Across the rolling farmlands of central Ohio's
Morrow County last week lumbered heavy trucks laden with pipe. In the
county's once-slumbering towns —Mt. Gilead, Cardington and Edison,
roughly 40 miles north of Columbus-dusty station wagons from several
states competed for parking spaces. Husky, plastic-helmeted men
searched for scarce furnished rooms. The night sky glowed orange, and
the air was filled with an acrid stench. “That smell used to make me
deathly sick,” says one Morrow County resident, “but now it doesn't
bother me at all.” And why should it? It has become the smell of
wealth, the sweet odor of Ohio's first oil boom since the turn of the
century.Two Gushers. Ohio was a major oil producer 60 years ago, but its
production had dwindled to nearly nothing until the Morrow County boom.
It began modestly three years ago, when wildcatters drilled a 3,280-ft.
well on a farm, but really got going last fall when two gushers came in
almost at once. Last week alone, Ohio authorities issued 112 permits
for drilling in Morrow County, bringing the number issued to nearly
1,000. In 450 attempts so far, oilmen have brought in 162 producing
wells. Derricks have sprung up in clusters on front lawns, in narrow
alleys and in vegetable gardens; one producing well occupies what was
once home plate on the baseball field at the Edison Junior High School
. Says Theodore
DeBrosse, veteran petroleum geologist for the state: “There is more
drilling in this area than anywhere east of the Mississippi.”So far, Morrow County people have made most of their gains from the boom
by leasing their land for drilling. Oil speculators have wildly bid up
prices; a three-month lease for a 61-acre tract near already-producing
wells recently skyrocketed from $1 to $30,000 in a single day's
trading, and the value of another tract tripled from $25,000 to $75,000
in three days. Since the big oil production started only recently,
royalty income—a standard 36.50 per barrel—is just beginning to build
up. Nonetheless, the oil boom has stepped up the county's economic
activity: bank deposits have increased 20% in the past six months,
service-station business has doubled, and restaurants have quadrupled
their take.Drilling Rights. No one has yet been able to determine the exact size of
the Morrow County oil reservoir. So far, the 162 wells are producing
27,000 barrels daily of a good grade of petrochemical crude, for which
Ashland Oil & Refining Co. and Pure Oil Co. pay $2.92 per barrel.
Experienced oilmen feel, however, that the potential yield of the
Morrow County field is being rapidly reduced by the drilling of too
many wells in one small area, a practice that diminishes the
subterranean gas pressure needed to force out the oil. But just in case
the Morrow County field should turn out to be only the first tapping of
a vast underground ocean of oil, more than 100 lease dealers are now
quietly collecting contracts for drilling rights from Lake Erie to the
Ohio River.
