Oil Production

Ray H. Collins, Oklahoma oil operator who two months ago bravely set forth to persuade other case-hardened oil operators of his state to pinch down their oil production and thus conserve their underground pools for the future (TIME, May 23), last week gave up. He ceased arguing and appealed to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission to invent some sort of rule to restrain the present overabundant production. There does exist an old Oklahoma law that may apply to the situation. But lawyers doubt its constitutionality. Meanwhile, Shell Union Oil Co., after spending $100,000 to drill a well down 6,000 feet near Marshall, Logan County, Okla., had just tapped an oil level new to Oklahoma. Theirs is the deepest paying well there, producing 3,600 barrels of crude oil daily.* The nearby Seminole area of Oklahoma with more than 550 wells last week established a new record for one day's output--444,000 barrels. This, however, was just one half of what the whole state averaged for the day. This production, considered with the 2,530,850 barrels produced on the average each day in the U. S., goes far in explaining why oil prices have declined 46% within nine months. Last October the price approximated $2.60 a barrel; last week it approached $1.40.

*Six years ago several mile-deep wells were opened near Los Angeles. Last week the General Petroleum Co. completed another in the neighborhood and thereby tapped a new oil level.