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Show L. jr 4 I t 9or WetoS etf fiitet Significance in The Oil andI Vol. 28; No. 31 s' Salt Lake City, Utah, Friday, October 4, 1957 x: SB Shell Oil Presses Request Commission Ends C For More Aneth Locations Oral Hearings u That the big Aneth Pool in San Mann of Brigham City, during Juan County, Utah, contains 182 oil ratio was placed at 700 cubic million barrels of oil has been feet produced in gas to each bardisclosed by the Shell Oil Co. ren of oil extracted from the Oilmen say that with secondary reservoir. Commission member Walter G. recovery procedures, from 50 per cent to nearly 100 per cent again cross examination of Shell witas much oil might be recovered. nesses, stated that to space wells basis would result According to Shell Oil Co. ex- on an perts testimony before the Utah in oils being left in the ground, Oil - Gas Conservation Commis- never to be recovered. sion, the field might produce over Mr. Mann had asked what inthe years as high as 365 million terest the state of Utah had in barrels of gravity crude the spacing plan. The state has oil. e tract in Aneth pool on a The testimony came during a re. which Shell is now conducting a sumption of hearings by the com- development program. mission on the proposal of the It was this firms proposal to Texas Co. and others to restrict drill the school section on a spacing to one well on each basis, which led to the prestract. Texaco, in its earlier ent hearing, according to Edward pleadings, said that Aneth, which G. Clyde, commission member. it discovered, contained some 152 The Shell witnesses stated that million barrels of primary recov- there were some portions of the erable reserves. unrelated oil zones which would Shell is joined in its opposition be overlooked iii spacing, to the tract proposal by but which would be tapped if Gulf Oil Corp. and Standard Oil sinking of wells were scheduled Company of California, which has on a smaller pattern. fringe interests at Aneth at this Under the Texaco program, time. some 380 wells would ultimately Continental Oil Co., Carter Oil be drilled at the San Juan CounCo. and several other firms sup- ty pool, as far as limits are now spac- known. port the proposal for ing. More than 760 wells eventually On the stand for Shell Thursday will be sunk at the pool on the were ,tratigrapherDonald Con: basis of the .Shell, plan. ners ot Salt Lake City and C. H. Kepplinger, of Tulsa, Okla. Mr. Kepplinger testified that the Aneth pay zone was not reef but layer type deposition, whereas Texaco experts contended it was a low reef. Shell contends that the field is Standard Oil Company of Calnot homogeneous as to connection of oil producing strata, where- ifornia has temporarily suspended as Texaco claims that in general operations at its Johnson Creek, San Juan County, wildcat which it is. found oil in the Paradox formathe in Companies operating field could expect to get primary tion, it recently Eugene Sanders, Denver, presirecovery of 240,000 barrels of oil tracts or at 6,000 bar- dent of Four Comers Uranium by rels of prime crude on each pro- Corp., said Standard had informed ductive acre. This equals a total him it planned a second well loof 480,000 barrels from each cated higher on the structure in tract. .Texaco experts con- an area of better porosity. Four Corners and Outwest Uratended recovery was only 400,000 tract. nium barrels for such a Corp., also of Denver, share of a 50 per cent interest in the venOn porosity and permability ture. two the productive section, the Total depth of the wildcat is companies were relatively close together with a reservoir rock 6,044 feet. Mr. Sanders said Stanporosity of 13 per cent and a dard would locate for the second permability of 11 millidarcies. Gas well within four weeks. 80-acr- e 40-pl- 640-acr- Utah Oil and Gas Conservation Commission completed oral hearings this week on the petition of American eMtal Co., Ltd., and Frontier Refining Co. to extend to the south part of Bar-- gas field irregular spacing of drilling units of less than 640 acres. Some four more wells would be put down in the gas area by the firms. Written briefs will be received during the next 20 days on the proposal. There was no disclosure of reserves in the area by the operators, and the commission has made no request for such an estimate. X From New Mexico 40-ac- re 80-ac- re 80-acr- 80-ac- ( re . . engineer-- consultant Standard Closes Well Operations - was-announce- re 80-ac- re "US Will Be First" Man-Ma- Plutonium Fuel . IDAHO FALLS, Idaho An Atomic Energy Commission disclosed Wednesday that the United States soon will. become the first nation to fuel a of-fic- al large nuclear reactor with plutonium. is the man-mad- e atomic explosive used in most U.S. nuclear weapons. This country has billions of dollars worth of it in its atomic stockpiles produced in mamoth plants at Hanford, Washington., and Savannah River, S. C. The metal is a fissionable one, Plutonium like uranium 235, but more reactive and efficient. Because it is a deadly poison and thus hard to a of 9,000 barrels Oil at iii. a day will soon commence flowing transmission through the h line of the Four Corners Pipe Line Corp. W. L. Hobro, a special representative of Shell Oil Co. at Los Angeles, confirmed that the line in which Shell holds important interests would be operative by area on the West Coast, had been jumped on additional 10,000 bar rels daily to 70,000 barrels a day. This he said was accomplished by pump arrangement. The line, through addition of other pumping capacity, has a potential maximum traffic of from 160,000 to 170,000 barrels of oil per day, Mr. Hobro added. about s About of all the He also noted that initial capacrude planned initially for this city of the line, which for the line will come from fields in the first time in history will place Utah of the Paradox Basegment crude oil from the Intermountain sin, he said: Mr. Hobro is a representative of S. F. Bowlby, vice president of Shells western operations at Los 16-inc- mid-Octobe- r. two-third- The output also is starting from Industrial Uranium Co., a Salt Lake City company has announc- the Starlight ore body. The firm ed it is putting its stock on a $5 has two other ore reserves from which mining has not as yet been a share annual dividend basis. ' carried out. About 65 Navajo InThe company, which has .some dian miners are employed. 