Waiting For A Huge New Oil Field

On one pleasant day, with the sun shining brightly, there were very few clouds in the sky out on the Arctic Ocean—where the clouds at times looked like great waves in the sky. Lindsey Williams woke early that morning, which had been doing often, to make sure that he arrived at the office of one of the company officials in order to catch a ride with him all day long.

So on this beautiful day of sunshine, with only a few clouds in the sky, Lindsey felt good. He went through the chow line and picked up a meal fit for a king. He finished the meal with an expectancy of excitement in his heart. He was looking forward to finding out some new source of exuberating information as to what was really taking place in all of this planned manipulation.

What he didn’t know was just how exciting that day would really be, for unbeknown to him, that day was to turn out to be one of the most revealing experiences he ever had as Chaplain of the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline.

So that morning, Lindsey pulled up in front at the Atlantic Richfield (ARCO) building and walked inside (This was the company responsible for building the entire east side of the oil field). The front door had a large handle on the outside and a pusher on the inside, and the door itself many inches thick.

Inside it was nice and cozy. Lindsey walked up to the desk of the security guard and asked who happened to be in the office at that time. He would usually find out who happened to be in the office, and then select the most likely candidate that he could and hitch a ride with him. So that he could drive up and down the line and talk to the men while the company officials were carrying out their business.

However, on this day the security officer named several men, and Lindsey immediately recognized one that he thought would be interesting to ride with. So he said, “Well, is he in his office or out in his vehicle?”

The guard answered, “Well, he happens to be up in his office. Why don’t you just go on in. I’m sure he won’t mind.”

As Lindsey entered the executive looked up at Lindsey when he came in, and all across his face was an air of expectancy. That is usually the way these oil executives look when they see dollar signs turning over with the oil business. Lindsey looked at him with a kind of a smile on his face and said, “Hey, what do you have up today?”

“Ah,” the man said, “You came along at just the right time. How would you like to watch something exciting? It’s something that I think will turn out to be phenomenal.”

“Well,” Lindsey answered, “I’m always ready for excitement. If there’s anything I enjoy, it’s getting into something.”

Lindsey continued, “Sure, what can we get into today?”
With something that was almost laughter in his voice, he said, “Chaplain, come on, let’s ride out to the Arctic Ocean, and I’ll show you what we’re going to get into today.”

Lindsey could tell from the tone in his voice that it was something spectacular.
“Well,” Lindsey said, “Great, let’s go. I’m ready for a ride. We have all morning, and if you like I can take all afternoon with you, as well-that is, if it really gets that good.”

The man answered, “This one is going to be good.”
Lindsey asked, “What do you mean?”
The man just replied, “Come on, let’s go.”

They walked all the way down the hallway of that office complex, past the security guard and the man told him, “If you want me, I’ll be out at such and such a point, in such and such a vehicle.”

They checked out and walked out the freezer locker (into the Arctic), hopped inside his vehicle and were driving west, for maybe four or five miles. The man turned toward the north, and asked, “Chaplain, have you ever been out to the new dock-the dock at Prudhoe Bay?”

“Yes,” Lindsey answered, “I have taken the liberty to drive up there a time or two, just to see what it is like.”
“Well,” the man answered, “That’s where we’re going.”

There were two docks at Prudhoe Bay. In the summer time, they would dock the flotilla on the original dock which had been built over by Surfcoat Camp, and that dock extended only a short way out into the Arctic Ocean. The ocean at that point was only a few feet deep. In order to bring in the larger barges that were in the flotilla during the last two years of the construction phase of the oil field, they had to go out into deeper water. After much wrangling and many battles, the oil companies were finally able to persuade the government to permit them to build a gravel pad, exactly like the gravel on the shore of the Arctic Ocean.
It was a gravel pad out into the water, some two miles or thereabouts.

And then, the oil company official said to Lindsey, “Chaplain, you are just about to watch one of the most exciting things that we oil company men will ever see at Prudhoe Bay.”

Lindsey answered, “What do you mean? We are right out here at the edge of the Arctic Ocean, and I don’t see anything exciting out here. There’s not even any drill rigs here. In fact, there’s nothing going on at this dock—we’re the only people out here.”

The man said, “You’re right, Chaplain. But I want you to look—you’ll have to strain your eyes a bit—and you’ll see the drill rig on a little bitty island way out there in the Arctic Ocean. If you look close, you can see it with the naked eye, without even using these glasses.”

