The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-04-18
KANSAS NEWS.
Pipe Line Project for Gas to
Eastern Fields Is Settled.
Company Will Spend Approxi-
mateIy S7,5O0,0OO.
WILL LAY 16-INCH MAIN
To Start at Chanute and Run
to Kansas City, No.
Will Also Have Lines to st.
Louis and st. Joseph.

Chanute, Kan. April 1s.-There is to
be a pipe line from this town to St
Louis, Kansas City and st. Joseph to
convey natural gas. The plans are
made, the money is available and the
wells are already drilled. The COM
pany will start with more than 100
wells. with daily capacity Of 300 mile
Hon cubic feet Of gas, and this is but
little less than the present daily COM
sumption of the United States. The
pipe line from Chanute to Kansas City
Will be laid first, the distance being
something more than ITO miles, The
line to st. Louis will come after, and
viii be more than 200 miles long, or as
long as the longest gas pipe line ever
The company which owns the wells
and which will build the pipe line is
composed largely of those who own
the Union Natural Gas corporation of
E1ttSDurg, Pa, which is one OF the
largest producers of gas in the eastern
nelds. Colonel James O'Nei1l of Cha
mute has a large interest. The report
that the Standard Oil company has
any interest in the project is said by
the promoters to be erroneous. The.
capital was all raised in Pittsburg,
Kansas City and st. Louis.
The wells of the company are located
all over the Kansas district, from lola
to Peru. For more than two years
Colonel O'NeilI has been drilling gas
wells. He was not drilling for oil at
all. AS soon as a well came in it
was capped, and this was continued
week after week and month after
month To all inquiries Colonel O'Neill
replied that time would. Show what he
was doing. To aIIsthe people who tried
TO get him tied up the oil business
Colonel O'Neill said the gas business
was good enough for him.
The number of gas wells standing in
Colonel O'NeiIl- name is now more than
100 and the drilling 10 going on every
day. These wells will average mil
lion cubic feet of gas day. Some of
them run from million to 8 million
feet, but million is a fair average.
This means that the O'Nein wells are
producing in steam power or heating
power the equivalent of $500 tons of
coal per day, 1t requiring approx
mately 10000 cubic feet of gas TO equal
a ton of coal. At thirty tons to the
car there can be produced the equiva-
lent of $50 cars of coal.
It is the purpose of the company,
which is forming to market this pro-
duct to construct a 16 or 1S-inch pipe
line from Chanute to Kansas City by
way of lola, Paola, CSarnett and Olathe.
that being almost a direct route to
Kansas City, NO. which will have a
daily capacity of from 35 million feet
to go million feet of gas. The main
line may be larger than this, and 4
so, will probably have capacity OF
IIOLQ lUV IQllllOn 1C6L 10 AVU lll4AllOll ICCL
per day. From this main line branch
lines will be constructed to various
places in Missouri and Kansas, to sup
ply the wants Of the people.
While there is not now a demand for
any such quantity of fuel, it is be-
lieved that through these branch lines
to all nearby towns that not only Will
a demand be created, but a stimulus
given to manufacturing which Will re-
suit in an enormous influx of capital
to engage in manufacturing enter
prises. 1t is pointed out that by Tar
the greater part Of the output of the
output of the Joplin district is smelt-
ed and refined in the Kansas gas belt
and this solely because of the cheap
ness of fuel. This being the case at
Joplin the same thing viii result in the
manufacture of agricultural imple-
1nents and other things which are sold
largely through the southwest and mid
Already the effect of cheap fuel is
being felt at Chanute through the es-
eablishment of a. big smelter and the
building of large railroad shops. Other
places in the district are having the
same experience, and as yet the supply
has not been at all certain, as the gas
deposits have been but indifferently
developed here so far as the individual
operator was concerned. OsNeill being
the only man who saw the opportunity
and took advantage of it.
The cost of the line when ready for
service with power plants, etc, will be
about ~ million dollars, the average
being a little more than 100000 to the
mile
1t is the expectation of the company
to sell the gas at from twenty to thii-
ty cents per thousand cubic feet,
which would amount to from 81 to IS
per ton for coal. The gas can be used
for both fuel and lighting, of course.
Experts who have recently been over
the field say the Kansas gas belt is The
largest in the world, eQualing in area
he n
West Virginia and Western New York
combined. The wells are more prodUe-
tive than the wells in the Eastern gas
belts. but there is less of what IS
known as rock pressure natures way
of getting the gas to the surface, ana
therefore it will cost more to operate
the Kansas wells than the wells in
the East. But there is cheap fuel ana
light enough underlying the Kansas
oil belt to supply the present daily con-
sumption of the world many times
over.
1t is a matter of impossibility to de-
ternine what the supply win be when
all of the proven gas territory is de-
veloped. but 1t would run into the bill
lions of feet and when 1t is considered
that the area of proven gas territory
is being extended and enlarged every
week the possibilities of the field are
almost beyond calculation. Conserva-
tive experts estimate that there can
be drilled 5000 gas wells in the Cha
mute end of the district alone, and at
the low estimate of half a million cubic
feet each daily, the result in figures
would mean a daily output of 3 billion
cubic feet of gas equal to IL million
tons of coal which it would require So.
600 cars to move.
There has been objection to the pipe
line project because a few of the oper-
ators fear that the piping of such a
large quantity of gas out of the dis
frict will result in a shortening of sup
ply and eventually in a gas famine,
but the pipe line projectors point to
the fact that there are gas wells
around lola which have been running
.tandiIv for more than thirty years anu