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Show COMMISSIOXER INDIAX AFFAIRS. 31 months except that positively necessary to protect the lines or to pre-vent forfeiture of a lease. There are prospects that oil and gas in paying quantities will yet be discovered on the Shoshone Reservation in Wyoming and the Quinaielt Reservation in Washington. Several leases have been ap-proved covering Quinaielt lands aggregating about 16,000 acres, and the lessees are active in their preparations to begin work. On ac-count of the very rough character of country and its inaccessibility, development work in this section will be extremely expensive. PREVENTION OF WASTE. Special efforts have been made to reduce to a minimum the waste incident to drilling for and producing oil and gas on Indian lands in Oklahoma, and this office has had the valuable and hearty cooper-ation of the Bureau of Mines in this important work. The task has not been an easy one. We have had to combat ignorance and preju-dice, and although the results have not been all that could be desired, we are encouraged to believe that there has been some improvement and that oil men are being awakened to the seriousness of conditions. Waste of oil and natural gas has been particularly noticeable when a new field has been discovered with a production far in excess of expectations, such as the Cushing and the Healdton fields, in Okla-homa, and has been caused by a lack of facilities to care for the production and to the eagerness of each lease owner to get his share. When an oil well of good capacity is discovered in a hitherto nn-proven field, great activity in drilling immediately follows, and many wells are drilled and a large quantity of oil brought to the d a c e before pipe-line companies have extended their lines into the territory or tanks can be constructed in which to store the production. The rasult has been that hurriedly constructed open earthen tanks must be utilized with the consequent waste due to evaporation and seepage. It has happened in some cases that the oil has gotten away entirely and been permitted to flow down the streams. It is said that probably 50,000 barrels of oil were lost in the Healdton field in this manner. Another source of waste, particularly of natural gas, is that found. in connection with drilling operations. As a general rule, operators are not interested in finding gas. They want oil, for which there is a ready market and from which they can derive a greater and quicker income. Thus, when the seeker for oil-particularly when there is a probability of finding oil by drilling to a su5cient depth-has encountered a stratum of gas in his &lling, the practice of some has been to permit this gas to "blow off" or escape into the air and continue drilling for oil. Many million cubic feet of natural gas have been wantonly wasted in this manner in the Cnshing field. |
