Grantville Gazette IV, page 27
North of the mouth of the Elbe, near Meldorf, are a few more small fields. They, too, are salt dome-associated. Oil from Reitbrook or Meldorf could be transported by barge on the rivers Elbe and Saale.
Borings in a potash mine resulted in the chance discovery of oil in Thuringia, specifically, at Volkenroda near (and northeast of) Mulhausen. That is less than 60 miles from Grantville.
Also worthy of note are the Bavarian oil seepages (near Tegernsee, home of the relics of St. Quirinus), and the small oil fields near Bruchsall and Heidelberg, opposite Pechelbronn in France. (See generally Tiratsoo,126–31.) Bruchsall and Heidelberg are south of Mannheim and east of the Rhine.
Only the Wietze and Tegernsee fields, and possibly the Mannheim fields, are likely to be known to down-timers (by "known," I mean, they know of the associated seepages). The other German fields must be located by prospecting. In some instances the field of search can be narrowed down by reference to up-timer geographic texts, such as the Hammon Citation World Atlas. This shows that modern Germany has seven oil sites and five natural gas sources. Comparing this map to Tiratsoo's 1949 map of German oil fields, it appears that the atlas will guide the USE to the fields at Meldorf, Reitbrook, and Nienhagen. It also shows three fields that Tiratsoo either ignored or didn't know about. These are southwest of Bremen, west-northwest of Osnabruck, and south of Frankfurt.
Other European Oil (and Natural Gas) Fields
Discounting the North Sea, Europe is not a major producer of oil. The most productive portion is in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains, especially in Galicia and Romania.
In the seventeenth century, Galicia (now the western "spur" of Ukraine) was part of Poland. There is some question as to how welcome USE entrepreneurs will be in Galicia, as Sweden and Poland were at war as recently as 1629 (Sigismund thought he was the rightful king of Sweden.)
The main Galician oil field is Boryslaw (over the period 1855–1949, it produced 180 million barrels), followed by nearby Schodnica-Urycz (with oil reserves about one-seventh those of Boryslaw).
Perhaps sixty miles west-northwest of Boryslaw, inside modern Poland, there is the small Gorlice-Sanok area. This includes Bobrka, which has an oil history museum. According to their website, the first Polish mention of oil was by Jan Dlugosz (1415–1480). In the seventeen century, they add, rock oil was found near Drohobycz and Krosno (west-northwest of Sanok).
Getting this Galician oil to Grantville or Stockholm would be rather arduous. Initially, the Krosno and Sanok oil would probably be transported down the San and Vistula to the Baltic Sea. The petroleum of Boryslav might need to ride the Dniester to the Black Sea, and then come around the long way through the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.
The Romanian oil, in a geographic sense, is more accessible; oil from the many fields within a forty kilometer radius of Ploiesti can be hauled to the Danube and then shipped upstream (to Vienna) or downstream to the Black Sea. Unfortunately, this is Ottoman territory, and therefore hostile to uptimers.
Cardinal Richelieu is likely to make a grab for the small Alsatian oil field at Pechelbronn, discovered in 1498. (Historically, Alsace was not absorbed by France until 1639.) The oil is found in sand lenses. Of the oil here, about 43% can be removed by mining, and another 17% by drilling (the rest is considered unrecoverable). From 1745 to 1849, twelve wells were drilled or dug, to depths of thirty-one to seventy-two meters. Average production in the late Forties was about 500,000 barrels, and total production over the last 150 years has been about 3,000,000 metric tons.
The Italian oil fields are small, and thus it is likely that the only ones which will be exploited in the near future are the ones which are known to down-timers as a result of seepages, or through pirated copies of the Hammond Atlas. The latter only shows two oil sources, one near Ragusa in Sicily and the other in the Po river valley, to the northwest of the gas seeps of Salsomaggiore. The development of these sources are best considered as possible joint venture projects with our colleagues in the Most Serene Republic.
