WorldWide Drilling Resource

Focus on Energy Exposition Th i s yea r marks the 16 th Annual Energy Exposition. The two-day event will be June 24-25, once again at the MetraPark Expo Center in beautiful Billings, Montana. If you’ve never been, you need to go! There’s plenty of time for visiting the trade show booths of products, equip- ment, and services, and getting to know fellow attendees. WWDR will be there. The first night of the 2015 Energy Exposition will feature their fabulous steak dinner, lobster tails, custom Expo- branded wine, along with a dynamic speaker line-up during the industry net- working dinner. Immediately following booth tear- down the second night, country music star Trace Adkins will perform at a con- cert celebrating the first annual “Energy Industry Appreciation Day”. Visit energyexposition.com or call 307-529-3976 for further details. Tanner was on hand for Hose Solutions, Inc. during the 2014 Energy Exposition. Photos by WWDR . Trace Adkins to perform! 37 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® MAY 2015 The Unsinkable Tanker of Sherwood Forest Compiled by Amy White, Associate Editor WorldWide Drilling Resource ® March 12th marked the anniversary of a historic top-secret mission to drill oil wells in England during World War II. On this day in 1943, U.S. roughnecks boarded the H.M.S. Queen Elizabeth , and embarked on a voyage across theAtlantic. The future of Great Britain was at stake, and the outcome of the war depended on petroleum supplies. It began in August 1942, when Britain’s wartime Secretary of Petroleum Geoffrey Lloyd called an emergency meeting of the country’s Oil Control Board (OCB). The oil supply outlook was desper- ate. Principal fuel supplies en route to Great Britain from Trinidad, Tobago, and the U.S., were under constant attack by submarines. In the midst of these attacks, along with bombings of dockside storage facilities, theBritishAdmiraltywas twomillion barrels below minimum safety reserves. During their meeting, some OCB members were greatly surprised to learn England had a productive oil field of its own, discovered by D’Arcy Exploration in 1939. Located in Sherwood Forest near Duke’s Wood, the little-known oil field produced a modest average of 700 barrels per day from 50 shallow wells in 1942. Up to this point, severe shortages of drilling equipment, as well as manpower, had kept Britain from further developing the field; but maybe America could help. An engineer from D’Arcy was sent to Washington, DC, to seek assistance from the Petroleum Administration for War (PAW), and garner U.S. support to in- crease production from Eakring Field, dubbed England’s “unsinkable tanker”. Lloyd Noble, a highly-respected inde- pendent oilman and president of Noble Drilling Corporation inArdmore, Oklahoma, was contacted to negotiate a deal which would help expand Eakring. Noble part- nered with Fain-Porter Drilling Company of Oklahoma City, and volunteered to drill 100 new wells in the Eakring Field on a one-year contract for cost and expenses only. A team of 42 drill operators, derrick- men, roustabouts, and motormen headed to England for “The English Project”. Four rigs were shipped not too far behind. Spudding of the first well took place within a month. Four crews working 12- hour shifts quickly brought on two more wells. British colleagues were stunned by the speed of drilling. With innovative techniques, Americans could drill one well per week, while it usually took the British at least 5 weeks per well. By March 1944, 106 wells with 94 producers had been completed. England’s oil production skyrocketed from 300 barrels per day to over 3000 barrels per day. Their one-year contract was finished, and the undercover drilling crew returned to America without any fanfare. The suc- cess of their mission remained a secret until the Chicago Daily Tribune ran the story, England’s Oil Boom, on a back page in November 1944. It went largely unno- ticed at the time. By the end of the war, over 3.5 million barrels of oil had been pumped from “the unsinkable tanker”, with 2.3 million barrels being used for the war effort alone. British Petroleum continued producing oil from Duke’s Wood until 1965. In May 1991, Noble Drilling funded a trip for 14 surviving “oilpatch warriors” to return to Duke’s Wood, where a bronze statue was dedicated in their honor. Ten years later, citizens of Ardmore, Oklahoma, honored the men with an identical bronze statue in their hometown. Editor’s Note: In between our print issues, the WWDR Team prepares an electronic newsletter called E-News Flash . Based on readership, this was the most popular E-News Flash article of the month. Get in on the action and subscribe today at: worldwidedrillingresource.com Today, two identical bronze statues - one in Duke’s Wood, England; one in Ardmore, Oklahoma - stand in memory of America’s oilpatch warriors.