by Bruce Wells | Jun 12, 2024 | Petroleum Technology
Founded in 1932, the oilfield service company Lane-Wells developed powerful perforating guns.
Fifteen years after its first oil well perforation job, Lane-Wells Company returned to the same well near Montebello, California, to perform its 100,000th perforation. The publicity event of June 18, 1948, was a return to Union Oil Company’s La Merced No. 17 well.
The gathering of executives at the historic well celebrated a significant leap in petroleum production technology. The combined inventiveness of the two oilfield service companies had accomplished much in a short time, “so it was a colorful ceremony,” reported a trade magazine.
As production technologies evolved after World War II, Lane-Wells developed a downhole gun with the explosive energy to cut through casing. Above, one of the articles preserved in a family scrapbook, courtesy Connie Jones Pillsbury, Atascadero, California.
Officials from both companies and invited guests gathered to witness the repeat performance of the company’s early perforating technology, noted Petroleum Engineer in its July 1948 issue. Among them were “several well-known oilmen who had also been present on the first occasion.”
Walter Wells, chairman of the board for Lane-Wells, was present for both events. The article reported he was more anxious at the first, which had been an experiment to test his company’s new perforating gun. In 1930, Wells and another enterprising oilfield tool salesman, Bill Lane, developed a practical way of using guns downhole.
The two men envisioned a tool which would shoot steel bullets through casing and into the formation. They would create a multiple-shot perforator that fired bullets individually by electrical detonation. After many test firings, commercial success came at the Union Oil Company La Merced well.
Cover of a special publication featuring 75th anniversary of Baker Atlas oil well service company. Lane-Wells became part of Baker Atlas, today a division of Baker-Hughes
Founded in Los Angeles in 1932, the oilfield service company Lane-Wells built a fleet of trucks as it became a specialized provider of well perforations — a key service for enhancing well production (see Downhole Bazooka).
The two men designed tools that would better help the oil industry during the Great Depression. “Bill Lane and Walt Wells worked long hours at a time, establishing their perforating gun business,” explained Susan Wells in a 2007 book celebrating the 75th anniversary of Baker-Atlas.
“It was a period of high drilling costs, and the demand for oil was on the rise,” Wells added. “Making this scenario worse was the fact that the cost of oil was relatively low.”
Shotgun Perforator
By late 1935, Lane-Wells recognized high-powered guns were needed for breaking through casing, cement and into oil-bearing rock formations.
An experienced oilfield worker, Sidney Mims, had patented a similar technical tool for this, but he could not get it working as well as it should. Lane and Wells purchased the patent and refined the downhole gun design. Lane-Wells developed a remotely controlled 128-shot perforator — a downhole shotgun.
“Lane and Wells publicly used the reengineered shotgun perforator they bought from Mims on Union Oil’s oil well La Merced No. 17,” Wells noted. “There wasn’t any production from this oil well until the shotgun perforator was used, but when used, the well produced more oil than ever before.”
Lane-Wells provided perforating services using downhole “bullet guns,” seen here in 1940.
The successful application attracted many other oil companies to Lane-Wells as the company modified the original 128-shot perforator to use 6-shot and 10-shot cylinders. For a public relations event, executives decided to conduct the company’s 100,000th perforation almost 16 years after the first at the La Merced No. 17 well.
Continued success in Oklahoma and Texas oilfields led to new partnerships beginning in the 1950s. A Lane-Wells merger with Dresser Industries was finalized in March 1956, and another corporate merger arrived in 1968 with Pan Geo Atlas Corporation, forming the service industry giant Dresser Atlas.
A 1987 joint venture with Litton Industries led to Western Atlas International, which became an independent company before becoming a division of Baker-Hughes in 1998 (Baker Atlas) providing well logging and perforating services. Dresser merged with Halliburton the same year.
Preserving Oil History
Connie Jones Pillsbury of Atascadero, California, and the family of Walter T. Wells wanted to preserve rare Lane-Wells artifacts. She contacted the American Oil & Gas Historical Society for help finding a home for an original commemorative album, press-clippings and guest book from June 18, 1948.