A very large natural gas field lies close at hand, in the northwestern province (Groningen) of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, and is still under Dutch control. This territory might well be subject to protective occupation by USE military forces, if that were considered desirable. Would-be natural gas tycoons would be well advised to read the "Fuels" essay in the Grantville Public Library copy of Encyclopedia Brittanica before they set out. This reveals that the Groningen field is large (24 kilometers wide by 40 kilometers deep), but the productive formation, a Permian sandstone, is deep (pay depth is 3,440 to 3,050 meters). That means it is not a good target for neophyte drillers.
Oil Fields Outside Europe
One advantage that the transplanted West Virginians have over main timeline wildcatters is that they know in advance which parts of the world to start looking in.
Standard encyclopedias will tell them about the world's major oil fields. Unfortunately, they are all outside USE territory. Some might be developed as joint ventures with the Venetians or the Dutch.
As long as the Ottoman Empire remains hostile to Grantville, it will be difficult to directly exploit any of the oil fields in the Persian Gulf states (modern Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar), in the Baku region on the west coast of the Caspian Sea, or in Libya. While some of the fields are controlled by the Persians, rather than by the Ottomans, the most direct shipping routes would still pass through the Sultan's domains.
But what we can't drill for ourselves, we can still buy. Muslims began commercial production of oil at a very early date. Baku oil was being sold as early as 885 AD, and crude oil was also produced commercially, pre-ROF, from seepages on the eastern bank of the Tigris, from the Sinai in Egypt, and from Kuzistan in Persia. (The wells were dug, not drilled.) Islamic alchemists were also able to fractionate naphtha by distillation. Hence, the USE could at least import petroleum, crude or partially refined, from the Ottoman Empire.
There are several noteworthy oil fields in Latin America, notably on Trinidad, and in Venezuela and Mexico. My initial concern was that this was within the Spanish sphere of influence. However, the island was only sparsely populated, and the natives were hostile to the Spanish. So a strong enough party of adventurers could certainly take over. In 1595, Raleigh made a surprise attack, with 100 to 200 men, and slaughtered the Spanish settlement. However, Raleigh was not interested in colonizing Trinidad himself, just in using it as a springboard for an expedition into Guyana (the fabled location of El Dorado).
Europeans first learned of Trinidad's oil in 1510, when Columbus shipped samples back to Spain. Prior to European settlement, Indians used Trinidad's asphalt to caulk dugout canoes, so Sir Walter Raleigh, who used it to repair his ships on his 1595 visit, was just copying native practice.
The Pitch Lake, now a tourist attraction, is large (95 acres), and 300 feet deep at the center. The asphalt can be broken out by picks; there is no need to drill.
Of course, there are other, less immediately accessible, sources of oil on the island. Even there, it should not be necessary to drill to great depths to obtain petroleum. In 1857, the Merrimac Company drilled a well to a depth of 280 feet, and struck oil. In 1867, Mr. Walter Darwent found oil on the Aripero estate at a depth of 160 feet. And the next year, the Trinidad Lake Petroleum Company was gratified by the discovery of oil at La Brea at a depth of 250 feet.
In 1902, a well was drilled to 1,015 feet in three months using the "Canadian Pole method of percussion drilling." It produced a small gusher (100 barrels a day).
The first big find was in 1911–12; one well yielded 10,000 barrels per day from a depth of 1,400 feet.
The Trinidadian reservoirs, when intact, have a high gas pressure. That is both good news (initial production can be high) and bad news (the well may blow wild, wasting oil and blasting casing, tools and rocks into the air). It became customary to keep an emergency crew on hand, armed with pumps, shovels and picks.
Venezuela also has a great deal of oil; in 1996 it ranked sixth worldwide in proven oil reserves. Its oil is already known to down-timers; "the first oil exported from Venezuela (in 1539) was intended as a gout treatment for the Holy Roman Emperor Charles." At Guanoco you can find the Bermudez Asphalt Lake, covering 1,100 acres with an average depth of six feet.
