No Roughneck Himself, The New UK PM Chooses Moratorium
- Former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss removed the 2019 fracking moratorium in the UK.
- Two days ago, new PM Rishi Sunak reinstated the moratorium.
- The UK instituted it following opposition from environmental groups and local communities.
The problem with history is that no one knows it anymore.
Not the people at the top. Especially the people at the top.
And it’s a crying shame.
The UK Watermelons (eco green on the outside, commie red on the inside) celebrate the new Prime Minister’s decision to reinstate the fracking moratorium.
To his credit, just last week PM Rishi Sunak voted against an outright ban in the UK.
But then, he chose to hide behind the Tory Manifesto so he could reverse former PM Liz Truss’s overturning of the moratorium.
Quick note: British political parties publish their manifestos before a General Election. It contains the policies the party stands for and would implement if elected to govern.
Truss knew that Britain’s energy reserves were in a dire state, so she reversed the ban to help increase the natural gas supply.
It’s a shame, really.
If Prime Minister Sunak knew his history, perhaps he would’ve behaved differently.
Most people think Americans stationed in Europe were, as the British liked to say, “overpaid, overfed, oversexed, and… over here!”
Of course, most more than pulled their weight.
But some were worth their weight in black gold.
Let me tell you a little story…
The Unsinkable Tanker
In 1942, U-boat attacks and the bombing of dockside storage facilities had brought the Admiralty to its knees.
Rommel’s North African campaign threatened the UK’s access to Middle East oilfield sources.
The UK’s main fuel supplies came Trinidad and America, the ships relentlessly attacked by Nazi submarines.
The British oil supply outlook wasn’t just grim, it was 2 million barrels below its minimum safety reserves.
Much to the surprise of the UK government, England possessed a productive oilfield, first discovered in 1939 by D’Arcy Exploration.
The company was a subsidiary of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which was a predecessor to British Petroleum, BP.
The English oilfield was in – of all places – Sherwood Forest.
The oilfield produced modestly from 50 shallow wells.
England lacked the equipment and expertise for rapid drilling, even in shallow fields.
A secret mission was formed to get American assistance for expanding production in the Forest, which the British now thought of as an “unsinkable tanker.”
After a long trip to America, the British secured the assistance they needed from America.
America to the Rescue
Noble Drilling joined with Fain-Porter Drilling on a one-year contract to drill 100 new wells in the Eakring field.
Lloyd Noble and Frank M. Porter volunteered their companies to execute the contract for cost and expenses only. The Petroleum Administration for War (PAW) approved the deal, and a contract was signed in early February 1943.
From the American Oil & Gas Historical Society:
On March 12, 1943, a team of 42 newly recruited Noble and Fain-Porter drillers, derrick hands, motormen, and other roughnecks embarked on the converted troopship HMS Queen Elizabeth.
Four drilling rigs for “The English Project” would be transported to England on four different ships.
The sudden influx of Americans from Oklahoma was rumored to be for making a movie, probably a western. It was said that John Wayne would soon arrive.
Four crews worked 12-hour tours with “National 50” rigs equipped with 87-foot jackknife masts.
The roughnecks amazed their British counterparts with their drilling speed in the field, which had been producing oil from about 7,465 feet since the 1930s.
Using innovative methods, the Americans drilled an average of one well per week in Dukes Wood, while the British took at least five weeks per well. The British crews had made it a practice to change bits at 30-foot intervals. The Americans kept using the same bit as long as it was “making hole.”
By August, the Yanks of Sherwood Forest had completed 36 new wells, despite the challenges of wartime rationing of fuel, food, and other shortages.
By January of 1944, the American oilmen were credited with 94 completions and 76 producing oil wells. But not without cost. While working Rig No. 148, derrick hand Herman Douthit was killed when he fell from a drilling mast. Douthit was buried with full military honors at the Cambridge American Cemetery.
The English Project contract was completed in March 1944 with the Americans logging 106 completions and 94 producers. England’s oil production had shot from 300 barrels of oil a day to more than 3,000 barrels of oil a day.
Without fanfare, the roughnecks returned to the United States in 1944.
By the end of the war, more than 3.5 million barrels of crude oil was pumped from England’s “unsinkable tanker” oilfields.
British Petroleum produced crude from the forest until the field’s depletion in 1965.
What an amazing, innovative, and successful endeavor!
Wrap Up
If only the UK thought that way today.
Instead, we get promises and platitudes from those who know nothing about energy.
And here’s a real knee slapper: The UK government has set an ambition of 24GW of nuclear capacity by 2050 as part of its new energy security strategy.
This would represent about a quarter of the UK’s electricity needs.
Quick question: With whose fuel?
The fuel market will need to come before the facility.
My take: It’s just absurd how they don’t want to frack, but they are going to build all these nuclear plants, even though most of the fuel comes from – you guessed it – Russia.
So, is the UK still going to rely on Russia?
Food for thought.
In the meantime, let’s raise a glass to the brave men from Oklahoma who built Britain’s Unsinkable Tanker.
Kind regards,
Freedom Financial News
