"Mr. Gus"

Some 500 curious oilmen gathered at Bethlehem Steel's Beaumont, Texas shipyard last week for the christening of an odd contraption called "Mr. Gus." Built at a cost of $3,500,000, the rig is a monster (4,000 tons) barge for drilling oil wells in the deep water of the Gulf of Mexico. It can operate in 100 ft. of water (v. 40 ft. for most other rigs), will triple the area that can be explored on the continental shelf off Texas and Louisiana. Mr. Gus was bought by (and named for) C. G. ("Gus") Glasscock, 58. a onetime high-wire acrobat and wildcatter who now owns eight drilling barges for lease. The small fleet's new flagship is being towed to a point off San Luis Pass below Galveston to sink its first test well (in 40 ft. of water) for Shell Oil. which has a 16-month lease on the craft.

Mr. Gus is 106 ft. long and So ft. wide, with twin decks, which are joined by big, vertical steel tubes that are driven into the sea floor by hydraulic jacks. The upper deck rides 50 ft. above the water and supports the drill rig; the lower platform is flooded and slides down the tubes to squat on the bottom for better anchorage. To move to another site, the lower deck is pumped out and refloated, and the "legs" are pulled back up. The main barge is connected to another, slightly smaller service barge with engine rooms, crew's quarters, helicopter platform, etc.. by a narrow steel gangway. Thus, say oilmen, Mr. Gus should be even more seaworthy than Humble Oil's big, new. single-deck Delong-McDermott barge (TIME. June 21). Bethlehem figures if the offshore producing area that is believed to lie within the 100-ft. depths is to be fully drilled in the next 25 years. 100 more rigs like Mr. Gus will be needed.

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