In what would have become the United States, were it not for the Ring of Fire, oil and natural gas can be found in the Appalachian mountains (Pennsylvania and West Virginia), in the midcontinent region (Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas), in the Rocky mountains (Colorado and Wyoming), in California, and in Alaska. (There is also oil in Alberta, Canada.)
In our own timeline, beginning in 1638, the New Sweden Company established colonies in modern Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland. It is possible that a similar venture in the 163x timeline could exploit the petroleum of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, but it is doubtful that it would be economical for them to ship it back to USE. Still, an advantage of an American expedition is that the Grantville Public Library is likely to have specific information (e.g., where and how deep to drill) only about American (especially West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio) oil fields.
Nigeria is also a major oil country (in 1995 it ranked twelfth in proven reserves). In 1632, it was not dominated by any European power, and it is convenient from a transportation standpoint; oil could be shipped by sea all the way from Nigeria to Germany. This isn't as cheap on a per mile basis as pumping it through a pipeline, but it is certainly superior to transporting it by rail from Baku or Ploiesti.
However, an expedition to Nigeria is not for the faint-hearted. The Encyclopedia Americana will tell Grantville residents (and spies) to look for oil in the Niger river delta (first discovered there in the Fifties). What they won't know, until they get there, is that the oil fields are in swampland, and that they will probably need to drill from barges.
Where Is Oil Found?
Oil is a liquid rock. In fact, another name for oil—petroleum—means "rock oil." Oil is formed primarily from marine sediments rich in organic matter (bacterial, plant, and animal remains). These deposits are usually found along the rims of ancient ocean basins, where sea life was most abundant. In these basins, as more and more sediment was deposited, the layers below were compacted, becoming rock. The compaction also resulted in physical and chemical changes in the organic matter, eventually resulting in the formation of oil in the pores of this source rock. Further compaction drove the oil out.
The first criterion for the formation of a useable oil pool is that the oil find its way into a suitable reservoir rock. This must be porous (so it can hold the oil) and permeable (the pore are interconnected, so oil can flow into and out of it). Think of the rock as being like a can filled with marbles. The usual reservoir rocks are sandstones and limestones.
Since oil is lighter than water, it constantly tries to migrate upward and outward. If it not somehow trapped, it will pass out of the reservoir rock, eventually reaching the surface, evaporating, and becoming lost to the atmosphere. Thus, to have a viable oil reservoir, it is therefore not enough to have a good reservoir rock; one must have an oil "trap."
The trap is formed of a rock which is relatively impermeable to oil. This is sometimes called the cap rock. Shales make excellent cap rocks. Of course, to form a trap, the cap rocks must be positioned to prevent the upward and horizontal movement of the oil in the reservoir rock. This kind of positioning can occur as a result of the folding or faulting of the earth's crust.
The same structures which trap oil can also trap gas, and the same field can produce both fossil fuels.
Prospecting for Oil
Even if you know that there is oil in, say, Saudi Arabia, you still have to find it. In searching for oil you must strike a balance between trying to cover a large area and not overlooking any indications that oil might be present.
The simplest approach is that you walk over the land, looking for surface signs of oil or gas. A more sophisticated prospector will make an effort to deduce the subsurface structures by finding places where the underlying rock layers are exposed, such as outcrops, roadcuts, ditches, wells, and mines. By comparing the rock beds at different sites, you build up a picture of how the underlying rock layers are contorted. With enough information, you can identify a potential oil trap. Finally, you can also use geophysical methods to find out what is below the surface. These prospecting methods are discussed in greater detail below.
Oil Signs
Early prospectors combed the land for signs of oil, such as oil and gas seeps, mud volcanoes, solid petroleum deposits, burnt clays, and "showings" of oil in water and salt wells. They then drilled nearby.
