Desert Venture (ca 1958)

la [Music] a 11,000 mil from San Francisco 8,000 M from New York there lies a primeval desert a mass of drifting sand and sunbaked Earth onethird the size of the United States a place of ancient glories long ago a center of thriving trade where came the merchants from India and China to barter their wees for the spices and the incense Pearl evil days Came Upon the land and for sent fell into eclipse and remained until very recent years remote unknown and isolated most of its people were the bed and camel herders and Shepherds who roam the Arid hostile wastes from one Oasis to another in the wake of scattered rains which produced short-lived patches of vegetation monotony and poverty were the common lot but in their Abiding Faith they found Solus for religion is not worn like a cloak in the Arab land it is a vital part of every every good muslim's life Muhammad United the Arabs purified their Customs bound them into one people and filled them with a great faith five times a day even the humblest Arab stops his work faces Mecca and in tones the sacred words of the Quran illah Muhammad Ras Allah there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his [Music] Prophet wherever the limited water supply permitted wheat was grown and the Arab essentially good humored in spite of his hard life would make a little dance and a little song as he threshed the grain he winnowed out the wheat by letting the wind blow the chaff away but crops judged by modern standards were pitifully small and for towns people and bedan alike life was an endless struggle none of them knew that this desert Barren of Natural Resources to the outward eye had been blessed by Nature beyond the wildest dreams of those who raided and struggled for Life across its Sandy Windswept Wast and then in this land of great tradition there arose a powerful leader who unified his 52 million people and set off to achieve a Renaissance his majesty Abdul aiz Ian sa king of Saudi Arabia he had faith that somewhere Within These far-reaching Sands was the key to a richer life for the Saudi Arabs who so long had known scarcity and want perhaps this country so unproductive on the surface might contain minerals below the surface including oil but vast sums would be needed for search and development and there was no no quick way to a realization of this hope then in the early 1930s an American Oil Company obtained a concession on bahin island 25 Mi out on the Persian Gulf The Venture was successful and occasionally there was speculation as to whether even greater opportunities might lie across the green waters of the gulf in Saudi Arabia and so geologists talked about the possibilities and they saw the low rise along the coast that could mean oil or could mean nothing at all they debated and debated and finally recommended that the risk be taken but whether these unknown Sands would justify the outlay of millions of dollars was still a decision that had to be made by the company directors in San Francisco 11,000 M away they knew it would mean sinking into the desert the money of thousands of stockholders in a project that that might well end in complete loss such decisions are not made lightly and many an hour of study and debate had occupied many men before the company sent the late Lloyd Hamilton one of the great figures of Middle Eastern Oil as Emissary to Arabia on May 29th 1933 after weeks of discussions there was a meeting at kazm Palace on the outskirts of jedar it was there that Saudi Arab government officials representing his majesty signed a concession covering roughly 320,000 square miles this was the starting point of a new American business venture abroad but ahead there was a long long distance to travel a huge investment years of effort and no end of patience and perseverance most important of all the job would require men Hardy men determined men men who were willing to leave families and friends and journey Halfway Around the World on a quest that might end in Failure men who could face hardship and monotony and still take it men like Paul strong Paul strong had never heard of Saudi Arabia when he was asked back in 1938 if he would like to go there that answer was easy for him he wouldn't not like to go for his money give him the peace and quiet and comfort of the small American town where he'd lived since he finished College just a few years before the company sought out other men sought them where men are always found when the chance of pioneering is offered across the breadth and depth of America on farms in small towns in great cities and and each man had his own problems to weigh each his own decision to make for they were being asked to make a life career of oil in Arabia they weighed and decided and gradually they began to arrive Carpenters machinists riggers technicians Drillers Executives too eager to extend a welcoming hand clasp to the new arrivals and who is that over there why sure enough Paul strong Paul had forgotten back in the states that he had that traditional American characteristic a hunger for adventure and challenge he and the others had come to learn of the Middle East and they found that going was tough few Outsiders had ever before been beyond the treaty Port of Jedi and the Arabs were suspicious of these strange newcomers many of them were frankly hostile and were quite ready to show their feelings even the extended hand of friendship was accepted grudgingly in the early days on top of all this it was hot 120 in the shade on many A Day In Summer sometimes soaring to 140 in the Sun and with high humidity to make it even worse there were flies and denter and the housing was makeshift there was little to do except work and life seemed rugged indeed here in such a setting they prepared to search for oil the geological Crews combed the blistering desert month after month searching for places most likely to yield petroleum instruments and calculations indicated the best prospects but the geologist knew what many laymen don't that the only way to know whether