Extraction Not Creation: The History of Offshore Petroleum in the Gulf of Mexico

Tyler Priest

doi:10.1093/es/khm027

Extraction Not Creation: The History of Offshore Petroleum in the Gulf of Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 February 2015

Tyler Priest

Article contents

Abstract
References

Get access

Rights & Permissions

Abstract

Offshore development is one of the most important but least analyzed chapters in the history of the petroleum industry, and the Gulf of Mexico is the most explored, drilled, and developed offshore petroleum province in the world. This essay examines offshore oil and gas development in the Gulf of Mexico, highlighting the importance of access and how the unique geology and geography of the Gulf shaped both access and technology. Interactions between technology, capital, geology, and the political structure of access in the Gulf of Mexico generated a functionally and regionally complex extractive industry that repeatedly resolved the material and economic contradictions of expanding into deeper water. This was not achieved, however, simply through technological miracles or increased mastery over the environment, as industry experts and popular accounts often imply. The industry moved deeper only by more profoundly adapting to the environment, not by transcending its limits. This essay diverges from celebratory narratives about offshore development and from interpretations that emphasize the social construction of the environment. It challenges the storyline of market-driven technology and its miraculous ability to expand and create petroleum abundance in the Gulf.

Type: Articles
Information: Enterprise & Society , Volume 8 , Issue 2: Business and Nature , June 2007 , pp. 227 - 267

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/es/khm027 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Author(s) 2007. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bibliography of Works Cited

Bartley, Ernest, R. The Tidelands Oil Controversy: A Legal and Historical Analysis. Austin, Tex., 1953.Google Scholar

Blair,John, M. The Control of Oil. New York, 1978.Google Scholar

Boué, Juan Carlos, and Luyando, Gerardo U.S. Gulf Offshore Oil: Petroleum Leasing and Taxation and Their Impact on Industry Structure, Competition, Production, and Fiscal Revenues. Oxford, 2002.Google Scholar

Bunker, Stephen G. Underdeveloping the Amazon: Extraction, Unequal Exchange, and the Failure of the Modern State. Urbana, 3, 1985.Google Scholar

Bunker, Stephen G., and Ciccantell, Paul S. Globalization and the Race for Resources. Baltimore, Md., 2005.Google Scholar

Burleson, Clyde W. Deep Challenge! The True Epic Story ofOur Quest for Energy Beneath the Sea. Houston, 1999.Google Scholar

Campbell, Colin J. The Coming Oil Crisis. Brentwood, U.K., 1997.Google Scholar

Ciccantell, Paul S., Smith, David A. and Seidman, Gay, eds. Nature, Raw Materials, and Political Economy. Oxford, 2005.Google Scholar

Cronon, William. Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West. New York, 1991.Google Scholar

Deffeyes, Kenneth S. Hubbert’s Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage. Princeton, N.J., 2001.Google Scholar

Dodd, William J. Peapatch Politics: The Earl Long Era in Louisiana Politics. Baton Rouge, La., 1991.Google Scholar

Farrow, R. Scott. Managing the Outer Continental Shelf Lands: Oceans of Controversy. New York, 1990.Google Scholar

Freudenberg, William R. and Gramling, Robert Oil in Troubled Waters: Perceptions, Politics, and the Battle Over Offshore Drilling.Albany, N.Y., 1994.Google Scholar

Goodwin, Craufurd D. ed. Energy Policy in Perspective: Today’s Problems, Yesterday’s Solutions. Washington, D.C., 1981.Google Scholar

Gramling, Robert. Oil on the Edge: Offshore Development, Conflict, Gridlock. Albany, N.Y., 1996.Google Scholar

Hallowell, Christopher. Holding Back the Sea: The Struggle for America’s Natural Legacy on the Gulf Coast. New York, 2001.Google Scholar

Hallowell, Christopher. People of the Bayou: Cajun Life in Lost America. Gretna, La., 2003.Google Scholar

Harvey, David. The Limits to Capital. Chicago, 1982.Google Scholar

Hollick, Ann L.U.S. Foreign Policy and the Law ofthe Sea. Princeton, N.J., 1981.Google Scholar