Seeking to preserve the “Lane-Wells 100,000th Gun Perforating Job” event at Montebello, California — site of the Union Oil Company La Merced No. 17 well — Pillsbury and the children of Dale G. Jones, the grandson of Walter T. Wells, contacted petroleum museums, libraries, and archives (also see Oil & Gas Families).
Pillsbury’s quest to preserve the Walter T. Wells album and records proved successful, and she emailed AOGHS to report the family’s album was “safely archived at the USC Libraries Special Collections. Sue Luftschein is the Librarian. It’s on Online Archive of California (OAC).”
The Lane-Wells West Coast headquarters designed by architect William E. Mayer and completed in 1937 in what today is Huntington Park in Los Angeles. Photo courtesy Water and Power Associates.
The Lane-Wells collection — Gift of Connie Pillsbury, October 27, 2017 — can be accessed via the OAC website.
Title: Lane-Wells Company records
Creators: Wells, Walter T. and Lane-Wells Company
Identifier/Call Number: 7055
Physical Description: 1.5 Linear Feet 1 box
Date (inclusive): 1939-1954
The archive abstract also notes:
“This small collection consists of a commemorative album celebrating the 100,000th Gun Perforating Job by the Lane-Wells Company of Los Angeles on June 18, 1948 and additional printed ephemera, 1939-1954, created and collected by Walter T. Wells, co-founder and Chairman of the Board of the Lane-Wells Company.”
Pillsbury sought a museum or archive home for her rare oil patch artifact, which came from an event attended by many from the Los Angeles petroleum industry.
“The professionally-prepared book has all of the attendees signatures, photographs and articles on the event from TIME, The Oil and Gas Journal, Fortnight, Oil Reporter, Drilling, The Petroleum Engineer, Oil, Petroleum World, California Oil World, Lane-Wells Magazine, the L.A. Examiner, L.A. Daily News and L.A. Times, etc.,” Pillsbury noted in 2017.
The 1948 commemorative book, now preserved at USC, “was given to my first husband, Dale G. Jones, Ph.D., grandson of Walter T. Wells, one of the founders of Lane-Wells,” she added. “His children asked me to help find a suitable home for this book. I found you (the AOGHS website) through googling ‘History of Lane-Wells Company.’”
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Recommended Reading: 75 Years Young…BAKER-ATLAS The Future has Never Looked Brighter
(2007); Wireline: A History of the Well Logging and Perforating Business in the Oil Fields
(1990)
. Your Amazon purchase benefits the American Oil & Gas Historical Society. As an Amazon Associate, AOGHS earns a commission from qualifying purchases.
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Please become an AOGHS annual supporter and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. © 2024 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Lane-Wells 100,000th Perforation” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/technology/oil-well-perforation-company. Last Updated: June 12, 2024. Original Published Date: June 30, 2017.
by Bruce Wells | Jun 10, 2024 | This Week in Petroleum History
June 11, 1816 – Manufactured Gas lights Art Museum in Baltimore –
The first commercial gas lighting of residences, streets and businesses began when Rembrandt Peale impressed Baltimore civic leaders by illuminating a room in his Holliday Street Museum by burning “manufactured gas.” His display (using gas distilled from coal, tar or wood) dazzled them with a “ring beset with gems of light.”
Lighted with manufactured gas, this Baltimore museum opened in 1814, America’s first building erected as a museum. Photo courtesy Maryland Historical Trust.
The Baltimore museum became the first U.S. public building to use gas lighting, according to the Maryland Historical Trust. Within a week, the city council approved plans to light the city’s main streets. Peale and a group of investors founded the Gas Light Company of Baltimore — the first gas company in America — and now the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company. Manufactured gas street lighting began in 1817.
Learn more about manufactured gas history in Illuminating Gaslight.