or not oil exists in any one place is to drill for it finally they drilled the first well they found oil but not in commercial quantities it was not encouraging they drilled again no luck and again still failure these were dismal days and here and there a voice would say we're licked let's admit it but there were stubborn men in the field and in the San Francisco office who did not have enough sense to quit the kind of Senseless men who all through history have done such fool hearty things as believing that steam could run an engine or that crops would grow on the deserts of California or that a voice could carry over a wire it was men like these who said we'll drill deeper who drilled and failed once more and saw their careers and their reputations burning away beneath the Desert Sun and then at the mom it happened oil in commercial quantities had been brought in after three long discouraging years this was the goal toward which they had striven this was the victory that faith and sweat had bought a long road has been traveled since those early years there have been changes and great expansions the original concession has been enlarged and now Embraces an area of 440,000 square miles equal to the states of California and Texas combined since that first paying well established damam as a major oil field and Saudi Arabia as an oil country other fields have been discovered production has risen until in 1947 it reached close to 90 million barrels from less than 4 million in 1939 in the prolific abake field production by the end of 1947 was averaging about 200,000 barrels a day oil from abake is sent by pipeline to daharan about 40 m away from there more than 100,000 barrels daily flow through one of the world's largest underwater pipelines to the Bahrain petroleum company's Refinery on bahin island the rest is moved by pip pipeline for shipment abroad or for processing in the company's Refinery on the mainland at Ros tanura This Modern plant was planned to help meet the enormous wartime demands for military petroleum products the project was approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1943 it was rushed to completion in 1945 at a cost of approximately $50 million all of which was put up by the the company in this work about a th000 Americans and 5,000 Saudi Arabs were employed for 1 and 1/2 years its rated capacity was 50,000 barrels daily but it has actually been turning out more than 115,000 barrels a day 230% of its original rated capacity supplying this Refinery required the drilling of additional Wells and the building of pipelines to deliver crude oil from the fields other pipelines carry the finished product from the refinery to the terminal and loading warp about 3 Mi away the company's marine terminal at ranura can handle four tankers at once loading them at a rate of from 10 to 12,000 barrels an hour the average tanker can be loaded and on her way again in about 12 hours much of the company's present refiner output is going to the United States Navy for use in the Far East by 1950 production of crude oil is expected to be double what it was in 1947 or even higher to handle this huge volume greatly expanded Transportation facilities will be needed materials have been arriving in the Persian Gulf for the world's largest pipeline a project of the trans Arabian pipeline company an affiliate the first leg from abake to ctif has been completed the trans Arabian pipeline route lies across 1,075 Mi of desert Plains and coastal ranges to the Mediterranean when completed it will carry about 300,000 barrels daily total Saudi Arabian crude oil and products available at Sea terminals will amount to nearly 700,000 barrels daily during 1951 by that time the investment of the company and of the trans Arabian pipeline company will have exceeded $400 million the expanding program requires an increase of permanent Personnel to a total of more than 2500 Americans and 15,000 Arabs such is the story of the oil itself but there is another story the story of people for all the time the oil job was being done there was the problem of making life more livable for in spite of heat and flies and hardship and monotony these men had come and they had vowed they would stay and they set about to make good their vow Halfway Around The World the company had brought everything from food and housing to drilling equipment it brought in American Technology and skilled craftsmanship men planned and worked and cleared and dug and slowly painfully they reared a modern community on the desert beside the Persian Gulf here in daharan irrigation has wrough its magic tapping the desert and bringing forth trees and grass and flowers these houses and the offices are completely equipped and air conditioned hot though Saudi Arabia may be in summer it's a healthy climate and children thrive on it they go to school as they would in America just about as they would back in their own hometowns Paul strong and his friends visit in the cool comfort of their modern homes at daharan unmarried girls who have come to Arabia as secretaries stenographers and clerks find companionship and Recreation in the club rooms and dormitories always popular with the employees is the freshwater swimming pool where they can cool off after a round of golf or a set of tennis in the best tradition of medicine is this modern American Hospital H providing free medical and surgical care to all employees the company retains skilled American PHS and surgeons desert heat is no problem to workers in this new air conditioned office [Music] building there's an airport only about 40 hours by air from New York by company plane or commercial airline [Music] 40 Mi up the Arabian Coast is the ranura refinery located on a beautiful stretch of gleaming white sand here is another American colony complete with airconditioned houses two hospitals and an outdoor movie theater out of every $2 in invested in the concession $1 goes into housing and other service facilities necessary to take care of employees Americans and Saudi Arabs the company has