WHO OWNS THE EARTH?

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 134, 5 July 1909, Page 4

WHO OWNS THE EARTH?

THE OIL INDUSTRY. (By Henry SI. Hyde, in the "Technical World Magazine.") The oil industry made education universal and the average intelligence of the people higher than in any other country; put into the pockets of half-a-dozen men profits amounting to one biilion dollars within twenty-seven years; forced the creation of the first trust and wrought a complete revolu-, lion in the organisation of business;) developed tank cars, tank steamers, pi'.ie lines, and many other startling inno-) vations in the transportation and handling of raw and manufactured products. j These are some of the more important achievements of the Great American oil industry at the end of the first fifty years of its existence. It is the most picturesque, the most spectacular, the most revolutionary business in which men were ever engaged. Fifty years ago mineral oil skimmed from the surface of springe in Pennsylvania was lwttled and sold under glar-' ing labels as a patent medicine cure-all.' To-day the same natural product is pumped back and forth across the continent in 83,000 miles of privatelyowned pipe lines and is sent to the far corners of the seven seas in a privatelyowned fleet of more than five hundred steam and sailing vessels. The richest

I man in the world owes his wealth to oil. The poorest boy in the most remote corner of the country studying at night ' after his work was' done, ,bv the light I of an oil lamp, owes his debt also to the same product of nature. Oil found- i ed the University of Chicago, lubricated the slides for the descent of many fa- ' piring statesmen into Avernus, and i mads 26, Broadway, the most conspicu- I ous and important location in the commercial world. The Standard Oil Company, nvhich has been the one great beneficiary of the oil business, has never been the pioneer in any development of ■ the trade which it controls. The first ' oil wells were bored by other people; the first refinery built; the first pipe line constructed, and the first American ' oil exported by individuals and firms who had no connection with the Standard. That organisation of astute, crafty, and able men has> been content to wait until others have done the costly experimental work and has then speedily and completely assimilated the result of their labors. John D. Rockefeller knew of what he spoke when he declared that the oil business was the most speculative pursuit in the worl,d. During the fifty * years which have elapsed s'incc the first hole was bored in ISofl, no less than ■ '250,000 wells hare been sunk in search of the thick odoriferous liquid which nature has deposited with such a lavish and uncertain hand. The total estimated cost to the men who financed the boring of these wells—every one as speculative as the spinning of a wheel of fortune—is 250,000,000 dollars. Of this vast sum not less than 100,000,000 dollars was an absolute loss That is, the holes for the boring of which it paid the cost turned out to be dry wells from which nothing more valuable than scanty supplies' of water could be pumped. Oil is often found where it is least expected. And the gold prospector, wko wanders over mountains and deserts, with his belt pulled tight over 1 his lean helly, is no more of a reckless and chance-driven gambler than the wild-cat oil-weller, who takes the whole Continent for his field and who bores a test hole to-day in the far north-west and to-morrow in some little southern J country. There has been no reason why the Standard Oil Company should not _ be willing to allow others to do this experimental work, because, up to the present time, the problem has been rather to take care of the ever-increas-ing supplier of crude oil, rather than to find new deposits to supply the demand. The opening of every new oil field is, in fact, always the scene of incredible and criminal waste, llegardless of storage capacity, regardless of any ready means of transportation, the ® first successful well in every new field is always followed by a tidal wave of oil men. As rapidly as their great steel drills can be driven into the earth tliuv ' 0 bore hole after hole, using pumps to get the greatest possible supply of crude oil from the earth in the shortest possible time. A gold mine camp at the J; height of its greatest boom is a quiet place and its residents' sedate and sober in business men, by the side of a new town after a half-dozen "gushers" have re come in. is, And to the Standard Oil Company must be given the credit for the saving ■>y from total loss, many million barrels !e of crude oil sucked from the earth by pc greedy speculators in quantities so c- great that it takes years to use the to production of a single season. Time id after time the Standard has worked in great crews of men day and night, in ct the building of huge s'tcel oil tanks for the storing of unexpected oil. Two years ago it bad stored in tanks in the j Kansas field alone, more than 21,000,000 barrels. Every time a new pool is tapped, the Standard is instantly on the spot spinning its pipe lines, raising its great storage tanks and making ready to handle whatever quantity of the crude product the riven cartli can be forced into giving up. In 1905 the Standard Oil Company itSelf produced less than twelve per cent, of the crude oil in the United States. At the same time it absolutely controlled the business. Its agents set the st prices for crude petroleum in the various fields. Through its own ownership and control of pipe lines—a single trunk line stretching unbroken from Kansas' th to the Atlatic coast—it was able at will, d, to make it entirely unprofitable for any l( j competitor to go into business on a large scale. The company also owns and a> sontrols nineteen great refineries which „ in 1908 produced 30,000,000 barrels of refined oils and naphthas, to say nothing of the millions of barrels of lubricants' and millions of pounds of paraffin, wax and candles. More than half of its refined oils are sent abroad. The rest is sold from about thirty-fivo hundred distributing stations in the United States, tank waggons working from each of these stations.

