Editorial Comment
August 1999 Vol. 220 No. 8 Editorial Thomas R. Wright, Jr., Editorial Director In perspective As the U.S. active rig count drifted down to
In perspectiveAs the U.S. active rig count drifted down to record lows last April, we knew it was going to be a terrible year for the industry, but we didnt realize just how terrible until we began preparation of the special reports that follow in this issue. How bad is it? Well, its so bad that we had to dig back through old issues of World Oils predecessor, The Oil Weekly, to find a year when drilling was lower in the U.S. Weve disregarded outside U.S. drilling since the numbers werent readily available that far back. What we found was that drilling hasnt been as low as currently predicted for 1999 since 1933 when only 12,170 wells were drilled in the U.S. However, when perusing the 1933 issues of The Oil Weekly, what struck us was how different things are now from then. For example:
The first meeting of the World Petroleum Congress was held in London in 1933 after being conceived and organized by the Petroleum Technologists, a British body of oil scientists incorporated in 1914. Prior to this meeting, the nearest approach to such a gathering took place in Germany in 1912 under the name Internationale Petroleum Kommission. However, it was later derailed by World War I. During the 1933 confab, a Mr. Kessler, managing director of Royal Dutch Shell, presented his address in the lecture theater of the Royal Institution (which corresponds to the American National Academy of Science). For the speech, "both speaker and audience (were) in formal dress, with decorations, surrounded by the paintings and handiwork and memories of some of the worlds most famous scientists." This sounds substantially different from the Offshore Europe International Conference that will be held next month in Aberdeen. There is also a substantial difference in humor between then and now. For example, an automobile story included in that 1933 issue of The Oil Weekly went something like this:
Obviously, whoever composed that story would be astonished at the speeds we now travel on the Interstates and Autobahns. Todays humor, (sent via e-mail, incidentally) might be represented by the following:
Copyright © 1999 World
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