never forgotten that it is a guest in the land of the Saudi Arabs and that the best interests of its hosts must at all times be served today more than 12,000 Arab workers are employed by the company and their number is is increasing steadily they worship in their mosques such as this one a daharan built by the government until quite recently the Arabs had little or no opportunity for recreation and sports now they Delight in learning new games in the producing Fields Arab workers have become skilled Craftsmen and work side by side with American Drillers in fact the company's operations have become one of the great centers for vocational and Industrial training in the Middle East in the refinery too Saudi Arabs who a few years ago knew only the life of the desert Now skillfully operate complicated oil refining equipment American Engineers have trained their Arab co-workers well and the Arabs have been good pupils workers with aptitude are quickly trained to handle laboratory routine every shipment of product or crude is tested it must meet rigid specifications the quality is controlled as carefully as in refineries in the United States more than 200 Arabs have been with the company 10 years or longer the wages paid by the oil company provide new purchasing power for workers and their their families and a new prosperity for the region they are paid in RS the currency of Saudi Arabia these reals are bought by the company from the Saudi Arab government and this in turn makes available supplies of dollar exchange in cooperation with the Saudi Arab government the company provides schools for employees Arab youngsters have expressed great appreciation of the educational opportunities given them and their classmat water was the number one problem when the Arabs had to depend on their age old means of transportation the camel in contrast with this ancient Caravan a modern motor cavalcade moves out into the desert to drill water wells along the route of the new pipeline using trails that formerly could not be traversed in summer much of the desert is impassible to or ordinary tires so this special type of oversized heat resistant tire was developed it defies the soft and treacherous Sands these Mammoth trucks veritable locomotives of the desert were built especially for oil field transportation in Saudi Arabia they will handle hitherto unheard of loads as rap ly as possible the company is getting rid of this type of temporary housing hastily built for the Arabs in the early stages of development and replacing it with modern well-built quarters like these among the more important undertakings for the benefit of the Saudi Arabs wholly unconnected with oil operations is the fullscale agricultural experiment project that is underway at alcar this irrigation canal which the oil company helped the Saudi Arab government to build is bringing water to an area of nearly 3,000 Acres now under intensive cultivation Arab Farmers assisted by American agriculture experts have been taught to use modern scientific irrigation methods they're raising Alfalfa melons dates tomatoes onions and many other farm products American Technical skill and Arab industry combine to produce worthwhile crops new agricultural centers are planned by the Saudi Arab government so that the benefits of modern methods may be spread to other localities the king sees the oil development as the greatest single means to modernize his country and improve the living standards of his people the Navy has said that Saudi Arabian oil is one of its most important strategic sources of Supply the men who are working for the economic recovery of Europe see Middle Eastern Oil helping them in their labors day in and day out because on the one hand it is keyed perfectly to the goal of selfs support for the nations of the world and on the other it is making available the vast volumes of petroleum needed to fuel the job of rebuilding the war scarred Eastern Hemisphere to the American citizen in Boston or Jacksonville Su City or Seattle all of this has real importance in his daytoday life because at present large volumes of oil are moving from the Western Hemisphere spere mostly South America to fill the growing needs of Europe while other South American oil goes to the United States shipments to Europe from the Middle East have increased since the war ended but are still only a small part of what can come from there shipping oil to Europe from the Western hemisphere is not only uneconomic but puts a drain on resources we may need over here however this situation is changing as soon as Eastern Hemisphere facilities are ready heavy shipments from Western Hemisphere reserves can be stopped the Middle East can easily supply all of Europe's requirements the oil of South America can be used for the job of industrializing our neighboring lands to the South and to supplement the supplies here in the United States now that the risks have been taken now that the pioneering has been done the way is open for other American companies to come into the Middle East and join in developing its great resources for the benefit of its people and of the world a GU in principle in aramco's venture has been the belief that foreign Capital cannot justify its presence in any land unless it operates in the interest of that land fully vindicating that principle has been the mutual trust and good will that have grown up between the American oilmen and the Saudi Arab government thus American venture capital is developing new standards of life in an ancient realm where a people with a glorious past are now building a glowing future with their Partners from the other side of the world East and West are united in pioneering a new frontier of progress serving the interest of the Saudi Arabs serving the interest of the United States and demonstrating the vitality of the American system of free enterprise a system which from this new frontier is pumping into the trade of the world oil one of the materials that is making a truly great contribution to our modern civilization