December 2, 1942 – Roosevelt creates Petroleum Administration for War –
President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Petroleum Administration for War, “for the successful prosecution of the war and other essential purposes.” The executive order came after oil and natural gas industry leaders met with Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes, head of the newly created Office of Petroleum Coordinator for National Defense, which established five districts for managing gasoline rationing.
Established to assist gasoline rationing during World II, five Petroleum Administration for Defense Districts (PADDs) have remained in use. Map courtesy Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Although Roosevelt ended the Petroleum Administration for War in May 1946, Congress passed the Defense Production Act of 1950 with the Petroleum Administration for Defense using the same five regions as the Petroleum Administration for Defense Districts (PADDs).
“While the PADD system might seem a bit archaic, studying the movements of petroleum products between the PADD regions is useful for understanding how these markets are segmented in the United States,” notes the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences at Penn State University.
December 2, 2001 – Enron files for Bankruptcy
Enron Corporation, once the world’s largest energy-trading company, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, beginning one of the largest corporate scandals in U.S. history. The Houston-based company had reached a market value of almost $70 billion before it collapsed, causing thousands of employees to lose their jobs and more than $2 billion in pensions.
In 2006, former Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay and former Chief Operating Officer Jeffrey Skilling were convicted in federal district court of multiple counts of securities and wire fraud. New state and federal accounting regulations resulted from the financial scandal.
December 2, 1970 – President Nixon establishes EPA
Eleven months after the 1969 offshore platform oil spill at Santa Barbara, California, President Richard M. Nixon established the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to consolidate the federal government’s environmental responsibilities under one agency.
The new agency combined “a variety of federal research, monitoring, standard-setting and enforcement activities to ensure environmental protection” with Assistant Attorney General William Ruckelshaus serving as the agency’s first administrator.
Environmental initiatives included the improvement of water treatment facilities; creation of national air quality standards; guidelines to lower motor vehicle emissions; a proposed tax on lead additives in gasoline; clean-up of federal facilities; and tightening of safeguards on the seaborne transportation of oil, according to an EPA history.
December 4, 1928 – Reflection Seismography reveals Oilfield
Following tests in the early 1920s, reflection seismic technology was first used to find oil when Amerada Petroleum Corporation drilled a well into the Viola limestone formation near Seminole, Oklahoma.
Seismic reflections help identify geologic formations, here reflecting from the top of bedrock to detectors on the surface. Image courtesy Geologic Resources.
The Amerada Petroleum well was the world’s first oil discovery in a geological structure that had been identified by reflection survey. Others soon followed as the technology revealed dozens of mid-continent oilfields.
Conducted by Amerada Petroleum subsidiary Geophysical Research, the new exploration method resulted from experiments by an academic team led by Professor John C. Karcher of the University of Oklahoma. Reflection seismography — seismic surveying — applied techniques from weapons research. During World War I, Allied scientists developed portable equipment that used seismic reflections to locate sources of enemy artillery fire.
Learn more in Exploring Seismic Waves.
December 4, 1928 – Oklahoma City Oilfield discovered
Henry Foster’s Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Company and Foster Petroleum Corporation completed the Oklahoma City No. 1 well, revealing the giant Oklahoma City oilfield. The wildcat well was drilled just south of the city limits. The 6,335-foot-deep oilfield discovery well produced 110,000 barrels of oil in its first 27 days, causing a rush of development that extended the field northward toward the capitol building.
The Oklahoma City oilfield would bring stability to the economy of Oklahoma during the Great Depression. Photo courtesy Library of Congress.
Drilling reached the city limits in May 1930, prompting the city council to pass ordinances limiting drilling to the southeast part of the city and allowing only one well per city block. With 870 producing wells completed by 1932, the field’s production peaked at 67 million barrels of oil. “From such a beginning the sprawling Oklahoma City oil and natural gas field will become one of the world’s major oil-producing areas,” notes a 1980 state historical marker.
Already known as Oklahoma’s King of the Wildcatters, Thomas B. Slick completed many successful wells in the Oklahoma City oilfield. When the prolific Wilcox sands produced a gusher in 1930, the column of oil could not be contained, making headlines worldwide as the famous “Wild Mary Sudik.”
December 7, 1905 – Helium discovered in Natural Gas
University of Kansas professors Hamilton Cady and David McFarland revealed the importance of natural gas for producing helium when they discovered the rare gas in a well 45 miles southeast of Wichita. Two years earlier, the Gas, Oil and Developing Company had drilled the well at Dexter, which produced “a howling gasser” from a depth of just 560 feet.
University of Kansas Professor Hamilton Cady in 1905 discovered helium could be extracted from natural gas, thanks to a well at Dexter. Helium was considered a key strategic resource at the time. Photo courtesy American Chemical Society.
The town envisioned a future attracting new industries — until it was found the gas would not burn. Experiments revealed helium associated with natural gas, causing scientists to predict helium would no longer be rare, “but a common element, existing in goodly quantity for uses that are yet to be found for it.”
The Dexter “Gas That Wouldn’t Burn” led to more scientific advances and a multi-million dollar industry, according to the American Chemical Society, which in 2000 designated the “Discovery of Helium in Natural Gas at the University of Kansas” a National Historic Chemical Landmark.
Learn more in Kansas “Wind Gas” Well.
December 8, 1931 – Advanced Blowout Preventer patented
Improving upon the success of Cameron Iron Works’ mechanically operated ram-type blowout preventer, James S. Abercrombie patented a “Fluid Pressure Operated Blow Out Preventer” designed to operate “instantaneously to prevent a blowout when an emergency arises.”
Following the success of the first ram-type blowout preventer (BOP) in 1922, the company’s machine shop in Humble, Texas, manufactured the latest rapidly reacting device in time for discoveries in the Oklahoma City oilfield.
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Recommended Reading: The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power
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