil stock at between 1000 and $5O,O00O0o for the whole country. The great bulk came from the Southwest, Texas. Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama.
 The Lucas gilsher is the largest oil well in the world. The original esti- mate of it's output was 25,O00 barrels a day. The eastern oil men were disposed to cut the figure down to 5000; but later and more careful estimate placed the output at 10000 barrels daily. The other gushers range from 4o,0Oo to 10000 barrels.
 The widest estimates of the extent of the Texas oil field were indulged in It was even contended that it underlay all southeastern Texas, spreading into Louisiana and even out into the gulf of Mexico. The area of the oil country Is now definitely fixed and it is much smaller than was originally supposed hui it cost many thousand dollars to fix these limits,
 In March two new gushers were brought in; in April, five; May, five; June. three: July, four; August, 16; sentenber, to date, r; or 59 in all; and if has become evident that the oil is linn tied. or nearly so, to Spindle Top Flights an elevation of q few feet above inc Beaumont prairie
 The opposite of a gusher is duster