Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 November 1879 — Oil Running to Waste [ARTICLE]

Oil Running to Waste

A special dispatch from Bradford, Pa., says: At a moderate estimate there are 150,000 gallons of petroleum running to waste every day in the McKean county oil reigons. The tanks, with capacity for several million barrels, are filled to over flowing. The market is over stocked, and still production goes on at the rate of at least 25,000 barrels a day, 5,000 more than the pipe lines can handle. New wells are going down in all parts of the reigon. The price of oil is from 25 to 30 cents less per barrel than the cost of production. The United and Tidewater Pipe lines have iron tankage for 3,000,000 barrels of oil in this district. Individual producers and oil companies own tankage connected with these lines. The pipe lines take care of the oil of these tanxowners to the extent of their capacity. It is the small producers; who are losing the bulk of the oil. They cannot afford to build tanks. What is know as the general storag capacity of the pipe lines is proportioned out of these producers, but that tankage has been occupied for weeks, and the surplus runs to waste—down the hills and valleys of McKean county. Large quantities of petroleum are absorbed by earth. In marshy places the ground is a mass of greasy mud several inches deep. In some parts of the region the streams are dammed and the oil collected in large ponds at places as far distant as possible from derricks and buildings. These ponds are set on fire daily. Thus a large quaniity of the waste oil is disposed of. It is not uncommon for fire to be communicated to these combustible rivers by sparks from locomotives. Sometimes they are fired by malicious persons and tramps. Derricks and other property have been destroyed by these unexpected fires, resulting in losses of thousands of dollars. All efforts to limit the production of oil and stop this great waste have failed. Some years ago the same state of affairs existed in the lower oil reigon. Rivers of oil flowed from the tanks. It was not until oil fell to 40 oents a barrel that the producers came to their senses and in a measure stopped the drill.