56
who obtained a suitable tanker ship named after a seashell: the Murex. The Samuel
brothers formed Shell Transport and Trading in 1897 with the Murex as their flagship, and created the beginnings of a global transportation network for oil.
Oil discoveries in the Dutch East Indies in the late 1800s led to the creation of
Royal Dutch Petroleum. The East Indies (now Indonesia) were a Dutch colony very
remote from most petroleum markets, and the oil required a robust overseas transportation system. Royal Dutch Petroleum and Shell Transport and Trading combined in 1907 to form the Royal Dutch Shell Group (https://www.shell.com/
about-us/our-heritage.html; accessed 8/14/2019). The company is incorporated in
the United Kingdom, but headquartered in the Netherlands at The Hague. As an
interesting aside, the murex mollusk has an elongated snail shell with long spines
and looks a bit frightening. The corporate logo for Royal Dutch Shell (Dutch name:
Koninklijke Nederlandse Petroleum Maatschappij) uses a much friendlier-looking
scallop shell instead.
BP (British Petroleum) In 1901, British financier William Knox D’Arcy was
granted a 60-year concession to search for oil and gas in the country of Persia
(modern- day Iran). D’Arcy had never been to Persia, so he hired a mining engineer
named George Reynolds to supervise drilling operations in the Chiah Surkh mountains, some 350 miles (560 km) west of Tehran. After Reynolds reported that the
signs looked promising, D’Arcy formed the First Exploitation Company with a
capital of £60,000 to support drilling activities.
Reynolds spent 6 years exploring numerous prospects in Persia and kept coming
up empty. He burned through much of D’Arcy’s fortune, along with infusions of
money from a partner company called Burmah Oil. Reynolds refused to give up,
however, and in 1908 he told D’Arcy that a prospect at a place called Masjid-iSuleiman looked promising. Burmah Oil provided another £40,000 for Reynolds to
drill two wells at this new location, but D’Arcy had heard this before. He sent
Reynolds a telegram ordering him to quit drilling at 1600 feet if nothing was found.
At 4 AM on May 26, 1908 the drill reached 1180 feet and a 25 meter-high fountain
of oil spewed up into the sky.
The discovery prompted D’Arcy to issue a prospectus on April 19, 1909 in
London and Glasgow for a new company, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. A pipeline and refinery were constructed in Persia and D’Arcy made back his fortune plus
considerably more on top of that (https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/whowe-are/our-history.html; accessed 8/14/2019). The wealth of the Anglo-Persian Oil
Company improved substantially in ensuing years as petroleum gained popularity
in Great Britain just as it had in the United States.
Admiral John Arbuthnot Fisher, who served as the British First Sea Lord between
1904 and 1910 is credited with modernization of the Royal Navy. Among other
changes, Fisher mandated that ships be converted from coal to oil. Oil for ship fuel
was more efficient because it could be moved about in large quantities by pumps,
whereas coal required men to shovel it by hand. It also was easier to carry than coal,
and greatly increased the range of ships. When Sir Winston Churchill became First
3 The History of Oil & Gas Development in the U.S.
who obtained a suitable tanker ship named after a seashell: the Murex. The Samuel
brothers formed Shell Transport and Trading in 1897 with the Murex as their flagship, and created the beginnings of a global transportation network for oil.
Oil discoveries in the Dutch East Indies in the late 1800s led to the creation of
Royal Dutch Petroleum. The East Indies (now Indonesia) were a Dutch colony very
remote from most petroleum markets, and the oil required a robust overseas transportation system. Royal Dutch Petroleum and Shell Transport and Trading combined in 1907 to form the Royal Dutch Shell Group (https://www.shell.com/
about-us/our-heritage.html; accessed 8/14/2019). The company is incorporated in
the United Kingdom, but headquartered in the Netherlands at The Hague. As an
interesting aside, the murex mollusk has an elongated snail shell with long spines
and looks a bit frightening. The corporate logo for Royal Dutch Shell (Dutch name:
Koninklijke Nederlandse Petroleum Maatschappij) uses a much friendlier-looking
scallop shell instead.
BP (British Petroleum) In 1901, British financier William Knox D’Arcy was
granted a 60-year concession to search for oil and gas in the country of Persia
(modern- day Iran). D’Arcy had never been to Persia, so he hired a mining engineer
named George Reynolds to supervise drilling operations in the Chiah Surkh mountains, some 350 miles (560 km) west of Tehran. After Reynolds reported that the
signs looked promising, D’Arcy formed the First Exploitation Company with a
capital of £60,000 to support drilling activities.
Reynolds spent 6 years exploring numerous prospects in Persia and kept coming
up empty. He burned through much of D’Arcy’s fortune, along with infusions of
money from a partner company called Burmah Oil. Reynolds refused to give up,
however, and in 1908 he told D’Arcy that a prospect at a place called Masjid-iSuleiman looked promising. Burmah Oil provided another £40,000 for Reynolds to
drill two wells at this new location, but D’Arcy had heard this before. He sent
Reynolds a telegram ordering him to quit drilling at 1600 feet if nothing was found.
At 4 AM on May 26, 1908 the drill reached 1180 feet and a 25 meter-high fountain
of oil spewed up into the sky.
The discovery prompted D’Arcy to issue a prospectus on April 19, 1909 in
London and Glasgow for a new company, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. A pipeline and refinery were constructed in Persia and D’Arcy made back his fortune plus
considerably more on top of that (https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/whowe-are/our-history.html; accessed 8/14/2019). The wealth of the Anglo-Persian Oil
Company improved substantially in ensuing years as petroleum gained popularity
in Great Britain just as it had in the United States.
Admiral John Arbuthnot Fisher, who served as the British First Sea Lord between
1904 and 1910 is credited with modernization of the Royal Navy. Among other
changes, Fisher mandated that ships be converted from coal to oil. Oil for ship fuel
was more efficient because it could be moved about in large quantities by pumps,
whereas coal required men to shovel it by hand. It also was easier to carry than coal,
and greatly increased the range of ships. When Sir Winston Churchill became First
3 The History of Oil & Gas Development in the U.S.