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Image provided by: Montana Historical Society; Helena, MT
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Montana Oil Journal Owned and published by Ho Incorporated. Address m unies tio tu to SIS First Avenue South. Greet Falls, Montana. all ootn urna!. SUBSCRIPTION RATES; S3 Per Year In Adv ance C an a da and Foreign Subscriptions, *2.50 Per Tear. *1 25—6 Months. Foreign *1.76—6 M o nth s Published Every Saturday. Entered at Second Class Matter, April 1931, at the Poslofflce at Greet Falls. Mon tans.—Under Act of March 3, 1879. ■ ,1 ROSY PICTURE HAS TWO SIDES Responding to the nation's des perate wartime need for oil, United States producers in 1943 increased their output to an all-time high of approximately 1,510,000,000 barrels, according to preliminary estimates this week. This was the story the public got, and the public probably thought it was very nice that the industry thus exerted Itself to meet a press ing wartime need. Noting that oil company profit statements showed handsome returns, the public like wise probably thought the oil in dustry was well paid for its efforts What the public didn't realize— and what it won't realize unless the industry does a better job of telling about It—was that In meeting the wartime demand the industry used up underground reserves which more slowly depleted. Very few fields of any conse quence, with the exception of Elk Basin, were found in 1943. Hence the industry, depleting its irreplaceable reserves to aid the war effort, is in the position of having made a forced sale of assets and of being required to report these as "profits." , Unless the oil Industry finds new fields—and quickly—the results will be unpleasant if not disastrous for both industry and public. The industry needs the encour agement of a higher oil price to warrant the terrifically expensive wildcatting campaigns which mu^t lie undertaken. Further, a higher oil price is justified by the yard stick of parity, with present crude prices now wholly out of line when compared with prices of other com modities. If you are a royalty owner or a . stockholder in a producing oil com pany, these are facts you should bring to the attention of YOUR senator, before whom the Disney bill will presumably be brought for consideration In the very future. near MORE ANTI FREEZE Antifreeze products available to the chauffeur through a joint order of the war production board and the office of price administration lift ing the "taboo" of production the valuable chemical agent Early in 1943, steps were taken to halt the manufacture of petro leum fraction anti freeze. However, with the continued shortage of substitutes, WPB found it necessary to approve sumption of production, even though anti freeze with a petrolèum base has a bad effect on rubber tubing in the motor. OP A has set maximum prices at which the anti freeze may be sold. are now cold weather" on re OIL INSURANCE Handled by Experts ami r aus « A steward on a ship was asked how he liked his work and replied, "Fine." That the tips were very generous, but that he nearly lost his job on the last trip. It seems that there were several days of rough weather and in taking a bowl of hot soup to a stateroom he unfortunately lost his balance, tripped and poured the contents of the bowl into the lap of an old gen tleman asleep in a deck chair. "And Just what did you do?" "I tapped the old boy on the shoulder and said, T do hope you feel better now, sir. I M A good way to keep the young sters out of the cooky Jar Is to lock it up in pantry and hide the key under the soap in the bathroom. Strange Goings On— Don't be surprised if 1944 goes into history as the year of the "strange goings on" in the Mon tana oil industry. For, new faces and new ideas are abroad hi the land. No matter what precedents seemingly have been established for the industry, brash new comers throw them overboard. What brought this forcibly to our minds during the week was casual conversation with a geol ogist who was browsing In library. (They all seem to end up there, sooner or later.) The company he repi has money enough to do ever it wants In the way of oil exploration—and has reaped mil lions by occasional deviations from the orthodox Looking over a map of the Sweetgrass arch, bounded on the west by the Rocky mountains, this geologist said reflectively; "Y r know, I'm going to find out what a seismograph will show, on an east-west run up some of those Rocky mountain canyons. Wouldn't be at all sur prised if there weren't some good structures, with oil in them, buried beneath those mountains." d. knowing his company Is one which takes 10,000-foot wells in its stride, it won't surprise us much some day to go plough ing up our favorite trout stream and to find one of his derricks barring the way. His remark forced him that his hunch there was oil in the Rockies had been proven about 40 years ago, by groups of resolute souls who packed in some haywire equip ment on muleback and who drilled some VERY shallow tests in Waterton Lakes national park. What inspired these pioneers wasn't geology, but the discovery of oil seeps. Oil can still be bailed out of some of the pipe left In these shallow holes by the hardy pioneers. It doernrt our resents what An us to tell » Landowners Royalties Company In Our Twenty-first Year MONTANA GREAT FALLS # An officer