The Waterbury Democrat., 1940-08-14

the orders open to inspection
Duly inspected, these records tolc
an amazing tale.
For one thing, they showed thai
under Maestri and his successor
William G. Rankin (who last sum-
mer resigned to plead guilty to a
federal indictment and take q
prison sentence) production Of
more than 100000 barrels Of
excess or "hot" oil had been le-
galized by secret orders from the
commission.
OF this total, close to 6;000,00C
barrels were produced while
Maestri was commissioner.
Furthermore, Maestri was an
oil man himself, despite a Louisi-
ana law which says that no officer
or employee Of the conservation
commission may engage in the
exploitation Of the states natural
resources. He became an oil man
in the fall of 1884, while serving
as conservation commissioner, or
ganizing the Canal OIL Co., Inc.
AS an oil man, Maestri had to
go to Conservation Commissioner
Maestri for special orders that
would legalize the "hot oil" which
Canal Oil was producing in ex-
cess of its pro-rated share. Con-
servation Commissioner Maestri
proved a sympathetic listener for
Gilman Maestri; before he left Of
flee, Maestri had issued secret Or
ders permitting his company to
run nearly 100000 barrels of ex-
cess oil in the Leeville mad Iberia
fields.
A few samples from the records
are worth looking at. Six months
after he had organized Canal Oil
Maestri set its allowable produc-
ton at 40,500 barrels for the
month of June. The company ac-
tually ran an excess of 32,293
barrels, which MaeStri promptly
legalized.
In another order to his own
company, it was allowed to pro-
duce on one well ito the capacity
necessary in order to maintain the
proper oil-gas rates'-which, oil
men say, Is tantamount to giving
blanket permission to produce as
much oil as the well will yield.
For still another example: for
the seven months beginning In
June, 1885, the entire Iberia field
had a total maximum allowable
fixed by Maestri of 42l,l6 bar
rels. In that period Maestri's own
company in that field produced
602.203 barrels, or 10000 more
than all the producers in the field
could legally bring out-which ex-
cess, of course, Maestri legalized by
secret order.
GENEROUS
ALL AROUND
1t was not only his own company
that Maestro was generous to, how
ever.
Various methods of granting ia
vors to certain oil producers were
worked out. Sometimes pro-
ducer would have wells In two
fields; one well would over
produce its quota. and the other
would under-produce. In such
cases, the producer might be al
lowed to lump his oyer-produc-
ton with his reproduction to
make q balance, In other cases,
an outright grant OF permission TO
produce an excess would be given
the grant coming after the excess
had already been produced, Some.
times O nat maximum would be
set for an entire field, only to be
nullifled by later orders author
izing each Individual company to
produce SO many barrels per well
per day, the total running far
above the fiFst and published,
In any case, someone profited
heavily by the l2,000. 900 haFrel
0yeF-pr0ductioE, The u, s, De-
partment OF Justice looked into
the matter not long ago, and last
February federal oiiipials dis
eussed the case Of Mr., MaesiFl,
Their report said that MaestFi had
pFohted BY more than el,0000o0
through his Canal OIL holdings;
however, 1t added that because Ne
md hts successor. Rankin, had
Iailed % observe 2 technical d.