Petroleum Development In The Rocky Mountain States During 1923

THE advent of the Rocky Mountain States into prominence as an oil-producing region is comparatively recent. Scarcely more than a decade has passed since the number of producing oilfields in this part of the country were few and their combined yield small and relatively unimportant. However, oil was discovered and recorded near the present site of Lander, Wyo., as early as 1833 and in 1867, on the comple-tion of the Union Pacific R. R., the site of this oil discovery was located, among other things, as a natural resource of economic importance. In that year a well was drilled for oil, to a depth of 480 ft., near Evanston, Wyo., but later was abandoned. In 1883, the Lander district witnessed the successful completion of the first oil well in the state. In Colorado, oil was first produced from shallow open wells near Canon City and sold to prospectors in 1864; in 1887, the Florence oilfield was discovered and a commercial production developed. While the Rocky Mountain States have never gained the prominence as an oil-producing region attained by the Pacific Coast, Mid-Continent, or Gulf fields, a substantial and increasing production is being taken from the Rocky Mountain province. At the close of 1923, the oil industry in this region has 38 oil and 21 gas fields producing, or capable of producing, oil or gas in a commercial way with a combined annual yield of nearly 47,000,000 bbl. of oil, a daily refining capacity aggregating about 90,000 bbl., upwards of 17,000,000 bbl. of crude in storage, and an 8-in. pipeline, nearing completion, 600 miles long which will connect the most prolific oilfield of the Rocky Mountain States with a trunk pipeline between Mid-Continent and the east at Carrollton, Mo. Several of the larger standard and independent operating companies are now represented in this region and, in the last ten years, there has been developed at Casper one of the large refining centers of the west. Fig. 1 illustrates the rise in production of four of the larger fields, also in the total production of the state; in addition there is given the yield of the larger fields of Wyoming and Montana for 1923.