An oil seep or "spring" is a place where oil seeps to the surface. The La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles are a good example. The oil may reach the surface in a number of ways. The trap may be eroded to the point at which the reservoir surface "outcrops," that is, is exposed to the surface. Or the oil in a trap may be tapped by a joint (a crack) or a fault in the overlying rock. Either way, the oil reaches the surface and slowly evaporates. Typically, the seepages are tarry (asphaltlike), but a young seepage, or one warmed up by the sun, may become more liquid and flow. In 1864, the chemist Benjamin Silliman, Jr., remarked that in the Rancho Ojai area of California, "the oil is struggling to the surface at every available point and is running down the rivers for miles and miles."
Modern geologists regard oil seeps as proof that an oil-bearing rock is in the region. However, they do not necessarily mark a good place to drill for oil. An oil seep, after all, is a place where the oil is escaping to the surface. It escapes because the trap rock above the oil reservoir has been breached by erosion or faulting. The more prolific the seeping, and the longer it has been going on, the less oil is left to be drilled.
Oil seeps are often associated with water springs, possibly because water springs are also formed as a result of outcropping and faulting. The oil forms an iridescent film on the spring water. If the water is stagnant, the oil may accumulate as a semisolid mass that remains after the oil evaporates.
Gas can also seep to the surface. Gas seepages are easiest to detect when they occur underwater, forming visible bubbles. Thus, gas seepages are most often spotted in swamps, streams, lakes, and coastal waters. Bear in mind that gas often travels greater distances than does oil.
Escaping oil and gas can catch fire, baking nearby rocks such as clays to give them a burnt appearance.
A mud volcano can cover an area of several square miles and be more than a thousand feet tall. It is a cone of mud through which gas escapes, perhaps through cracks in a layer of clay. As the gas rises, it mixes with the clay and ground water to form a mud, which erupts under the pressure of the escaping gas. Mud volcanoes have been found in the Baku region beside the Caspian sea, on the Arakan coast of Burma, on the island of Trinidad, and in Rumania.
Gas or oil may be found, not only in a well drilled for the purpose of finding oil, but also in a water or salt well. In major oil producing regions, minor oil showings may be found in nearly every exploratory well. Even if a showing itself is too minor for the well in question to be commercially viable, the driller may hope that the showing indicates that the well is on the edge of a pool.
Anticlines and Geological Mapping
Beginning in 1861, geologists speculated that anticlines—rooflike arches (folds) of rock—could, if a layer of impermeable rock (the "trap" layer) overlaid a porous, oil-soaked layer (the "reservoir" layer), prevent the oil from escaping. In 1913, Charles Gould pointed out that all of Oklahoma's big pools lay under anticlines, and the rush to find anticlines began. The Mannington, West Virginia, oil field was one of the first discoveries made as a result of applying this geological knowledge.
The ability of an anticline to trap oil into a commercially exploitable pool is dependent on many factors. Oil is usually not associated with large anticlines, i.e., mountain ranges. If the anticline is small, the amount of oil trapped may be insignificant. If the anticline's slopes are shallow, oil may escape, especially if assisted by a regional dip or by groundwater movement. If the anticline's slopes are steep, there may be little room to drill. If the anticline has been eroded or fractured, oil once trapped there may have escaped. If an anticline were formed too many millennia after oil entered the reservoir layer, the oil may have moved on before the trap was formed.
If an anticline traps gas as well as oil, the gas will be at the top. That means that the center of an anticline may produce gas, while wells on the flanks yield up petroleum.
A young anticline will form a hill-like surface structure. However, the geologist cannot safely assume that hills are anticlines and that valleys or plains are not. As a result of erosion, an anticline may be leveled, or even become a valley. For that matter, a syncline (the opposite of an anticline) can become a hill.
Therefore, to be sure whether an anticline is present, one must map the subsurface layers of rock. Mapping the subsurface geology is easiest in hill country (especially the western badlands), where there are numerous outcrops and cliff faces. Mineshafts and road cuts can also be revealing. In farmland, information can be gleaned by descending into irrigation ditches and water wells, as well as by studying occasional outcrops. Pits can be dug, or shallow holes (called "strat" holes) drilled, to gain more information. In forests, swamps, and jungles, of course, the rock formations are well hidden, and digging is also difficult.