Jeansonne, Glen. Leander Perez: Boss of the Delta. Baton Rouge, La., 1977.Google Scholar

Kallman, Robert E., and Wheeler, Eugene D. Coastal Crude: In a Sea of Conflict. San Luis Obispo, Calif., 1984.Google Scholar

Klare, Michael T. Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict. New York, 2001.Google Scholar

Kurtz, Michael L. and Peoples, Morgan D. Long, Earl K. The Saga of Uncle Earl and Louisiana Politics. Baton Rouge, La., 1990.Google Scholar

Oil & Gas Journal.Bob Tippee, Ed. International Petroleum Encyclopedia. Tulsa, Okla., 2001.Google Scholar

Olien, Roger M., and Davids, Diana Olien. Oil and Ideology: The Cultural Creation of the American Petroleum Industry. Chapel Hill, N.C., 2000.Google Scholar

Owen, Edgar Wesley. Trek ofthe Oil Finders: A History of Exploration for Petroleum. Tulsa, Okla., 1975.Google Scholar

Pratt, Joseph A., Priest, Tyler, and Castaneda, Christopher Offshore Pioneers: Brown & Root and the History of Offshore Oil and Gas. Houston, 1997.Google Scholar

Priest, Tyler. The Offshore Imperative: Shell Oil’s Search for Petroleum in Postwar America. College Station, Tex., 2007.Google Scholar

Rosenberg, Nathan. Technology and American Economic Growth. New York, 1972.Google Scholar

Rozwadowski, Helen M. Fathoming the Ocean: The Discovery and Exploration ofthe Deep Sea. Cambridge, Mass., 2005.Google Scholar

Sabin, Paul. Crude Politics: The California Oil Market, 1900–1940. Berkeley, Calif., 2005.Google Scholar

Tidwell, Mike. Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana’s Cajun Coast. New York, 2003.Google Scholar

Veldman, Hans E., and Lagers, George H.G.. 50 Years Offshore. Tulsa, Okla., 1997.Google Scholar

Worster, Donald, ed. The Ends of the Earth: Perspectives on Modern Environmental History. Cambridge, 1988.Google Scholar

Barber, William J. “The Eisenhower Energy Policy: Reluctant Intervention”. In Energy Policy in Perspective: Today’s Problems, Yesterday’s Solutions, ed. Goodwin, Craufurd D. Washington, D.C., 1981, pp. 205–86.Google Scholar

Baxter, Vern. “The Effects of Industry Governance on Offshore Oil Development in the Gulf of Mexico.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 21, no. 2 (1997): 238–58.Google Scholar

Christiane, Bjornland, Hilde. “The Economic Effects of North Sea Oil on the Manufacturing Sector”. Scottish Journal ofPolitical Economy 45, no. 5 (1998): 553–85.Google Scholar

Black, Brian. “Oil Creek as Industrial Apparatus: Re-creating the Industrial Process Through the Landscape of Pennsylvania’s Oil Boom”. Environmental History 3 (April 1998): 210–29.Google Scholar

Bohi, R. Douglas. “Technological Improvement in Petroleum Exploration and Development.” In Productivity in Natural Resource Industries: Improvement through Innovation, ed. David Simpson, R. Washington, D.C., 1999, pp. 73–108.Google Scholar

Bunker, Stephen G. “Staples, Links, and Poles in the Construction of Regional Development Theories”. Sociological Forum, no.4 4 (1989): 589–610.Google Scholar

Cook, Mark. “North Sea Oil and Its Impact on the U.K. Economy”. Contemporary Review 248, no. 1442 (1986): 138–41.Google Scholar

Elkind, Sarah S. “Public Oil, Private Oil: The Tidelands Oil Controversy, World War II, and Control of the Environment” In The Way We ReallyWere: The Golden State in the Second World War, ed. Lotchin, Roger W. Urbana, 3. 2000, pp. 120–42.Google Scholar

Johnman, Lewis. and Murphy, Hugh. “Triumph of Failure. British Shipbuilding and the Offshore Structures Market, 1960-1990: A Case Study of Scott Lithgow Limited”. International Journal of Maritime History 14, no. 1 (2002): 63–92.Google Scholar

