GONE UP IN SMOKE

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22413, 28 May 1938, Page 19

GONE UP IN SMOKE

Setting Fire to £500,000 Worth of Oil

(SPECIALLY WBXTTEN TOB THE PBBSS.)

[By R. H. LAUNDER.]

IT sounds like a fairy tale,, so I will begin the story with the appropriate words.

hazardous work, the old dry wadi represented for more than two miles a river of oil.

Once upon a time I was instructed to destroy, by burning, about 125,000 tons of crude oil —to send up in smoke about £500,000 worth of liquid gold. In November, 1927, in Iraq, the discovery well on what is now the great Kirkuk oilfield had recently been brought under control. It had blown wild for 10 days. Harnessing the great gusher, throwing out 90,000 barrels of oil a day, was a tremendous task, but that is another story. To understand the reason for the burning of the oil, it is necessary to know something of the position existing in Iraq at that time. The town of Kirkuk is situated about 100 miles north of Bagdad, at the base of the foothills of Kurdistan. It is wild country. Here was located one of the drilling plants searching.for what was the basis of so much post-war political manoeuvring—“Mesopotamian oil,” Six other plants were drilling at the time in different places in King Feisal’s kingdom, and at Kirkuk oil was first struck It must be appreciated that though each bore was scientifically placed to penetrate probable oil beds, no absolute certainty of their exist* ence could be predicted. The operations therefore came under the category known to oil-men as “wildcatting,” and as is usual in such circumstances, no large amount of storage was provided. So, when the drill punctured the underground reservoir the released gas pressure erupted huge quantities of oil which quickly filled the few available tanks, and then lay in ever-growing pools on the ground surrounding the well. This, of course, became a fire menace threatening the lives of men, the gusher itself, and adjacent buildings. To alleviate the danger somewhat, gangs of Kurds and Arabs were recruited to dig drains and a channel to guide the flow into an old dry river bed, or “wadi.” Two Miles of Oil Having directed the oil into the wadi, some attempt at conservation was made. Bunds, or dams, were thrown across from bank to bank, and when the flow at the well-head was controlled after 10 days of

A sidelight, and a most pathetic feature of the time was the manner in which migratory flocks of ducks flying high over the desert wastes mistook our wadi of oil for a stretch of water that offered rest. Down they would come and settle on the fluid. As the oil attached itself to their feathers they became unable to rise again. Then, because of the difference in the specific gravities of oil and water—upon which ducks are designed to float, the miserable birds gradually sank into the oil and were drowned. • *

When all became quiet at Kirkuk, it was discovered that in some winters our wadi became a watercourse carrying rain from the hills of Kurdistan. From arv innocent dry river bed, it could become, we were told, a raging torrent flowing eventually down to the Tigris. It became easy to visualise our dams being broken and our oil being carried down to the great river. Thousands of tons of it floating down to the irrigation channels might ruin the cultivation of the country, and cause the oil company to be mulcted in enormous damages for compensation. Consequently as the engineer in charge of the area, I was instructed to burn the oil.

Bearing in mind that, for technical reasons, the well was being allowed to flow a limited quantity of oil all the time, it will be apparent that it was not simply a matter of setting the wadi on fire and allowing it to burn, for then the flames would speedily travel back to the very place which it was most essential to keep them from reaching. Three pipe lines were laid, each one a mile long, radiating in different directions from the wadi. A battery of boilers was set up to generate steam to drive pumps set at the wadi-side. The oil was then picked up by the pumps and sent through the pipe-lines and, at the points of debouchment, set on fire and consumed in perfect safety. Day and night for nearly a fortnight great billowing clouds of black smoke arose. Over the little desert town they hung in the still air. Resembling the pall of smoke over a dense manufacturing town, they obscured Kirkuk from the blazing desert, sun. When they were eventually dispersed by the winds, the river of oil was no more. Instead was just another desert wadi.