Goose Creek Oil Field

The Goose Creek Oil Field is a large oil field in Baytown, Texas, on Galveston Bay. Discovered in 1903, and reaching maximum production in 1918 after a series of spectacular gushers, it was one of the fields that contributed to the Texas Oil Boom of the early 20th century. The field was also the location of the first offshore wells in Texas, and the second group of offshore wells in the United States. Consequences of the development of the Goose Creek field included an economic boom and associated influx of workers, the founding and fast growth of Baytown, and the building of the adjacent Baytown Refinery, which is now the 2nd largest oil refinery in the United States with a capacity of 584,000 barrels per day.[1] The field remains active, having produced over 150 Moilbbl of oil in its 100-year history.[2][3]

The Goose Creek field is also the first place where subsidence of overlying terrain was attributed to the removal of oil from underneath.[4] On the Goose Creek field, subsidence has damaged houses, roads, and businesses, and much of the oil field that was on land in the early years of its development is now submerged in Tabbs Bay. Subsidence-induced motion along faults on the field also caused the only earthquake of local origin ever felt in the Houston area.[5]

Setting

The Goose Creek field is located along the northern shoreline of Tabbs Bay, an arm of Galveston Bay, at the point where Goose Creek exits to the sea. It is directly south of the city of Baytown, and about 25 mi east of downtown Houston. Elevations on the field range from approximately 30 ft at the highest well locations next to developed parts of Baytown, on the north side of the field, to submerged and partially submerged areas within Tabbs Bay itself. Much of the field is close to sea level. The total productive area of the field, including the submerged portion, is approximately 3470 acre.[6]

Alexander Drive, a spur of Texas State Highway 146, runs through the field. West of Goose Creek it rejoins Highway 146 to go over Tabbs Bay on the Fred Hartman Bridge.

Geology

The oil field is an accumulation of petroleum in sediment overlying a deep salt dome, one of several such fields in the Gulf of Mexico region. It was the first oil field to be found in a deep rather than a shallow salt dome, and its discovery led to the search for others like it; the finds that resulted were some of the largest oil fields in the United States.[1] The sedimentary layers over the dome are themselves arched into a shape conforming to the underlying dome, so the structure forms a perfect trap for hydrocarbons which would otherwise migrate to the surface. The field contains 30 separate pools or producing horizons, ranging in depth from 800 to 4500 ft.[7] The oil-bearing strata under the salt dome consist of porous sands with some interspersed clay.[8]

The Goose Creek field is the first place where subsidence of the land over the oil field was definitively attributed to the extraction of petroleum. Subsidence over the Goose Creek field is well documented and particularly dramatic; parts of the field which were once above-water are now wholly or partially submerged, and the area of subsidence almost exactly conforms to the boundary of the productive region. The connection between extraction and subsidence was first recognized by geologists Wallace Everette Pratt and D.W. Johnson, who published their findings in a 1926 paper.

History, operations, and production

Bubbles of methane gas coming up in the shallow water along the shoreline of Galveston Bay alerted early prospectors in 1903 to the possibility of an oil field in the area. The first attempts to develop the field followed shortly, but none of the wells produced economic quantities of oil; indeed it was not until 1908 that oil was found at all, and the Producers Oil Company drilled 20 separate times in a failed attempt to create a well that flowed sufficiently to turn a profit. The American Petroleum Company had better luck, and their 8000 oilbbl-per-day gusher on August 23, 1916 brought in the field. The subsequent fast influx of workers and equipment engendered a pair of boomtowns – Pelly and Goose Creek – adjacent to the field. In 1917 Ross S. Sterling, president of Humble Oil Company, chose to build a refinery on vacant land just northwest of the oil field, reorganizing his firm as the Humble Oil and Refining Company in order to accomplish the task. Humble Oil would go on to become Exxon, and the Baytown Refinery would eventually become the largest refinery in the United States. In addition, in 1919 Sterling arranged for the construction of Baytown on land adjacent to his new refinery.[11]

High oil prices also fueled the field's fast development. The First World War had caused a run-up in the price, which reached $1.35 per barrel by 1917. During that year the average well was producing over 1000 oilbbl/d, and the biggest gusher also occurred during 1917 – a well drilled by the Simms-Sinclair Company which spewed 35000 oilbbl/d, remaining out of control for several days.

Further reading