Mcbride, G.I. “Drilling Barges”. Drilling and Production Practice. American Petroleum Institute, New York, 1935, pp. 40–46.Google Scholar

Miller, Gregory Blaine. “Louisiana’s Tidelands Controversy: The United States of America V. State of Louisiana Maritime Boundary Cases”. Louisiana History 38 (Spring 1997): 203–21.Google Scholar

Nehring, Richard. “Oil and Gas Resources”. In The Gulf of Mexico Basin, ed. Salvador, Amos. Colo, Boulder 1991, pp. 445–94.Google Scholar

Nerheim, Gunnar. “The Condeep Concept: The Development and Breakthrough of Concrete Gravity Platforms”. History of Technology 16 (1994): 15–34.Google Scholar

Parks, James M, “Unintended Consequences of Oil Company Research Laboratories.” Oil Industry History 4, no. 1 (2003): 32–41.Google Scholar

Priest, Tyler. “A Perpetual Extractive Frontier? The History of Offshore Petroleum in the Gulf of Mexico.” In Nature, Raw Materials, and Political Economy, ed. Ciccantell, Paul S. Smith, David A. and Seidman, Gay. Oxford, 2005, pp.209–29.Google Scholar

Quam-Wickham, Nancy. “Cities Sacrificed on the Alter of Oil:’ Popular Opposition to Oil Development in 1920s Los Angeles.” Environmental History 3 (April 1998): 189–209.Google Scholar

Reifel, M.D. “Offshore Blowouts and Fires.” The TechnologyofOffshore Drilling, Completion and Production, compiled by ETA Offshore Seiminars, Inc., Tulsa, Okla., 1976, pp.239–57.Google Scholar

Rosen, Christine Meisner. “The Business-Environment Connection.” Environmental History 10 (Jan. 2005): 77–79.Google Scholar

Rosen, Christine Meisner, and Sellers, Christopher C. “The Nature of the Firm: Towards an Ecocultural History of Business.” Business History Review 73 (Winter 1999): 577–600.Google Scholar

Sabin, Paul. “Searching for Middle Ground: Native Communities and Oil Extraction in the Northern and Central Ecuadoran Amazon, 1967–1993.” Environmental History 3 (April 1998): 144–68.Google Scholar

Santiago, Myrna. “Rejecting Progress in Paradise: Huastecas, the Environment, and the Oil Industry in Veracruz, Mexico, 1900-1935.” Environmental History 3 (April 1998): 16988.Google Scholar

Stine, Jeffrey K. and Tarr, Joel A. “At the Intersection of Histories: Technology and the Environment.” Technologyand Culture 39 (Oct. 1998): 160–40.Google Scholar

Worster, Donald. “Transformations of the Earth: Toward an Agroecological Perspective in History.” Journal ofAmerican History 76 (March 1990): 1087–1106.Google Scholar

Wright, Gavin. The Origins of American Industrial Success, 1879-1940. American Economic Review 80 (Sept. 1990):651–68.Google Scholar

Antosh, Nelson. “Foreign Drilling Stealing Gulf’s Thunder.” Houston Chronicle, 6May 2004, p. B1.Google Scholar

“At Issue: Land Access.” Shell News 5 (1981): 18–19.Google Scholar

Attanasi, E.D., and Drew, L. J.. “Offshore Exploration Performance and Industry Change.” Journal of Petroleum Technology (March 1984): 440.Google Scholar

Bourne, Joel K Jr. “Gone with the Water.” National Geographic (Oct. 2004): 88–105.Google Scholar

Carroll, Chris. “In Hot Water.” National Geographic (Aug. 2005): 72–85.Google Scholar

“Disputed Louisiana Lease Looks Hot.” Oil & Gas Journal (5 May 1958): 72–73.Google Scholar

Dykstra, Bouwe. “Costs, Allowable Rate Hinders Offshore Work.” Drilling (Aug. 1959): 65, 114.Google Scholar

“First Offering of Continental Shelf Leases Brings High Bonuses.” World Petroleum (Nov. 1954): 86.Google Scholar

