Natural gas produced and consumed and portion treated for extraction of natural-gas gasoline, 1911-1923

Large quantities of gas both before and after the extraction of gasoline were blown in the air or unaccounted for.

Quantities of natural gas were piped from other States, treated for gasoline extraction, and residue gas returned to State in which produced.

Includes 9 million cubic feet consumed in Mexico.

Natural gas was treated for gasoline extraction and consumed in other States.

PETROLEUM

By G. B. RICHARDSON 1

INTRODUCTION

All records for the output of crude petroleum in the United States were broken in 1923 by the production of 732,407,000 barrels, representing almost 72 per cent of the world's output, which for the first time exceeded 1,000,000,000 barrels. This is an increase of 31 per cent over the previous high record for the United States, attained in 1922, and may mark the peak of production for this country.

The great production of petroleum in 1923 was due to the flush output from a number of highly productive new fields in California, Arkansas, Texas, and Oklahoma, marking the culmination of the discovery during the last six years of more than a score of extraordinarily large pools, among which are the Elk Hills, Santa Fe Springs, Long Beach, and Huntington Beach, in California; the West Columbia, Hull, Ranger, Burkburnett, Mexia, and Powell, in Texas; the Hewitt, Beggs, Bristow, Burbank, and Tonkawa, in Oklahoma; the Homer and Haynesville, in Louisiana; the Eldorado-Towanda, in Kansas; and the El Dorado and Smackover, in Arkansas. There was also an increased output in the Salt Creek field, in Wyoming. The domestic production was augmented by imports of crude oil amounting to 82,015,000 barrels, which, although 45,000,000 barrels less than was imported in 1922, brought the new supply of crude petroleum for this country during the year to the record total of 814,422,000 barrels. Consumption continued to increase but did not keep pace with the new supply, and in 1923, for the first time since 1914, the sum of indicated deliveries to consumers and exports of crude oil (which amounted to 731,701,000 barrels) was less than the domestic production. As a result of the year's operations, pipe-line, tankfarm, and producers' stocks of crude petroleum increased 82,721,000 barrels and on December 31, 1923, amounted to 344,624,000 barrels, a quantity sufficient, at the average daily rate for 1923 of deliveries to domestic consumers and exports, for 172 days. This unprecedentedly large quantity of petroleum in storage did not include stocks held by consumers, of which only the stocks held at refineries are known; these on December 31, 1923, amounted to 33,000,000 barrels of crude oil, and in addition the refiners held 75,000,000 barrels of liquid refined products. This condition of oversupply was reflected in general low prices, and at the end of the year the price of Mid-Continent crude oil had declined to the low level reached during the period of postwar deflation in 1921. The average price of all grades of crude oil at the wells, $1.34 a barrel, was the lowest since 1916. Despite

1 The tables in this report have been prepared, unless otherwise indicated, by Misses A. B. Coons, M. N. Schellenger, A. L. Clapp, and C. M. Shanner, of the U. S. Geological Survey.

FIGURE 16.-Crude petroleum produced, imported, exported, and delivered to consumers in the United

States, 1909-1923.

the overproduction, more than 24,000 wells were drilled for oil and gas during the year. On December 31, 1923, there were approximately 290,100 producing oil wells in the United States, and the average daily production per well was 6.6 barrels.

Condensed summary of statistics of crude petroleum, 1919–1923

[Thousands of barrels of 42 U. S. gallons]

• Pipe-line, tank-farm, and producers' stocks of domestic petroleum and stocks of foreign petroleum

held in the United States by importers.

$2.01

$3.07

$1.73

$1.61

$1.34

• Department of Labor.