giving a lecture in an army clasaroom suddenly turned upon a man aimlessly looking about the room. Pointing an accusing finger, the officer barked: "What is the Dewey decimal system used for?" The man looked wonderingly at him. "I dunno." Exasperated, the officer demand ed, "What's your organization, sol dier? M "Haven't got any, mister," the man replied. "I'm just the Coca Cola man here to refill the ma chine, wherever it is." Mike was engaged to do a Job of painting for Mr. Smith, After a while he came in, saying the job was completed, and asked for his money. "But, Mike, I wanted two coats on that building. I'll pay you after the second coat," said Mr. Smith. "You've got it," said Mike, mixed the first coat with the paint for the second coat and put on both coats at the same time. Speed is my motto." * « The pastor was calling when the youthful son and heir approached his mother proudly and exhibited a dead rat As she shrank in re pugnance, he attempted to reas sure her. "Oh. it's dead all right, mamma. We beat it and beat It and beat it and it's deader'n dead. His eyes fell on the minister and he felt that something more was due •> amount to much, in itself, but does prove there actually IS crude oil in the heart of the Rocky mountains. Some day someone will do something about Within the past few months, we've been a bit embarrassed by running Into other geologists who've asked us queer questions. Such as the one who asked if It weren't a fact that exposed Ordovician and Devonian rocks in the Rockies, directly west of the shallow fields of the Sweet grass arch, are distinctly petro liferous. We had to admit they were. We also had to admit these same rocks reasonably might be expected to continue a few miles out on the arch, beneath fields now producing from more shal low horizons. But, for the life of us, we couldn't explain satisfactorily to him why no real attempts had been made to test these deeper beds In the Immediate vicinity of producing shallow fields. We lamely suggested maybe it because satisfactory profits being made from th wells, and no one thought it worth while to of the Madison Under questioning, we had to admit that some very nice light oil and some very heavy gas pressure HAD been found by a deep well in the Kevin-Sun burst field, from what was prob ably a break in the Devonian, The well proved tossing tools up acting In a very uncouth man ner, so it was finally abandoned. And everyone gave a sigh of relief. Who wants to fool around with troublesome high pressures when you can make money punching down shallow holes? He didn't seem very convinced And neither do a lot of others to whom we have talked re cently. They seem to have no respect it it. was were e shallow on the top e , unmanageabU the hole and to that reverend presence so he continued in a tone of solemnity "Yes, we beat It and beat it until —until God called It home!" e Oar Secret Weapon A Marine recently returned from Guadalcanal reports the Japs are bewildered by the apparent ability of the Yanks to pop up out of the most unexpected places "They radioed Tojo," says this Marine, "they are being defeated with a new secret weapon described by American prisoners as portable foxholes!" • • * "Wake up, Horace! Wake up!" urged the neurotic wife in the dead of night. "Wake up. I think I hear a mouse sqeaking in the closet." "Well, what ya want me to do," inquired her spouse drousily, "get up and oil it? M • • V A neighbor asked the wife of a retired minister if her husband wasn't getting a little deaf. "A little?" replied the lady. "Why last night he led family devotions kneel ing on the cat!" £. Byers Emrick coHsuLTwa assouoam Oil.— SATURAI GAS Examination«, Report*. Appraktait EsRsncxtM of SMarmi CONRAD MONTANA Pham 15* whatever for a lot of the most cherished traditions of the Mon tana oil industry. They seem to be more interested in finding than in payin to some of ! sacred taboos. We can't help feeling they're going to cause some upsets dur ing the next 12 months. Last year, they were getting In the hair of orthodox operators by running across the country, shooting off a lot of good dyna mite just to get a lot of wavy lines on a tape. And the more we talk to them, the more we incline to the belief there will be a lot of strange goings on in 1944. We're afraid these newcomers aren't going to pay much atten tion to our traditions. Probably one of the first things they'll do win be to move in and re-drill several dozen structures. Of course, we know these structures have been "con demned" by dry holes and we'll probably tell them so. But, from the way they talk, we don't think they're going to pay much attention. The general tenor of their remarks m that most of these structures have never had a well on them. That Is, a REAL well. And, If that's true of these structures condemned by shallow holes, what's to be the fate of such huge oil fields as Kevin Sunburst? There again we're afraid these ske ing to pay water at the tact. From the way they talk around this office, tney're going to class it as "surface water, and keep on drilling for objec lives thousands of feet below In short, they and their "go ings on" will probably destroy some of our most sacred beliefs, in the next 12 months But, somehow, we've got a hunch they're going to find lot of oil. oil much attention is state's most aren't go muen attention to EUls-Madison oon a