June 11, 1911 – E.W. Marland discovers Ponca Nation Oilfield
Ernest W. Marland, founder of the 101 Ranch Oil Company in 1908, discovered an oilfield near Ponca City, Oklahoma, after reorganizing the company in his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Almost broke after drilling eight uneconomical wells, Marland had turned to childhood friend John McCaskey of Pittsburgh, known as the “Sauerkraut King.”
Circa 1910 map detail from a newspaper promotion of the101 Ranch Oil Company following discoveries near Ponca (City), west of the Osage Nation’s oilfields.
Partnered with McCaskey and the owners of the 101 Ranch, Marland received permission from White Eagle, chief of the Ponca Nation, to drill near a reservation burial ground. The oilfield discovery well and many that followed produced oil on a reservation allotment owned by Willie-Cries-For-War, age 19, who had leased his 160 acres to Marland for $1,000 a year and 12.5 cents a barrel of oil produced.
Marland would found Marland Oil Company in 1917, merge it with Continental Oil in 1928, and become governor of Oklahoma in 1935. ConocoPhillips opened a Conoco Museum in Ponca City in 2007.
June 11, 1929 – Independent Producers get Organized
Ninety-five years ago, Wirt Franklin of Ardmore, Oklahoma, spoke on behalf of small exploration and production companies during President Herbert Hoover’s Oil Conservation Conference at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Franklin and other independent producers opposed creating a federal commission that could restrict production and allow more imported foreign oil.
“If this condition should be brought about, it would mean the annihilation and destruction of the small producer of crude oil, ” proclaimed Franklin, who had found success in the shallow but prolific Healdton oilfield. Before returning to Ardmore, Franklin and other independents established the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA).
June 12, 1879 – Allegheny Oilfield discovered by O.P. Taylor
Orville “O.P.” Taylor completed the Triangle No. 1 well at a depth of 1,177 feet in Allegheny County, New York, revealing an oilfield that extended into Pennsylvania. His discovery came after two failed wells drilled near oil seeps first reported by a French missionary in 1627. The Allegheny oilfield would launch a drilling boom and create the town of Petrolia.
Confederate Army veteran Taylor had worked in the cigar manufacturing business in Virginia before catching “oil fever” after reading about Pennsylvania oil discoveries along the Allegheny River (see Derricks of Triumph Hill). Taylor’s success led to his election as mayor of Wellsville, New York, and the title of “Father of the Allegheny Oilfield.” A Liberty Ship was named for him during World War II.
June 13, 1917 – Phillips Petroleum Company founded
During the early months of America’s entry into World War I, as oil prices rose above $1 per barrel, Phillips Petroleum Company was founded in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Brothers Frank and Lee Eldas “L.E.” Phillips consolidated their oil companies and began operating throughout Oklahoma and Kansas. Assets rose from $3 million to $100 million within a few years.
Brothers L.E. Phillips (left) and Frank Phillips established Phillips Petroleum Company in Bartlesville in 1917. Photo courtesy ConocoPhillips.
In 1927, Phillips Petroleum began selling its gasoline in Wichita, Kansas, the first of more than 10,000 Phillips 66 service stations. Phillips chemists received thousands of U.S. patents, including one in 1954 for Marlex, a high-density polyethylene. Wham-O toy company was the first to buy the new plastic (see Petroleum Product Hoopla). The oil company’s high-octane Nu-Aviation fuel played an important role in winning World War II.
Phillips Petroleum merged with Conoco in 2002 to become ConocoPhillips, which in 2007 established petroleum museums in Ponca City and Bartlesville as part of the 100th anniversary of Oklahoma statehood.
June 13, 1928 – Hobbs Oilfield discovered in New Mexico
The New Mexico petroleum industry was launched with the discovery of the Hobbs oilfield near the southeastern corner of the state. After months of difficult cable-tool drilling, the Midwest State No. 1 well produced oil for the Midwest Refining Company, which had drilled the state’s first oil well in 1922.
A June 1928 oilfield discovery brought many decades of petroleum prosperity to downtown Hobbs, New Mexico.
