1917 scattered Society The Petroleum Industry in Louisiana Development through North Louisiana is extending from the north end of Caddo Parish to the southwestern part of De Soto, then into the northern part of Sabine parish, and back through Red River and Bossier parishes, with an occasional wild cat well in other parishes, making it very difficult to cover the entire district, because of the distance between points of development and the inconvenience in getting from one point to another. During the past year there have been drilled in the north Louisiana district something like 519 wells, which are distributed as follows: The oil found in the different parishes is of a somewhat different quality or grade, according to locality. The Caddo light oil being the highest grade, with the De Soto oil next. The oil found in Red River parish has been found to be not as good for refining purposes as the De Soto and Caddo oil, and consequently does not bring the same price while the Caddo heavy or fuel oil is the lowest grade. The difference in the oils according to their specific gravities is as follows: Caddo Light Oil Caddo Heavy De Soto Red River 45.5 Degrees to 38 degrees Baume The prices of oil have varied considerably according to market conditions during the past year. The lowest price for Caddo heavy oil, that is, oil below 38 degrees, being reached about March 26th when the market went to 35c per barrel, while the highest price of the year was reached about December 28th when the market went to 80c per barrel. The lowest price for Caddo Light Oil was about March 24th when the market dropped to 60c per barrel, and the maximum price was reached December 28th at $1.20 per barrel. Up to about July 16th De Soto and Red River oil were classified together at the same price, but at that date, with De Soto Oil at 50c, a change in grade was made and the price of Red River Oil reduced to 35c. The minimum price of De Soto Oil was reached about March 24th at 50c per barrel, and for Red River Oil about July 16th at 35c, and the maximum price for De Soto Oil was reached December 28th at $1.10, and for Red River Oil the same date, at 85c per bbl. The total production of oil for the year 1915, taking pipe line runs as a basis, is as follows: or at an approximate average price of 80c per barrel, $14,731,$41.60. This was in increase over the production for 1914, in round figures of 4,100,000 barrels. The gas production in Louisiana has kept pace with the oil production, and the north Louisiana fields are furnishing natural gas for Shreveport, La.; Little Rock and Pine Bluff, Ark., and Marshall, Texas. but it has proven somewhat difficult to estimate the actual amount of gas produced, but it is roughly estimated at 27,261.260,000 cubic feet during the year 1915 produced in these fields at an average value of 2c per thousand cubic feet, or $545,225.20. It is probable that no other industry in the state has developed with such rapidity from the insignificant amount of oil produced in 1902 (548,617 barrels) with only small capital invested, to the vast production of 18,414,802 barrels in 1915, with many millions of dollars invested by small and large companies, and while showing such enormous growth in the above mentioned period, it is probable that the Petroleum Industry is as yet in its infancy. It can therefore readily be seen that the Petroleum Industry has become one of the chief factors in the industrial and commercial life of the State of Louisiana. THE CHAIRMAN: DISCUSSION. Is there anybody here who will volunteer to take Mr. Pallfelt's place, and answer questions? MR. ANDERSON: There is a gentleman here this evening, who, though I do not wish to impose upon him, I believe is probably very capable-I am sure is capable of answering some of the questions asked him, and no doubt a great many. I see here the professor of Industrial Chemistry at Tulane University, Professor Williamson. THE CHAIRMAN: Have you anything to say, Professor, on the oil industry in Louisiana? PROFESSOR WILLIAMSON : Mr. Chairman, I know less about this than Professor Anderson does. THE CHAIRMAN: It is too bad, with such an opportunity to enlighten us, that Mr. Pallfelt could not be here to-night. There are a great many interesting questions that could have been asked him, I am sure. But there must be somebody here that has some acquaintance with the oil industry. Is there no one who has anything to say on the subject? MR. GREGORY: Mr. Chairman, in the closing of the paper, Mr. Pallfelt tells us that he believes the petroleum industry is probably in its infancy. That is interesting news, right now, with the increasing cost of coal, and there is quite a movement, I find, in the City of New Orleans, in the power-plants, to use fuel oil. I think the fuel oil that is being used here is mostly Mexican crude, but the fact that Louisiana and Texas are so rich in fuel oil will be a great factor in the development of this section, both as a manufacturing section, and in the way of supplying fuel to power plants, for drainage and for irrigation, and such purposes as will require power; and I think that is particularly true right now, when the price of coal has soared up as it has. THE CHAIRMAN: I had hoped Mr. Pallfelt would say something about fields nearer home-for instance, Terrebonne Parish. In that parish a gentleman named Knapp-I don't know whether he represented himself or some big oil interests-drilled six or seven wells. Those wells varied in depth from 1800 to 3300 feet. In some of the wells he struck tremendous gas pressures; I don't recall at what depths they were, but they were estimated at close to one thousand pounds. In none of the wells, Mr. Knapp tells me, did he strike rock, and there was no means of anchoring his wells. The pressure was so great, even in the case of the deepest wells, that in a very short time it caused the alluvial soil to go through the screen, and come up through it into the well in a form which he characterized as "spaghetti” -in long strings of silt. Pretty soon that clogged up the well completely, and he knew- or he told me he knew-of no means by which they were ever going to hold those wells. But he is satisfied, in his own mind, that somebody will come along, after a while, with much more money than he has, and will strike a field there. He says he spent something over half a million dollars in his various adventures in Terrebonne and the eastern part of St. Mary Parish. With this tremendous gas pressure he found, it is certain that there is a great supply of gas there, which could be easily piped to New Orleans and to all this territory. PROF. WILLIAMSON: Mr. Chairman, I said that I would not say anything, but there are one or two questions I did want to ask the author of the paper, to-night. In the first place, I am much interested in his statement that the oil industry is in its infancy. That has quite a significance, to me, from two standpoints. One is, it is in its infancy from the standpoint of the development of the oil industry, reckoned from the discoverer's point of view, of oil deposits; the other is, it is in its infancy as to the number of possible products that we might get from crude oil. The industry has been practiced in a conservative way, and yet in a wasteful way. The number of compounds and the quantity of such compounds we have gotten from crude oil in the past has been limited, but is now on the increase as a result of the study and application of physical chemistry. I do not mean to bring in chemistry as the allimportant cause of develoment with reference to the products to be derived, but I do mean to say that the application of some of the principles of physical chemistry has brought out new products, as well as greater quantities of the products |