ExxonMobil in Alaska: Jamison shares credit with Exxon

Prudhoe Bay historians routinely identify H.C. “Harry” Jamison as the central figure for discovering the Prudhoe Bay oil field.

Jamison, in the 1960s a young geologist with Richfield Oil, however, quickly identifies three people at Humble Oil, then controlled by Exxon but today part of it, as equally key figures in the discovery. They are JR Jackson, Dean Morgridge and Ken Fuller, Humble’s Alaska team, which was located just across from ARCO’s Los Angeles’ offices.

It began with Jamison’s sales pitch to these men that helped bring the two companies together.

Morgridge was a geologist who had long been bullish about the prospects of pursuing oil north rather than focusing on Cook Inlet to the south.

Jackson served as the office’s exploration manager and is remembered for working with Humble’s senior management and board in the company’s North Slope pursuits.

Fuller was a geophysicist who brought depth to the technical discussions because information was sparse.

In addition to being short on geologic data, the North Slope was a tough sell to Humble’s top management because they were still smarting over Humble’s dry hole at Bear Creek on the Alaska Peninsula — a well that cost $7 million, at the time one of the most expensive wildcat wells in history.

“Dean was quite knowledgeable about North Slope geology,” Jamison said of Morgridge. “And JR trusted Dean’s judgment.

Compared to today three men had very little data to haul up the corporate ladder.

“This was a risky, far out proposition for everybody concerned,” Jamison said. “Most geologists and certainly management people were not capable of looking at paper records, and really understanding how they were put together. Ken was.”

Their collective belief in the North Slope worked and by 1964, Humble had half of Richfield’s interest in the North Slope — half the lease interests, half the geologic data, half the equipment. Half of everything.

—Steve Quinn