“First Well in Gulf of Mexico was Drilled Just 25 Years Ago.” Offshore (Oct. 1963): 17–19.Google Scholar

Godec, Michael L., Vello, A.Kuuskraa. and Kuck, Brian T. “How U.S. Gulf of Mexico Development, Finding, Cost Trends Have Evolved.” Oil & Gas Journal (6 May 2002): 52–60.Google Scholar

“Island on Stilts.” Shell News (Feb. 1952): 11–13.Google Scholar

Kaiser, Mark J., and Pulsipher, Allan G. “Various Factors Affect Severance Selection.” Oil & Gas Journal (27 Sept. 2004): 41–52.Google Scholar

Mcgee, Dean A. “Economics of Offshore Drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.” Offshore Drilling (Feb. 1955): 16.Google Scholar

Mouawad, Jad. “Oil Explorers Searching Ever More Remote Areas.” New York Times, 9 Sept. 2004, pp. B1, B4.Google Scholar

“Na Kika Topsides on the Move in the Gulf of Mexico.” Go Gulf Magazine (May/June 2003): 24–25.Google Scholar

“No. 1 Gulf Field Growing Fast.” Oil & Gas Journal (18 June 1956): 139.Google Scholar

“Offshore Drilling Gets Better Sea Legs.” Business Week (18 Aug. 1962): 101.Google Scholar

“Offshore Louisiana: Fabulous Industry within an Industry.” Ocean Industry (June 1966): 38–41.Google Scholar

“Oil Firms Spend Record Amount for Gulf Leases.” Wall Street Journal 1 Oct. 1980,pp. 4–15.Google Scholar

“Pioneers Mark Anniversary of First Commercial Offshore Well.” Ocean Industry (Dec. 1977): 4345.Google Scholar

Pittman, J. W. “It’s A Boom!” Offshore (Oct. 1963): 9.Google Scholar

Rauch, Jonathan. “The New Old Economy: Oil, Computers, and the Reinvention of the Earth.” Atlantic Monthly (Jan. 2001): 35–49.Google Scholar

Rist, Curtis. “Why We’ll Never Run Out of Oil.” Discover 20 (June 1999): 80–87.Google Scholar

Ryser, Jeff. “Hot Play in the Gulf.” Texas Business (3 Aug. 1995): 3–5.Google Scholar

Sandrea, Ivan. “Deepwater Oil Discovery Rate May Have Peaked; Production Peak May Follow in 10 Years.” Oil & Gas Journal (26 July 2004): 18–23.Google Scholar

Spector, Mike. “Oil Rigs Stage Exodus from Gulf of Mexico.” Wall Street Journal, 5 July 2006, p. C 1.Google Scholar

“State Takes Long Road to Share in Oil Revenue.” Times-Picayune, 6 Dec. 2006, p. 1.Google Scholar

Taylor, Alex III. “Oil Forever.” Fortune (22 Nov. 1999): 193–94.Google Scholar

Thorpe, Helen. “Oil and Water.” Texas Monthly (Feb. 1996): 90–93, 139–145.Google Scholar

Williams, Bob. “Debate Over Peak-Oil Issue Boiling Over, With Major Implications for Industry, Society.” Oil & Gas Journal (14 July 2003): 18–29.Google Scholar

Wilson, Howard M. “Drillers Face Offshore Deadline with 40 Leases to Test.” Oil & Gas Journal (11 April 1996): 48–51.Google Scholar

Zeppa, Joe. “What is the Outlook for Drilling in the Gulf of Mexico?” Drilling (Dec. 1959): 59.Google Scholar

National Research Council, Marine Board, Assembly of Engineering, Committee on Assessment of Safety in OCS Activities. Safety and Offshore Oil. Washington, D.C., 1981.Google Scholar

Shell Oil Company. “Shell in the U.S.: 1999 Annual Review.” Houston, 1999.Google Scholar

Bankston, Gene, interview with author, 3 Dec. 1999.Google Scholar

Forrest, Mike, interview with author, 29 June 1999.Google Scholar

Foster, Joe, interview with author and Joseph A. Pratt, 22 April 2002.Google Scholar

