ABSTRACT Literature on the history of petroleum exploration often notes without attribution that Summerland, California, was the location of the world’s first offshore oil wells. 1 Seldom mentioned is the fact that in the late 1800s at the identical moment in time another group of petroleum explorers were pursuing oil reservoirs past the shoreline and into the sea. In California, exploration was led by H. L Williams, a land developer who had purchased 1050 acres of land in Summerland, south of Santa Barbara, California. Williams originally intended to profit by selling small lots to fellow members of a small sect named Spiritualists. Sales proved difficult and few, buyers too demanding. Under pressure from his mortgage holder and in fear of losing his investment due to dwindling sales and increasing costs, Williams actively pursued discovery of oil wherever it could be found, using the potential for oil discovery to sell lots at higher prices to oil speculators. In contrast to Williams and his ambitious plans for personal gain and the loose coalition who followed him, was the highly evolved bureaucracy of the government of Czar Nicholai II, Emperor of Russia. It intended to exploit oil in the Caspian Sea, offshore of the Baku field in Azerbaijan. To accomplish its goal, it turned to its principal contractor, The Nobel Brothers. In 1898, Williams and his fellow leading citizens approved an application by J. B. Treadwell, a railroad engineer, to build the Treadwell wharf at Summerland and to construct on it a series of wells extending out into the Pacific Ocean. There were no governmental regulations of any kind, local, state or federal, to prevent drilling into the sea or to charge the driller a tariff on the oil that was extracted, beyond a single $101 payment to Santa Barbara County for the right to construct the pier. Treadwell relied upon the Darling Brothers’ local machine shop to engineer conduit to prevent these sea wells from flooding. Treadwell was quickly joined by a rush of individuals and small firms, many of them antecedents to today’s well known oil companies. In total 412 sea wells were constructed in four years at Summerland, California. Due to the limited nature of the reservoir, production quickly peaked, tiien declined steadily. During its years of operation, the Summerland field produced an estimated 1.3 million barrels of oil. By contrast, the Caspian field holds an estimated 2 billion barrel reservoir. This paper reports the history of the Czarist government’s project to explore the Caspian sea at Baku, then reports the unique factors that motivated and made possible the petroleum exploration of the sea at Summerland and the operation, ownership, and history of its sea wells (Figure 1 ). Figure 1. Treadwell wharf, circa 1900. Published March 23, 1901, p. 304 Harper’s Weekly.

Abstract Oil and gas explorationists have amassed more than a century of experience, and their efforts have led to the discovery of tens of thousands of fields in oil and gas basins throughout the world. However, the number of giants and supergiants among these fields has been extremely small. The discovery of a supergiant is always a noteworthy event in petroleum geology. It provides a strong impetus not only to the development of the oil-producing district, but also to the economic development of the region and the country. The Soviet Union is a major producer of hydrocarbons and for many decades has been conducting intensive oil and gas prospecting and exploration. The geographic focus of exploration and the concentration of production have changed significantly over this period (Figure 1). For instance, up until World War II, the Caucasus, chiefly the region around Baku, was the primary producing region. Then several fields, among them the Romashkino supergiant, were discovered in the area between the Volga River and the Urals. Thanks to advances in exploration, the production level in the Volga-Urals oil and gas province rose to 1.7 billion bbl (240 million MT) per year. The next major advance in the establishment of hydrocarbon reserves occurred after the discovery of the very large oil and gas province in western Siberia, where numerous fields were identified, among them the Samotlor oil supergiant and the Urengoi gas supergiant. With this discovery, annual output in the Soviet Union rose to 4.2 billion bbl (600 million MT) of petroleum and 28 tcf (800 billion m 3 ) of gas. The pre-Caspian depression long ago attracted the attention of petroleum geologists. Early exploration was conducted here for relatively shallow reservoirs within reach of what was then state-of-the-art technology. The improvement of the technical level of exploration—above all, the conversion to multiple-fold coverage and digital processing of seismic data—and the drilling of wells to depths of 5 to 6 km made it possible to explore the lower portion of the sedimentary section and to identify several very large gas and condensate fields (Astrakhan, Orenburg, Karachaganak, and others) along the margin of the basin.

Abstract The Azeri, Chirag, and Gunashli (ACG) fields, located offshore Baku in the Caspian Sea, are being developed under a 30 yr Production Sharing Agreement. Contiguous with the ACG accumulation, the shallow-water Gunashli (SWG) field has produced in excess of 800 MMSTB since 1980 from more than 220 wells. SWG provides an opportunity to study the static and dynamic behavior of reservoirs important to the development of ACG. BP, operator of ACG, contracted with the Reservoir Modeling Centre of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan to perform a study of the Balakhany IX and Balakhany X reservoirs in the SWG development. This study comprised construction of geologic descriptions for both reservoirs and their use in dynamic simulation models. This was achieved using hand-contoured geologic mapping, incorporating depositional trends such as channel architecture. Matching historical performance data from these reservoirs verified the underlying geologic models and provided confidence in predictions derived from them. Results of this study show that channel width was the key to accurate estimation of stock tank oil initially in place, and that to achieve this, as many wells as possible must be incorporated. In addition, vertical communication between sublayers of the reservoir was defined using geologically derived maps referred to as “interface transmissibility.” Thus, a set of deterministic maps based on well data provided an approximate three-dimensional (3-D) representation of the Balakhany IX and Balakhany X stacked channel architecture. This work will assist in the planning and optimization for the development of the ACG field.

Abstract Inception of the modem petroleum industry can be fairly said to have occurred at Oil Creek, near Titusville, Crawford County, north western Pennsylvania, on August 28,1859. Nevertheless, some 5,000 years of experience and tradition else where had anticipated the event. Europe and Asia had made some economic use of petroleum and its products for many centuries. Tangible evidence of important oil pools in Rumania, Poland, and the Middle East had been recognized long ago, and large fields in Burma and at Baku had beenexploited casually, but no viable industry had arisen. The British knew more than anybodyelse about the universal occurrence of petroleum. The Germans were most sophisticated in organic chemistry and technology—and the French were sophisticated about everything. The principal store of capital was in Europe; even the basic American enterprises were dependent on European money. Western Europe was more industrialized than the United States, and the greatest potential markets for oil and its products were there. Inspite of all the advantages else where, one of the world’s most essential industries was left to grow up in the backwoods of Pennsylvania. The fact that the cumulative experience became productive at this location—and that the ancient tradition did not mature until this time (1859)—constitutes one of the great paradoxes of economic history. The course of events and the factors which led to American origin and dominance of the industry are the immediate subjects of our inquiry.

Abstract Hermann Willhelm Abich (1806–1886) spent more than thirty years travelling and investigating the geology of the Caucasus, Transcaucasian and Armenian highlands. He was appointed Professor of Mineralogy at Dorpat University but soon afterwards began his travels. He investigated the volcanic processes of this region to determine the reasons for its tectonic and seismic instability. He later focused on Georgia with its coal deposits, and then studied the oil and gas fields and mud volcanoes on the Apsheron peninsula near Baku in Azerbaijan. He also studied the effects of the last glaciation on the topography of the region.