The Hobbs well revealed a giant field, later cited by the New Mexico Bureau of Mines & Mineral Resources as “the most important single discovery of oil in New Mexico’s history.” But after months of drilling, the well had reached a depth of 1,500 feet when an engine house fire consumed the wooden derrick. “Men with less vision would have given up, but not the drillers of Midwest,” noted the state geologist.
As the Great Depression approached, oil production from the Hobbs field attracted investors and drilling companies, quickly transforming Hobbs from “sand, mesquite, bear grass and jackrabbits” to the fastest-growing town in the nation.
Learn more in First New Mexico Oil Wells.
June 14, 1865 – First Daily Oil Region Newspaper
Pennsylvania’s oil region got its first daily newspaper when brothers William and Henry Bloss published a four-page broadsheet, the Titusville Morning Herald. Initial circulation was 300 for the community newspaper for the Titusville Herald. The first edition’s articles included a reference to John Wilkes Booth’s visits to the region and his August 1864 oil interests.
The Pennsylvania newspaper’s first edition in 1865 noted John Wilkes Booth had oil interests.
The newspaper reported: “John Wilkes Booth purchased a one-thirteenth interest in the territory in August 1864. We are credibly informed that this Homestead well in which Booth was interested was destroyed by fire on the day he assassinated President Lincoln.”
Learn more in Dramatic Oil Company.
June 14, 1938 – United States regulates Natural Gas
The federal government for the first time assumed regulatory control of U.S. natural gas sales to limit the growing market power of interstate pipeline companies.
Although the Natural Gas Act of 1938 did not apply to production, gathering or local distribution, it sought to establish “just and reasonable rates” for pipeline company transmission or sales of natural gas in interstate commerce. Regulatory functions were assigned to the Federal Power Commission (established in 1920), which became the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in 1977.
June 15, 1954 – Launch of First Mobile Offshore Rig
The offshore barge oil drilling platform, Mr. Charlie left its Louisiana shipyard and went to work for Shell Oil Company in a new oilfield in East Bay, near the mouth of the Mississippi River. The vessel’s design, which would revolutionize the offshore industry, originated with Alden “Doc” LaBorde, a marine superintendent for the Kerr-McGee Company in Morgan City, Louisiana.
Beginning in 1954 and capable of drilling wells in water up to 40 feet in depth, Mr. Charlie was the first mobile offshore drilling unit (MODU). Photos courtesy Murphy Oil Corporation.
Despite Kerr-McGee’s experience with many post-World War II offshore technologies, including drilling the first oil well out of sight of land in 1947, the company decided against LaBorde’s idea for a transportable, submersible drilling barge. The inventor, a Navy veteran, eventually found support from Charles Murphy Jr., founder of Murphy Oil Company.
A major offshore technology advancement, Mr. Charlie used a column-stabilized design.
LaBorde formed the Ocean Drilling & Exploration and contracted with J. Ray McDermott Company to convert a 220-foot barge into a drilling platform — the world’s first mobile offshore drilling unit (MODU). Today moored in Morgan City as an international petroleum museum, Mr. Charlie is under consideration for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.
Learn more in Mr. Charlie, First Mobile Offshore Drilling Rig.
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Recommended Reading: In Pursuit of Fame: Rembrandt Peale, 1778-1860 (1993); The Extraction State, A History of Natural Gas in America (2021); Oil And Gas In Oklahoma: Petroleum Geology In Oklahoma
(2013); Oil Man: The Story of Frank Phillips and the Birth of Phillips Petroleum
(2014); Oil in West Texas and New Mexico
(1982); Around Titusville, Pa., Images of America
(2004); Offshore Pioneers: Brown & Root and the History of Offshore Oil and Gas
(2011); Breaking the Gas Ceiling: Women in the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry (2019);. Your Amazon purchase benefits the American Oil & Gas Historical Society. As an Amazon Associate, AOGHS earns a commission from qualifying purchases.
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Become an AOGHS annual supporting member and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2024 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
