Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1919-08-17

On the other hand needy adventur-
 rers, even men with criminal rec ords, became suddenly rich by rush ing into the newly opened Texas fields. Land d-owners all the wav from cattle kings down to worthless
 shiftless proprietors of a small natch of dirt, and ignorant half-breed In olans, suddenly made millions. One man at Ranger In hardly more than year changed from the poorest of the poor to the owner of S7,OOO OOO,
 Business men and professional oil operators also rose in a few years to dizzy opulence. There are scores ot such, of which the McMan and Humble companies are examples. In numerous cases operators previous lly worth not more than couple of hundred thousand dollars at the most nave sold out to Standard Oil intor- ests for millions.
 Fraud in Oil Promotions.
 But this does not mean that all one mas to do to get rich is to buy oil stocks. Far from it, To begin with. the country today swarms with pro. motefs who are selling practicallv worthless oil stocks. The disclosures of fradulent oil promotions on the New York City curb market and the activities of the district attorney in roofing them out are but slight indi- cations of what has been goinp on Almost every doubtful promoter in the country is selling oil stocks and It is stated by high authority in the industry that more than 80 per cent of these men know absolutely nothino about the oil game.
 m many cases efforts have heen made to surround a new promotion With an air of mystery, so that the public would suppose the Standard O1l group of companies were behind It, Promoters have even gone so far as to form a company with the name standard Oil, although it had abso- iutely no connection with the we'll known concerns entitled to that name Judglng from the number of .prospec tuses of essentially stockjobbing and Tn all probability worthless oil com panles which have come to the writ CTS personal attention, it is con- servatlve estimate that more than a thousand doubtful oil companies have sought and generally obtained funds from the public within the last year, Average Production.
 The Standard Oil company of New Jerseys magazine, The Lamp. recent ly stated that u he average nrod1c- tion of the 225,OOO producina we11s or the country is four and a half bar rels a day. Thousands of wells pro uuce less than one-quarter of a bar lel daily, while four-fifth of the total Go not yield even a barral a day. r, EVen Tn the new "gusher" field of leAas' where only the big wells re- celve publicity, the average output oI W the wells, most of which are less Ihan year old, is not much over 50 parrels\ Often it is necessary to drlll nearly mile in depth and the cost sometimes runs up to S1OO ,O0O. Ill only a few sections does single well cost much less than S5OOoO. It takes a good many barrels even at the high price of $2.25 a barrel to pay for such cost.
 Very few of the new companies in offering shares to the public are modest enough to lead their stock holders to look for 5O-barrel wells. Even if many of the new companies are successful in obtaining the aver age production, their securities will not be worth anything like the prices at which they have been sold, while few failures in drilling would result Tn bankruptcy in many cases.
 In April there were nearly 500 dry holes out of 2,23S wells completed in this country. Even in the legitimate production of oil the life of a we'll is not long as rule. According to figures furnished by the National Pe- troleum News it appears that even In the new Texas fields production gradually falls off. A well which be- gan at 1,200 barrels day less than two years ago has now fallen off to fifteen barrels a day.
 Most of the new, small companies which sell stock to the public expect to drill in unproven, or ''wildcat" ter- rltory. This is expensive because the work IS done far from the source of oll-well supplies, and no drilling con- tractor ever has the tools that will be necessary in case of trouble with the hole. While waiting for tools the expense of the crew goes on. Ex- pense also is increased because the