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Key ARCO geologist Harry Jamison shares Prudhoe Bay discovery credit with Exxon
Steve Quinn For Petroleum News
Prudhoe Bay historians routinely identify H.C. “Harry” Jamison as the central figure for discovering Alaska North Slope oil.
Jamison, then a young geologist with Richfield Oil Co. (predecessor to Atlantic Richfield, or ARCO, and subsequently ConocoPhillips) however, refuses to accept so much credit.
He quickly identifies three people at Humble Oil and Refining Co., a predecessor to what is now Exxon Mobil Corp., as equally key figures.
They are JR Jackson, Dean Morgridge and Ken Fuller, Humble’s team located just across from ARCO’s Los Angeles’ offices.
A meeting among the four was the foundation for a partnership that ultimately led to the first discovery of Prudhoe Bay oil.
The risky venture cost Humble about $4.5 million back in 1964, but the push by these men with three diverse backgrounds has helped Exxon reap billions since.
Still, it wasn’t easy and success wasn’t instant upon securing leases. And it almost ended within a few years of the partnership starting.
Began with a sales pitch It began with Jamison’s sales pitch to these men that helped bring the two companies together.
But Jamison says the deal came down to Jackson, Morgridge and Fuller keeping a steadfast “open mind” despite “sketchy information” that proved to be a turning point in moving forward.
Morgridge was a geologist who was long bullish about the prospects of pursuing oil north rather than focusing on just Cook Inlet to the south.
Jackson served as the office’s exploration manager and is remembered by many 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 when information was sparse.
Three of the most important people “They are what I consider to be three of the most important people in the whole process,” Jamison said.
“They were instrumental not only in our meeting, but furthering the process with the Humble organization with the senior management and the board of directors.”
ARCO was ready to move forward on North Slope development, but it would not come cheap.
The company needed a financial partner and was unsuccessful in courting Chevron, so it turned its attention to Humble.
Humble and Richfield had been successful with several joint ventures in some California oil-rich basins.
So after coming up short with Chevron, ARCO’s chief geologist Mason Hill dispatched Jamison to talk shop with Humble.
“Richfield simply didn’t have the funds available back then,” Jamison said. “Humble seemed like a natural fit.
“In those days, Richfield and Humble had a good relationship at several different levels.
“We all knew each other; there were some friendships that developed and those things develop a confidence back and forth. A mutual trust, I guess you would say.”
Humble still smarting from failed Alaska Peninsula dry hole But Humble was still smarting from a failed effort in the late 1950s that led to a permanent withdrawal from Alaska.
After coming up dry with a well at Bear Creek on the Alaska Peninsula, Humble had had enough.
The company suffered a $7 million setback in what was believed to be one of the most expensive wildcat wells to be drilled at the time.
Still, with other major players eying Alaska’s North Slope, Humble saw that it could be left out of a potentially huge prize.
“Dean was quite knowledgeable about North Slope geology,” Jamison said of Morgridge. “And JR trusted Dean’s judgment.
“He was bullish about Alaska and wanted to get back in after Humble’s disastrous experience; they had a bitter taste from that particular well.
“Dean was one of the people who was able to bring his knowledge and enthusiasm and convince JR this was a viable exploration project.
“That was still the days of paper records. The technical knowledge of Ken Fuller was probably more demanded at that time than it is now.
“Most geologists and certainly management people were not capable of looking at paper records, and really understand how they were put together. Ken was.”
Convincing colleagues whose respect you’ve earned is one thing. Getting them to convince their senior management and board of directors is another.
Few facts, but lots of faith Compared to today’s science, the three men had very little data to haul up the corporate ladder.
But the collective belief in the North Slope seemed to work 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.
“You had to have a lot of imagination and vision in order to put together any kind of picture in your mind from what was a limited amount of information,” Jamison said.
“This was a risky far out proposition for everybody concerned,” he said. “We were real pioneers in that sense. The data were very limited. We didn’t have the well data.
“This was a very sketchy initial approach to exploration in that particular area. Nobody else had been in there to do that kind of work.
“You had to have the knowledge about the North Slope, its overall geology and extrapolate about what might be occurring up there.
“It’s flat and featureless. The only thing you had to go on those days was old-fashioned seismic data before the time of digital.
“We didn’t have the benefit of plate tectonics in those days. It was a pretty primitive type of effort when you look at the 2010 compared to 1964.”
Wells on federal land expensive and dry Success was hardly instant; doubts emerged as expensive wells came up dry in different areas of the North Slope.
The first collective attempt between Humble and Richfield, agreed to in 1964, generated hope that oil would be discovered on federal land.
Drilling the discovery well in 1967 would actually be the industry’s second attempt to discover commercial quantities of oil on the North Slope. At the end of the first attempt, BP and Sinclair, which had drilled in 1965 on federal land in the Colville River region west of Prudhoe Bay, had already closed up shop in Alaska by early 1966.
In their first attempt at finding oil, Richfield and Humble spud a well in 1966, about 60 miles south of Prudhoe Bay in an area near the Sagavanirktok River. Drilling on the Susie Unit No.1 well began in February 1966 and continued until the companies reached 10,000 feet in May.
Work was suspended for several months to avoid damaging the soft tundra. But by January 1967, the two companies had reached 13,500 feet and came up essentially dry. One more try, focus on Prudhoe
That prompted people like Jackson to convince Humble’s senior management and board to focus on Prudhoe Bay, taking another crack at the North Slope.
In the end, they agreed to one last try. Enough money had been spent in areas surrounding Prudhoe Bay, so this could likely have been it for years.
“We had to go to Dallas and they had to go to Houston and make a presentation to Humble’s management,” Jamison said.
“It wouldn’t have been a very politically acceptable solution to back out of it entirely certainly.
“Even a delay of a year or two would not have been a very logical situation, either.
“It was still a sales job, no doubt about that. The rig was there, so it was one more try.”
While doing that others were pushing the state to offer more Prudhoe land, Jamison said.
Jamison says no one was willing to drill a wildcat well without a broader geologic structure was under lease.
“The discovery well was almost in the water,” he said. “That was a big problem: The open acreage to the east offshore.
“You don’t drill a $3 million exploratory hole with maybe 8 or 10 or 12 sections of open land right next to you.”
Richfield and Humble successfully bid for the land, and nearly 12 months after closing down one well, they celebrated Prudhoe Bay’s first discovery.
Jamison may be quick to credit others for the partnership’s success, but he backs his assertions with his own actions and shrewd decisions.
It started with his steadfast belief to pursue North Slope development while other companies still focused on Cook Inlet.
Mull: Jamison a ‘real sparkplug’ “Harry was the real sparkplug,” said Gil Mull, a field geologist who worked for Richfield then Humble.
“He got Richfield involved against some amount of opposition within the company,” Mull said.
“Everybody was saying, ‘What are you doing all the way in northern Alaska when all activity is in Cook Inlet?’
“There is no question he sold the idea of northern Alaska operations to Richfield, then sold the idea to Humble.
Still for all that he’s done, Jamison routinely defers to others, even if they don’t work for the same company.
“I’ve been a proponent of letting people know that effort up there was a team effort and it involved a lot people from both companies,” Jamison said.
“They do deserve credit,” he said. “It’s easy for their names to be passed over or forgotten, but they shouldn’t be.”
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