Hirsch, Robert, interview with author, 26 Nov. 2003.Google Scholar

Hughson, B. B., interview with author, 24 June 2002.Google Scholar

Cohen, Dave. “Jack-2 and the Lower Tertiary of the Gulf of Mexico.” Oil Drum (11 Sept. 2006). Available at http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/9/8/11274/83638.Google Scholar

Davis, Don. “From the Marshes to Deepwater, Louisiana’s Hydrocarbon Infrastructure is At Risk.” Available at http://www.epa.gov/oilspill/pdfs/d_davis_04.pdf./ Google Scholar

Forrest, Mike. “Bright Idea Still Needed Persistence.” AAPG Explorer On Line (May 2000). Available at http://www.aapg.org/explorer/wildcat/2000/wildcat05.cfm./ Google Scholar

‘“Toast Was on the Breakfast Menu.”’ AAPG Explorer on Line (June 2000). Available at http://www.aapg.org/explorer/wildcat/2000/wildcat06.cfm./ Google Scholar

Louisiana Energy Facts Annuals. Available at http://www.dnr.state.la.us/SEC/EXECDIV/TECHASMT/data/annualjeports/indhtm./ Google Scholar

Michels, Thomas J. “Small Innovations Combine for Big Success in the Offshore Industry.” Sea Technology (Aug. 2000). Available online at http://www.seatechnology.com./ Google Scholar

Minerals Management Service. “Offshore Stats and Facts.” Available at http://www.mms.gov/stats/OCSproduction.htm./ Google Scholar

Sniekus, Darius. “Offshore Production Rocket on the Launchpad.” Offshore Engineer (1 April 2004). Available at www.oilonline.com/news/features/oe/20040401 Unpublished WorksGoogle Scholar

Banta, Brady Michael. “The Regulation and Conservation of Petroleum Resources in Louisiana, 1901–1940.” Ph.D. diss., Louisiana State University, 1981.Google Scholar

Corts, Kenneth S. The Offshore Drilling Industry, HBS Case Services, 387-020. Harvard Business School, Cambridge, Mass., 1999.Google Scholar

Dougherty, Elmer L., Lawrence, A. Bruckner, and Lohrenz, John. “Cumulative Bonus and Production Profiles with Time for Different Competitive Bidders: Federal Offshore Oil and Gas Leases.” Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Preprint 7134, 1978.Google Scholar

Dunn, F. P. “Deepwater Production: 1950–2000.” OTC 7627, Proceedings of the Offshore Technology Conference, Houston, May 1994.Google Scholar

Holmes, D.A. “1970-1986 Lookback of Offshore Lease Sales Gulf of Mexico Cenozoic.” Interoffice Memorandum, Shell Offshore Inc. (24 Aug. 1987).Google Scholar

Kreidler, Tai Deckner. “The Offshore Petroleum Industry: The Formative Years, 1945–1962.” Ph.D. diss., Texas Tech University, 1997.Google Scholar

Lester, Charles Frederick. “The Search for Dialogue in the Administrative State: The Politics, Policy, and Law of Offshore Oil Development.” Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1992.Google Scholar

Nanz, R.H., Vice President, Exploration, Shell Oil Company. “The Offshore Imperative: The Need for and Potential of Offshore Exploration.” Paper presented to Colloquium on Conventional Energy Sources and the Environment, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware, April 30, 1975.Google Scholar

Rankin, John. “History of Federal OCS Leasing.” 1996.Google Scholar

Toft, Anders. “Design of Drilling Contracts - Economic Incentives and Contractor’s Focus on HSE.” Society of Petroleum Engineers International Conference on Health, Safety, & Environment, Calgary, Alberta, 2004.Google Scholar

State Mineral Board of Louisiana. Biennial Reports. Baton Rouge, La., 1940–1946.Google Scholar

U.S. Department of Interior. Central Classified Files, Box 134 (1969–72), Box 513 (1954–1959), Record Group 48, Records of the Secretary of the Interior, National Archives and Records Administration, II, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar

United States v. Louisiana et al. 363 U.S. 1 (1960).Google Scholar