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Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, Dec. 30,1997
Morgan City played historic role in offshore development
Louisiana first produced oil in 1901, but even before than, St. Mary Parish had the oil fever, according to a 1901 issue of the St. Mary Planter's Banner. In that year, there were at least three oil companies organized within the parish: Franklin Oil Co., Attakapas Oil Co., and Chittimacha Oil Co. The Chittimache company is the only one that actually drilled a well , drilling 1,672 feet near Charenton Beach in 1902 before giving up on the dry hole. Local prospectors also drilled dry holes on Avoca Island in the fall of 1918 and in the spring of 1919.
It's hard to figure how they missed oil, because once the Jeanerette field was finally discovered in 1935. St. Mary Parish became one of the top oil-producing parishes in Louisiana, and the stepping-off point for the earliest development of offshore exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico. In the 1940s, Morgan City claimed nationwide attention as the brithplace of the offshore industry. Wells had already been drilled over inland waters and in the shallow waters of the gulf of Mexico when Magnolia Petroleum Co. began investigating the possibility of drilling into the deeper parts of the Gulf.
Exploration crews were working in the Eugene Island area during 1944, and, by August 1945, Mobil had its seismic result in hand and had submitted a bid on 27 tracts of offshore property, totaling 129,000 acres. Between May and August 1946, plans were completed, men assigned, and equipment rounded up for this first attempt at drilling in deep water out of sight of land. By Aug. 10, a handful of roughnecks and drillers were making last-minute preparations. On Aug. 21, the Magnolia well was spudded at Eugene Island Block 58, five miles off Point-au-Fer.
The men lived on a quaterboat tied up at Eugene Island and plied back and forth on the 10-mile trip to the rig mounted on a wooden platform. They had no pattern to follow for this type of drilling and had to improvise as they went. They drilled to 12,875 feet and came up with a dry hole. The historic operation found no oil but proved that drilling could be done in the offshore Gulf of Mexico. Kerr-McGee Oil Industries picked up on that infomation, and on Nov. 17, 1947, stuck oil in Ship Shoal Field Block 32, the first producing oil well out of sight of land. That began an industry that has since exported offshore men, materiel, and technology around the world.