, 1922-10-26
OIL RkEk0 OUTLET.
BECOMES MIGRATORY,
AND OHAN0n1 POOLR

S~ OOA~
OH may be yours today and your
nedghbor's tomorrow. OIL 10 migra-
tory-it seeks the nearest outlet: II
your neighbor drills before you do,
It hastens to his we'll. Issues through
1t. and the law say 1t 10 him. Ex-
perienced oil men. says d. H. George
writing on THE Vanderbilt Of Pc
troleum" in The Illustrated World
(Chicago). never delay drilling their
wells. for this reason. The owner
ship OF oil vests in him through
who's we'll 1t first comes to the sur
face. SO there is no such thing as
property in oil stored underground,
and he who goes to sleep in the sub
lime confidence that he has . fluid
million ready for tapping when he
wants 1t. should year in mind that
his wealth Is indeed fluid-too fluid
for keeping-and may at any time
flow away to another. The U. 8.
government recently learned this to
its cost in California. where 1t tried
to keep an Underground reserve" Of
oil for naval use. The reserve" went
to others, and the government has
lost several billions. We read:
"In no other mining or drilling ac-
tivity is the saying he who hesitates
is lost better illustrated than in the
oil business: for the operator who
dilly-dallies or neglects to tap his oil
domes as quickly as his neighbor
frequently learns that nearby wells
have spouted a goodly portion of the
oil which should have been his. Oil
Is as nomadic in It's inclination and
wanderings as the primitive redskins.
1t is here today and gone tomorrow.
Rapidly 1t seeps away from the local
ity OF its origin as soon as adjacent
wells are sunk. Where adjoining
properties are being drilled, the
one recourse open to the owner Of oil
land is to tap and pump his spplies of
oil as rapidly as he can. Only by
such ~expedients can he prevent the
vagrant oil from straying away to
the pipe lines of his competitors.
1.-THE U. s. Navy has lost untold
millions Of dollars worth Of oil dur
ing recent years through neglect to
tap the oil domes Of her reserves in
California. These reserves were set
aside by special Congressional action
from 1910 to 1915 as emergency
stores for provisioning Government
naval craft. Unfortunately these re-
serve fields we're located in oil-pro-
ducing areas where many private
properties have latterly been drilled
for production. The sinking Of wells
on adjacent areas has acted like a
magnet and attracted heavy drainage
from the Government reserves to the
private gushers. Failure to drill
protective wells prior to 1921 has
resulted in losses estimated at twen-
ty-two million barrels Of oil. Ex-
%perienced oil men approaching these
facts are eve slow about coming
forward and getting busy when 1t
ZONES to a question of tapping new
"Oil is a kind of subterraneous
tramp that goes when and where it
after 1t Is released from cap
tivity by the opening of a we'll in its
vicinity. 1t always moves toward the
well where the pressure is being re-
leased. passes through the deep lay
ers OF sand. following a zigzagging
.crisscrossing course. propelled by the
force of the gas, ever
for the opening At the we'll
through which 1t may spout or be
pumped to the surface. Under the
high subterranean pres
suFe-it amounts to more than one
pounds per square inch In
some fields-the gas at first occurs
absorbed in the oil just as the gas in
the bottled beer which most Of us
used to enjoy. Drill . we'll or pull
the cork and in either case the fluid
flows forth until the gas pressure has
expended itself. Even the millions
Of barrels Of oil remain underground,
the propulsive force IL gone the
beer Ii flat. Thus the original wells
which are drilled to the reservoir
sands operate under high. pressure
while those drilled after the gas
pressure has been reduced make al
much smaller initial production"