27,000 shares outstanding in the hands of 30 stockholders, also Mr. Harding said that since inacted to pay an initial dividend ception of mining operations, for the period Jan. 1 through June some 32,492 tons of ore had been 30, 1957r equal to $2,5Qa.share.' produced from "Robert M. Schubach, president, gross value was placed at $997,772. said directors also placed the In that period, the Navajo Tristock on a $125 a share quarterly bal Council at Window Rock, dividend basis, or $5 annually. He Ariz., has been paid $111,200 in reported net income for the first royalties from production on trihalf of 1957 at $178,200, equal to bal leases by Industrial. $6.60 a share. This is after explorA single Indian permitee, Seth ation costs of $3.10 a share. Bigman, has received $24,036 since Robert G. Harding, commencement of mining. and exploration manager, reMr. Harding said that exploraported that production is now is continuing on several prostion tons running at the rate of 4,000 mine pects for new ore reserves. The monthly from the Moonlight in Monument Valley district just firm places its reserves at around 500,000 tons of ore. below the Utah border. he vice-presid- ent New Well Opened In White Mesa two-mil- half-hou- de t s Leaders PI af Grant Line Industrial Uranium Puts Dividend On Its Stock of $S a Share A new oil well has been brought in by Continental Oil in the White Mesa field in the four corners area of southeastern Utah. The e extension new well is a the field. of r Report on the well on a of flow test a was stem drill 1,200 barrels a day. The new well, on Navajo Indian Reservation land, is the Navajo A No. 10, San Juan County. It is two miles west of the nearest producsome manage, however, engineers had ing well in the field, and is south of 30 miles Blanding. been unable to perfect means of furnaces. to atomic fuel it using Revelation that plutonium may now be ready to take its place gineering test reactor at the AECs among the worlds power resour- reactor testing station near Idaho ces was made in a speech here Falls. by Louis H. Roddis Jr. deputy director of the AEC reactor deThe new reactor, in which mavelopment division. terials and equipment are tested Roddis said the AEC is planning to see how they stand up under to use plutonium as fuel in a radiation, will speed development materials testing reactor (MTR) of atomic aircraft and ships, the which started running in 1952. AEC said. He said the MTR would become The new reactor, most powerful the first large reactor to operate of its kind in the world, will entirely on plutonium fuel. deceremonies Roddis spoke at operate side by side with the maenterials testing reactor. dicating the new $17,200,000 U.S. Disclosed First to Run Reactor With uiuiiicdtihu Liohih i e 80-ac- re 40-ac- World Angeles. When asked how Four Comers can put crude oil in a pipe line thats not completed, the oilman it is said it was quite simple filled in sections. And as the line Jtself will contain by volume some. 1,060,000 barrels of oil, it has to be filled as it is built. Otherwise, delays would result in bringing production to the fore from Utah fields or tremendous storage would be required. Deliveries will start this month on the limited scale, with .completitionof the line planned ahead of schedule next February. An original plan to transport the crude to an Arizona railhead bisecting the line's route and then place it on tank cars for the refineries in the Los Angeles area has now been discarded. The 70,000 barrels a day of crude is expected to find a place in the Los Angeles district as a result of recently expanded capacity in that area and a reduction of some degree of foreign crude. pipe-fillin- g AEC to Buy Phillips Concentrates Grand .Junction, Colo. The Ambrosia Lake ores. The Phillips mity ? will be the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission and Phillips Petroleum company, sixth uranium processing plant signed a contract for the sale of to be located in New Mexico to uranium concentrates to the Com- treat ores produced in that state. The site of the new mill is In mission. The contract will result in the construction and operation McKinley county, about 25 miles by Phillips of a new uranium north of the town of Grants. Ores processing mill in McKinley coun. treated in the plant will include ty, New Mexico, having a capa- ores from properties owned or city of about 1,725 tons of urani- controlled by Phillips, as well as um ore per day. It it the fourth a certain amount of Amenable milling contract signed for Am- ore purchased from independent brosia Lake ores. mine operators of the area. Phillips began exploration activities in the Ambrosia Lake area in 1955 and by early 1956 had blocked out a sufficient ore supply to interest the company. in proposing a mill operation. At that time the commission was advised by the company if its interest in submitting a proposal for a milling operation. Preliminary talks were commenced in August 1956. and a formal proposal submitted to the Commission in Feb. 1957. Construction of the new mill is expected to commence soon with completion scheduled about mid-1958. It is estimated that the plant will cost approximately $9,500,000. This is the fourth contract entered into in recent months involving construction of a mill to treat Kerr McGee Known Ore Body Growing ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. Tonnage of over 7 Vi million tons of proven ore is now estimated on the Kerr- - McGee Ambrosia ore the Kerr McGee operation on Ambrosia Sec. 22, the considered Lake, which is area says largest ore body in the The Oil News. Operations on the shaft have been recommended following a labor interuption and it is anticipated the shaft will be bottomed toward the end of October. The mine will be in production before the end of the year. T-14- n., R-lO- w, |