In the truest sense, the Standard Oil Company ons tlie earth so far as tho deposits of the mineral oil are concerntd. Its position towards the producer* of crude oil is practically this: ''You do the costly experimental work of hunting for oil. When you have foirad It I will take it away from you at whatever price I choose to ,pn.v and sell it to the consumers of the-world, at whatever price I choose to.charge." . Oil is found in the cracks and crevices of certain kinds of porous' rocks, froin three hundred' to two thousand feet below the surface. An oil well :•; simply a hole in the ground a foo; :: diameter at the top and s j x inches a. (he bottom Through this long tube Ihe oil is pumped. An oil well is bored by a steel drill weighing with its tittin"s Kbont a ton and a-half. By eontinualTv raising anil dropping tliU drill the rockis crashed and is removed by means of a sand pump, a long tube with a valve at the bottom. Sometimes when the oil-bearing rock is struck, the pressure under which the oil is confined will send it flying to the top of the well with a rush. More often it is necessary to "shoot'' the well. Sometimes as 'much as two hundred <|iisti't< of nitroglycerine j are lowered to the bottom of 'the hole | ill "shells.'' A hundred or more feet nf water is then turned into the well to •'tamp'' the charge. The uitro-glycerine is then discharged by menus of a fuse. The effect of the explosion is to breakup the rock at the bottom of the well and thus make room for the free (lowing of the oil. After completion, an o[l well is lined with iron piping and—unless a. gusher—is connected with the pump. Very often there is a discharge of natural gas' from an oil well. When this is the ease the gas is conveyed to the engine which works the pump, so that many gas wells practically pump themselves. Since oil was discovered in Pennsylvania in 1830, nearly two ibillion barrels of petroleum have been pumped from Ihe earth, enough to fill Ihe Panama ('ana!, when completed, twice over, t'n to the present time the statistics of the oil industry show that in each succeeiliiig period nf nine years as much petroleum is pumped as was produced in all the wears preceding it. fn other words, the consumption of oil j» increasing in a geometric ratio, so that while it has taken fifty years' to reduce ihe Pennsylvania fields to one-third of

their former production, it is practically ] certain that in much shorter time the other great deposits so far located will •be depleted. The total deposits of .petroleum underlying the territory of the United States are roughly estimated by the experts of the Government service to amount to twelve billion barrels, of which one-sixth has already been used. If the present rate of increase continues, i.s doubtless it will, practically all the now known deposits will be exhausted iu less than one hundred years. The question of the proper conservation of the oil supply is most) complicated. From the standpoint of society probably I the most important use of petroleum is' ) as an illiiiiiiniint in sparsely-settled communities. L'p to the ipresent time the ) kerosene lump furnishes the cheapest ligth, quality considered, which has yet been produced. Within the last few years vast quantities of crude oil have been used for fuel, particularly on the Pacific Coast, where coal deposits are rare, and the tendency is to use petroleum more and more in the fire-boxes of steamships and railroad locomotives. Whether the use of oil for other than . illuminating and lubricating purposes should not be somewhat restricted ia a J question now causing serious discus- ■ sion.