Question about oil drilling in the old days:

[speeder]

I'm watching one of my favorite films, "There Will Be Blood," and a question occurred to me; when these early wildcats struck a gusher and oil shot out of the ground for hundreds of feet in the air, how would they cap it off or catch the oil? I mean, I know that it was an indication of large oil reserves under ground but that detail has always bothered me.

[sc_rufctr]

I don't know for sure but... They just let the oil run until the pressure had subsided and then cleaned up the mess as best they could. There would have been large lakes of oil surrounding the drill site.

How much government over site was there at the time? I'm guessing almost none.

[oldE]

Don't forget, in the early days of the petroleum industry, gasoline was a by-product and was released into the water courses to be carried away.
Not so much oversight. Not so much understanding.

Best
Les

[masraum]

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

I don't know for sure but... They just let the oil run until the pressure had subsided and then cleaned up the mess as best they could. There would have been large lakes of oil surrounding the drill site.

How much government over site was there at the time? I'm guessing almost none.

That was my understanding too.

I understood that there was natural gas that was in the "cavity" with the oil and the natural gas was what was acting like a propellant, and they had to wait for the natural gas to vent. Then the gusher would stop and they could deal with it. But I have no idea where I got that idea.

[masraum]

And here you are, a long article about gushers/blow-outs, etc...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowout_(well_drilling)

[masraum]

Wow
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakeview_Gusher

The Lakeview Gusher was an eruption of hydrocarbons from a pressurized oil well in the Midway-Sunset Oil Field in Kern County, California, in 1910. Caused by a blowout, it created the largest accidental oil spill in history, lasting 18 months and releasing an estimated 9 million barrels (1.4×106 m3) of crude oil.[1]

The initial daily flow was 18,800 barrels (2,990 m3), creating a river of crude that crews rushed to contain with improvised sand bag dams and dikes. Peak flow reached 90,000 barrels (14,000 m3) per day, diverted via a pipeline to storage tanks 2.5 miles (4.0 km) away, where an 8-inch (200 mm) line led to Port Avila on the coast.[2] In total, 378 million gallons of oil was released, and about 40% was captured. This surplus dropped the price to 30 cents a barrel, about half of what it was prior to the blowout. No fire or dangerous flooding resulted from this spill.

[masraum]

about how they were stopped

https://aoghs.org/technology/end-of-gushers/

[Bob Kontak]

Originally Posted by masraum

I understood that there was natural gas that was in the "cavity"

Factoids: The petroleum engineers call it the gas cap. Looking down (using a map) onto the formation the gas cap would be more towards the center so you could see the oil around the edges (deeper and larger than the gas cap) and they called it the oil rim.

[GH85Carrera]

Not sure about the mechanism to stop a gusher. Oklahoma had a lot of them. My old boss was a wildcatter in the 20s and 30s. He said when an oil well was not producing enough, they would pull the casing, and dig down 10 feet, throw a couple of burlap sacks down, and dump a yard of concrete on top, and cover it up, and try hard to lose all the paperwork.

There is a housing edition now in what was the West Edmond oil field. We had aerial photos of the area in 1947 and 1952 and it was covered in oil derricks. Bring in a new image and lay it on top and there are very expensive houses there. One lady turned on her garbage disposal, and her kitchen exploded. The corporation commission is in charge of all wells and they used some of our photos to investigate. The builder had noticed the evidence of the well, but just built over it.

https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=WE013

Now that neighborhood loks very nice, and all the wells are properly capped. There are still some wells pumping oil in that field.