“Oh,” said Lindsey. “Yes, Gull Island.” The official looked at Lindsey … “Oh! so you know about Gull Island, do you?”

“Well,” Lindsey answered, “Someone told me a few months ago that they had taken a drill rig out to Gull Island, and I had noticed the orange colored top on that big rig out there. It just sticks above the horizon, on the Arctic Ocean, and I’ve heard that they are drilling for oil on Gull Island.”

The official said, “Yes, Chaplain, they are. Not only that, but today we are going to have the first burn from the rig—they’ve completed the drilling.”

A “burn”—in layman’s terms—is a method of proof used when an oil field or an oil well is brought in.
They sat there for a few minutes, not knowing exactly when the burn would take place, and this oil company official began to explain about Gull Island. He told Lindsey what he already knew, that the oil companies had been allowed to produce from only a 100-square-mile area of the North Slope of Alaska, yet there are many 100-square-mile areas of land north of the Brooks Mountains, the northern-most mountain range of the United States.

North of these mountains there is an area of about 160 to 180 miles that slopes gradually to sea level at Prudhoe Bay, and then out into the Arctic Ocean. That is the boundary, Just a short way from the shore, of the limit of the 100-square-mile area that the oil companies call Prudhoe Bay. That is the area from which the oil is being allowed to be produced. At maximum flow, they could produce two million barrels of oil every 24 hours.

So there they were, sitting out in the Arctic Ocean, watching a speck on the horizon … a speck called Gull Island.

The ARCO official explain to Lindsey that Gull Island is on the very, very edge of the 100 square miles from where they were allowed to produce. The ARCO official explained, “Gull Island is marginal. We have been allowed to drill there, but we know that any angle of drilling whatsoever to the north would mean that it would be out of bounds of the oil field from which we have been given permission to produce. I guess you know, Chaplain, that this one pool of oil right here on the north side of Alaska from which we are presently producing can produce oil at the rate of two million barrels every 24 hours, for the next twenty years, without any decrease in production. Not only that, but it will produce at artesian flow for the next twenty years.”

He continued, “After twenty years, we will either inject water or some other liquid into the ground in order to maintain that flow of oil, but we will not have to pump this field for over twenty years. The oil comes out of the ground at about 136°F, with 1,600 pounds of natural pressure.”

He elaborated about the rich oil fields at Prudhoe Bay and then stated that they have proven that there are many other pools of oil on the North Slope of Alaska. He also believed that these numerous pools of oil could be produced just as easily as the Prudhoe Bay oil field. Then he told Lindsey something he already knew.

He said, “Chaplain, there is no energy crisis. There has never been an energy crisis. There will never be an energy crisis; we have as much oil here as in all of Saudi Arabia. If only the oil companies of America were allowed to produce it, we would have no crisis. Oh, we’ve been told there’s a crisis, but there isn’t one.”

The heater was going full blast, because of the cold, as we were waiting for that momentous event when we would see black smoke from Gull Island. That would indicate that the burn was taking place, and they would have proof that there was oil. They went back to the main office and look at the technical data relating to what the oil companies had found that day at Gull Island.

There was no set time of day for this oil burn to take place, so they sat there waiting and watching with hopeful expectancy as to what they might actually see. They talked to each other about many things. They chatted about angle drilling, and the official explained to Lindsey me of how they would drill an oil field and after they had gone down so many feet into the ground, they would angle off, and sometimes go many miles at an angle. This meant that they could drill many different wells from one gravel pad. After they drilled those wells, they would call them “Christmas trees,” because that is exactly what they looked like above the ground.

The man explained that, on Gull Island, they were drilling straight down because if they drilled at an angle they would be out of bounds of that small area from which the government had allowed them to produce. He then said, “What we find today will prove what is on the outer skirts of this oil field.”

And then it happened. Lindsey remembers that he stopped his conversation very abruptly and picked up his field glasses from beside him on the seat of the truck, and exclaimed, “Look, Chaplain! There it is!”

They both stepped out of the truck, even though it was very cold. They looked, straining their eyes to see across to Gull Island over the ocean. They called it Gull Island because the only thing ever known to be on it was a flock of seagulls in the summer time. And there it was; a great cloud of black smoke was going up. It was almost as though a great black bomb had exploded, and the cloud grew bigger and bigger. The wind picked up the trail of the smoke and threw it to the north, and there it lay. It was like a great big cylinder churning out across the ocean.

Reference: http://www.lindseywilliams.net/lindsey-williams-the-energy-non-crisis-chapter-15/