Oil Week

Winthrop Aldrich Rockefeller, fourth of John Davison Rockefeller Jr.'s five sons, is always going somewhere, usually in a hurry. Vacationing from Yale in 1933, he worked for the Rockefellers' Humble Oil and Refining Co. in Texas until a kidnap scare caused him to scuttle for Manhattan in an airplane with a bodyguard. That autumn a Connecticut motorcycle police-man caught him doing 64 m.p.h. on the Boston Post Road. He said he was trying to get a friend to a boat, was fined $27. Early in 1934, because his marks were poor, young Winthrop left Yale, set out to be the first Rockefeller since his grandfather to go into the oil business for a career.* First stop was in Jennings, La., where he boarded at Mrs. Inez Daugherty's Ardennes Hotel, labored with a "roughneck" gang in Humble's Roanoke field. From Louisiana he went to Texas again, did all manner of tasks, became a deputy sheriff so he could carry a gun. was arrested for speeding only twice.

Last week in Houston, Winthrop Rockefeller, now 24, said he had finished his Humble apprenticeship of nearly three years, was ready for new work, probably in California. Said he: "I got a certain satisfaction out of physical labor, but my aspirations are slightly higher. It does not look like efficiency to have a man of my height [6 ft. 3 1/2 in.] wielding a short-handled shovel." At home and abroad, young Mr. Rockefeller's business last week displayed these proofs of prosperity: P: U. S. oil production set a new all-time high with an average daily flow of 3,184,-650 bbl. P: Just short of one year ago Tide Water Associated Oil Co. "spudded in" a well in California's Ventura Avenue field six miles from the sea. It was named McGon-ig! No. 12 after the owners of the land.

For the first 848 ft. the hole was drilled 24-2 in. in diameter. Then it was telescoped to 17 in., then to 12 3/8 in. At the 10,000-ft. mark it was down to 7! in. Meantime Texas Corp.'s Rigolette No. 5 in the Lafitte field in Louisiana was brought in last month at 10.244 ft., setting a new depth record for a producing oil well. At McGonigle No. 12 the bit, now down to 4! in., ground around & around until it was down to 10,569 ft., just nine feet over two miles. Then the oil flowed, bringing back to Tide Water the title it has held six times since 1921, when 4,683 ft. was deep enough for a world record, C. Offered last week by Kuhn, Loeb & Co., Lehman Bros, and a syndicate of 72 banking houses were $40,000,000 worth of 15-year 3^% sinking fund debentures of Tide Water Associated Oil Co. Also underwritten were 500,000 shares of $4.50 cumulative convertible preferred stock. Until Feb. 8, holders of Tide Water's 626,221 shares of 6% preferred will have first call on the new preferred, which unlike the old carries voting rights. They may exchange old for new on a share for share basis plus $2 in cash. Thus further discomfited in his struggle for a voice in Tide Water was Jean Paul Getty (TIME, Nov. 30), whose interest in the company (more than 25% directly and indirectly) is almost wholly in common stock, whose voting rights will be diluted by the new preferred. P: Proud of a 1936 record is President Edwin B. Reeser of Barnsdall Oil Co. He discovered more new oil per share of stock (50 bbl.) than any other oilman in the U. S. In partnership with Humble Oil. Barnsdall last summer tapped a big pool in Nueces County, Tex. On the last day of 1936 Barnsdall and Standard Oil of Indiana discovered an 80,000,000 bbl. reserve in Louisiana's Lafourche Parish. This week in California Barnsdall prepared to bring in a well called Rancho San Francisco No. i which may open up the biggest oil pool discovered in the U. S. since East Texas six years ago. What was more, the well was plunk in the centre of a 6,000-acre lease owned by Barnsdall alone. The new well is seven miles from Newhall in Los Angeles County, six miles from the spot where a dozen people were killed in last December's crash of a San Francisco-to-Los Angeles United Air Liner (TIME, Jan.

P: Reflecting company estimates of a potential reserve of at least 100,000,-ooo bbl. in its new field, Barnsdall stock in six weeks was moved up from $20 to $34 per share. C In ancient Teheran, capital of Iran (Persia), word leaked out that Seaboard Oil Co. had acquired exploration and exploitation rights to 180,000 sq. mi. of Iranian territory.

Capping its spectacular catch in Afghanistan, where it got the oil rights to every foot of that Shah's territory (TIME, Jan. 11), the Iran deal, if finally confirmed, will be the reward of nearly three years' patient angling by U. S.

interests in the international oil pools of the Middle East.

Granted to Amiranian Oil Co., a Seaboard subsidiary, the concession is reported to be good for 60 years, must be reduced in 15 years to 100,000 sq. mi. by the elimination of areas without oil. To carry oil out of Afghanistan and Iran, another Seaboard subsidiary called Amiranian Pipe Line Co.

received permission from Reza Shah Pahlavi (see p. 20) to build what may turn out to be the world's longest pipe line, through Afghanistan and Iran to the Persian Gulf. In size, if not in richness, Seaboard's new Middle Eastern territories will be superior even to those of Britain's great Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. Both the Afghan and Iranian concessions are the outgrowth of conversations in 1933 between Charles Calmer Hart, then U. S. Minister to Iran, and his good friend Ogden Livingston Mills, outgoing Secretary of the Treasury. After Mr. Hart resigned as Minister and Mr. Mills returned to private life, the two succeeded in interesting the Manhattan investment house of Case, Pomeroy & Co. in the possibilities of planting the U. S. oil flag in the lands which Mr. Hart knew so well.

About a year and a half aw this coalition approached Seaboard. formed the exploration companies, gave Seaboard a 51% interest. Mr. Hart then began to palaver in Kabul and Teheran. Biggest stockholder in Seaboard Oil (32%) is Texas Corp. Last week Texaco filed a registration statement with the Securities & Exchange Commission for the issuance of 1,557,000 shares of common stock, to be offered to Texas stockholders at about $40 a share on the basis of one new share for each six held. Market price of Texas common last week was $52. Of the estimated $62,000.000 proceeds from its new issue Texas will use a big slice for foreign expansion.

One great field for this is the Barco concession in Colombia, which Texas acquired jointly with Socony-Vacuum (TIME, May 4). The other is in the Middle and Far East.

Texaco already is involved in Eastern markets through deals made last year with Standard Oil of California by which Texaco acquired a half interest in Standard's oil fields on Bahrein Island in the Persian Gulf, Arabia and the Dutch East Indies. Standard got outlet for its oil, Texaco a source of supply for its distribution system East of Suez, in East Africa, South Africa, India, Dutch East Indies, Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan. The combination of these two big U. S. companies now looms as the third big petroleum group outside the U. S., inferior only to Royal Dutch Shell and the Socony-Vacuum-Standard-of-New Jersey combination.

*Brothers John and Laurance are in their father's office. Brother Nelson is active in Rockefeller real estate. Brother David is at Harvard.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.