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Alaska’s first major field found in 1957
Compiled by Kay Cashman Petroleum News
The modern oil and natural gas industry in Alaska got its start when Richfield Oil Corp. discovered oil in the Cook Inlet basin near the Swanson River in the Kenai National Moose Range in 1957.
Since that time Richfield has become ConocoPhillips and the moose range is now the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.
And although oil exploration in the state began in 1896 on the Iniskin Peninsula and there was limited production at Katalla, Swanson River was the first commercial discovery in the territory.
In 1957, Richfield was a small California oil company, predecessor to ARCO. W.C. “Bill” Bishop, a Richfield geologist who first started studying Alaska with topographic maps from Saudi Arabia in 1954, is often credited with the discovery.
Political hurdle Before Richfield could drill in the Kenai National Moose Range, the company had to assure Congress that the wildlife refuge would be protected.
The U.S. Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs granted approval in 1956 based on Richfield’s promises to follow government guidelines and clear all development plans with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Richfield made a successful offer for leases on the acreage and formed the Swanson River unit with partners Ohio Oil Co., predecessor to Marathon, and Union Oil of California, predecessor to Unocal, which in 2005 was acquired by Chevron.
Ingenuity conquers challenges In March 1955, Bishop traveled to Alaska to help plot the first well location where Richfield hoped to drill the following year.
He and his seismic crew used a helicopter and a Grumman Widgeon amphibious plane to reach the area.
But the geophones Bishop planned to use to shoot seismic would not deliver adequate information. He had to improvise.
The crew finally got the data it needed by suspending hydrophones in a lake from children’s balloons.
The signal from the hydrophones was weak, but it successfully recorded 33 shot points. Though scant, the data was promising enough to convince Richfield to commit to a wildcat well.
Bishop took the data to headquarters, and over a 10-day period he and Mason Hill, Richfield’s chief geologist, plotted the well location using one seismic line and several aerial photographs.
Venezuela threatened Alaska budget But then Venezuela unexpectedly opened up oil concessions for the first time in 20 years.
“It was a hard battle for me to save enough of that budget for a well in Alaska that would cost some 10 times what a similar well would cost in California,” Bishop said in a 1985 speech.
Bishop argued and won Yet he argued for Alaska and won.
In October 1956, when the ground was hard enough to support bulldozers, construction began on a 23-mile road to the well site.
“We took advantage of the gravel beds the trees grew on,” Bishop told Petroleum News in 1996. “The route zigzagged from tree patch to tree patch. That’s why the road is so crooked.”
Toilet tissue marks trail Because the well site was deep in the forest, Bishop and his crew needed a way to mark the trail for the bulldozers.
They decided to use toilet paper.
At that time helicopters were not used in Alaska in the winter, so Richfield’s foreman used a Super Cub and several cases of toilet paper to lace the treetops along the route with tissue.
“The trick is to unroll several feet, loosely re-roll it and, with a spin, drop it out the window,” Bishop said.
Bishop, his foreman and two local homesteaders then hiked though several feet of new snow to the well location.
The Hemlock zone One of the homesteaders noticed the distinctive red bark of a hemlock tree that was standing at the well location. Bishop later named the producing zone of the well the Hemlock zone.
Big news for Alaska, Richfield Richfield spud Swanson River No. 1 on April 3, 1957. Geologist Ray Arnett sat on the well to analyze drill core samples as the drilling proceeded.
By early July, drilling had reached a depth of more than 10,000 feet. Nearing the predetermined target well depth, Arnett is said to have ordered roughnecks to “drill a few more feet.”
More moose than people The Swanson River prospect was about 20 miles northeast of the tiny settlement of Kenai, population 500. Moose were more plentiful in the area than people.
The only way for Arnett to get drilling news quickly to Bishop in California was to use the existing system of relaying radio messages from town to town, culminating in a telegram from Anchorage.
The radio transmissions were open for anyone in range to hear, so Bishop had given Arnett a secret code to notify him in the event of significant drilling developments.
Arnett sent a momentous 3 a.m. wire July 15 to Bishop at his home in Inglewood, California.
“We are cutting wood,” Arnett transmitted, the well having hit a depth of 11,140 feet.
“Hope you have enough wood to make a short table,” Bishop wired back, telling Arnett to extract a core sample large enough for testing.
The sample was saturated with oil.
On July 19, Swanson River No. 1 tested at 900 barrels a day of crude. The field would later prove to hold nearly 231 million barrels of recoverable oil.
Richfield announced the strike on July 23, sending their stock soaring and making headlines across the nation.
An industry is born The discovery prompted a flurry of activity by numerous other oil companies such as Phillips Petroleum Co., the Ohio Oil Co. (Marathon), Union Oil Co. of California (Unocal, now Chevron), General Petroleum, Mobil, (now ExxonMobil), Standard Oil Co. of California (now Chevron), Shell Oil, Sunray and Texaco (now Chevron).
Richfield then cut a deal with Standard to take a 50 percent interest and become operator of the partnership on the entire Kenai Peninsula.
Alaska holds first CI lease sale In that same year, Alaska conducted its first oil and gas lease sale for tracts on and off-shore the Cook Inlet basin.
Additional wells were drilled in the Swanson River area, and more leases were taken on both sides of Cook Inlet.
Alaska fights to win statehood Alaska’s fight for self- determination is nothing new; in fact, even the quest for statehood set the stage for a bitter fight in Congress, according to former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens.
The threat of filibuster hung over Senate debate on the issue.
“When we got statehood, we went around the rules of the House; we went right to the floor; we had a bill considered and voted on without going through the rules committee. When we went to the Senate, we had to get the Senate to vote on that bill without amendment,” he said.
Alaska statehood had vociferous opponents.
“People like Strom Thurmond held us up for days upon days with amendments, delaying us, but we finally got people to vote them down,” Stevens said.
In effect, senators were challenged to not filibuster the bill, he said.
The statehood strategy took three years to work out, Stevens said.
The Swanson River field convinced Congress that the oil industry could provide the economic basis for statehood and Alaska became the 49th state in 1959.
“Swanson River discovery provided the economic justification,” Stevens said.
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