Anderson wows crowd with oil drilling history

Tom Anderson has spent his entire life studying geology: he opened his presentation Saturday by noting that while doing ranch work, his partners often notice how much time he spends looking at rocks and other geological formations.

Anderson, whose family has been homesteading in Hot Springs County since the 1890's and currently works the Russell Ranch, has had a lifelong interest in not only geology but also oil and gas. His first job was sitting on a sled being pulled behind a pickup truck along a pipeline looking for leaks.

After studying geology at the University of Wyoming, Anderson became a petroleum geologist and spent his career working in the oil and gas industry. With this background, Anderson wowed the dozens of locals that filled the Hot Springs County Museum to hear his presentation about the history of oil and gas production in his native county.

Anderson began his presentation by noting that Hot Springs County is unique for many reasons, but primarily because two locations within 20 miles of one another have some of the oldest and youngest geological formations in the entire country. He also noted that the Big Horn Basin has been below sea level seven different times in the last 550 million years, a fact almost unfathomable to most current residents.

Launching into his presentation about oil and gas, Anderson noted that there have been over 100,000 oil wells in Wyoming since the 1920's, when production was able to increase due to technological advances in both finding and drilling wells.

The Big Horn Basin is home to over 10 percent of Wyoming's total wells, with 12,000 in the area alone. According to Anderson, the Big Horn Basin has produced 2.5 billion barrels of oil, while 6.5 billion barrels have been produced throughout the state. With this noted, Anderson revealed that the Big Horn Basin is the largest producing basin in the Rocky Mountains. The average depth of the wells in the basin is 500 feet, while the average production in 750,000 barrels per well.

The first oil in Wyoming was found in the Lander Anticline in the 1890's, which kicked off what would become a legendary production over the next century. Shortly thereafter, Marathon (then the Ohio Company) started drilling in Garland in 1905, the Oregon Basin in 1914, and then Grass Creek, also in 1914.

Extensive drilling in the Big Horn Basin started during the Second World War, when refineries were built in Greybull, Cody and Thermopolis. This allowed for much faster production during a great time of need. According to Anderson, the Thermopolis refinery allowed for prolific drilling and producing in the area.

Shortly thereafter, the Gebo wells were drilled after being the first ever deposits to be found with land-based vibratory seismic technology, which would become the staple method for oil exploration.

Although production has slowed as of late, Anderson concluded his talk by noting that only 30 percent of all oil from the Big Horn Basin had been discovered and drilled. In the past, the difficulty of transport throughout the region and the heavy, asphalt-based oil made the local markets secondary for most producers. However, Anderson said that he is, "Very excited for the Big Horn Basin and the United States," in the future, noting that new land does not have to be disturbed to maintain oil production.

Anderson ended his presentation with a quote from Exxon founder Wallace Pratt. "Oil is found first in the minds of men," he stated, which Anderson then interpreted to mean that in order to drill and produce oil, people have to be motivated to do so. It is clear, there is still extensive production that can be undertaken in this region if someone is interested in doing so.