Montana oil and mining journal. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1931-1953, 1939-06-17
"When We Strike Oil"

1T HE DAY. in the Montana oil and
gas industry is truly at hand, IL
we may judge by the swift hap
penings of recent weeks.
The announcement of plans for a gas
pipeline to Spokane; the entrance of the
great Huber carbon black interests into
North Cut Bank; the entrance Of
SOcony-Vacuum into Montana in the
erection of the 3.300-barrel refinery at
Cut Bank; the completion of the largest
gas well in the state of Montana; an
apparent market for all the oil now de-
velOped in north Montana fields:
These and many more news items of
recent weeks make this safe statement:
FORTUNATE Is THE MAN WHO
TODAY HAS A WORKING KNOWL-
EDGE OF THE SITUATION IN THE
NORTH MONTANA OIL AND GAS
FIELDS.
Montana possesses the greatest oppor-
tunities the oil industry has known.
Relatively few people can understand
this to be a fact. The man who DOES
understand it can capitalize the fact.
Only those Of us who have grown
up" with the Montana oil industry can
fully realize what has happened in the
past few years. Only those of us who
remember when the RED BEDS were
supposed to be the stopping place for
any we'll drilled can fully realize what
deeper drilling will bring in Montana.
Only those of us who have seen cable
tools trying vainly to penetrate horizons
below the Madison lime can realize the
Importance of the arrival of rotary drill
ling equipment capable of drilling
through greatest gas flows and to ex-
plore two and three miles into the lime
Only those of us who had oil to sell
in the days of uncertainty when the Ca
madam market was the only outlet for
Montana oil-when Montana refiners
could not get afoothold in the industry
can fully appreciate what it means to
have flock of new refineries built in
Montana Idaho and Washington, as per-
manent outlets for Montana oil.
Only those of us who have seen a new
producing horizon discovered and devel-
oped from a "stray sand' into the states
greatest oil reservoir can realize the i'm
portance of the discovery Of another pro-
ducing horizon.
We refer. first, to the Cut Bank sand
Ten years ago the worlds greatest geo.
logists scoffed at the possibility Of any
oil production in the Cut Bank area.
They would have scoffed at the sugges-
ton of any great amount of production
from the STRAY sand" that was picked
up in wildcat wells west of the west
rim" of Kevin-Sunburst field. None
suggested it, since none believed it pos
sible For that reason the world looked
with suspicion on the old B & Fl well
which first found oil in Cut Bank field.
It had oil in a STRAY sand-therefore
it was of no significance. That sand is
today called the Cut Bank sand and it is
quite probable that this sand will pro-
duce 500, 900 worth of oil. While
the west and north slopes of the Sweet
grass Arch are the only places where
this sand is now found, out of the vast
area of Montana, it is quite possibly the
most prolific sand that has been thus
far found ABOVE THE MADISON LIME.
The world does not quickly accept
anything new. The world did not be-
lieve that the great Lander wen, in the
north end of Cut Bank, had opened up
a lew On uOTiDOu Until mOIG LHdH d
year after its completion. That well has
in three years produced more than a
million and a quarter dollars worth
of oil from a sand that before the Lander
No. 1 had never produced a barrel of
commercial oil in Montana and-so far
as we knOw-any place in the world.
A well that will produce $1,25O,OOO
worth of oil in slightly over three years.
thereafter continuing as a large pro-
Queer, is important but not nearly so
important as the fact that 1T OPENED
UP NEW PRODUCING HORIZON.
The Moulton sand is found ABOVE
the Sunburst sand-principal gas horizon
of both the Shelby gas field and the Cut
Bank gas field. 1t is in what is known
as the Kootenai formation-be1ow the
red beds. First comes the Moulton sand
then the Sunburst sand and then the
Cut Bank sand which is at the base of
the Kootenai formation. Heretofore the
Moulton sand was just STRAY" with
no importance other than it showed up
in the early development of the gas area.
It is found in great thickness in the south
end of the field buf aIv bar-