Richfield persuaded to explore

Petroleum News Alaska Staff

Richfield Oil Co., predecessor to ARCO, almost passed up the opportunity to extensively explore the North Slope.

In 1963, Richfield had sent a geological field party to the Arctic. Geologists Garnett Pessel and Gil Mull were sent to the banks of the Sagavanirktok River to build on the data in USGS reports. After exploring the area, Pessel wrote a letter to Ben Ryan, the exploration superintendent, describing an outcrop he had seen on the banks of the Sagavanirktok.

At a banquet held by Dr. Gene Rutledge in 1988, Charlie Selman recalled the events leading to the decision to further explore the North Slope: “It was Cretaceous sand that just crumbled in your hand,” said Selman, then division geophysicist for Richfield. “He (Pessel) got all excited and wrote, ‘If we can’t find an oil field in something like this I give up.’” Selman added to Pessel’s letter recommending Richfield send a seismic crew up north. Ryan attached a cover letter to Pessel’s and Selman’s recommendation and sent it to Harry Jamison, Richfield’s Alaska manager in Los Angeles.

Richfield’s exploration manager, Mason Hill, was reluctant to allocate funds to the North Slope. Jamison then went to Richfield’s vice president of exploration and production, Bill Travers. “As luck would have it,” said Selman, “a drilling operation had been canceled somewhere else so Travers gave Jamison the funds to put a seismic crew on the North Slope.

“Katalla to Prudhoe Bay,” published in 1998 by Petroleum News Alaska