Baba Gurgur - Oil Drilling in Iraq

Text from Voyager Press description: "Baba Gurgur [Kirkuk, Iraq], 1927­1928. Album of photographs taken at the famous drilling site of Baba Gurgur shortly after its discovery and during its first drilling, showing the famous first gusher which occurred in October 1927, and subsequent operations during its first months of producing generously, also featuring the region's Kurdish inhabitants and a scant few photographs of antiquity at Palmyra. Together with 8 photographic negatives for additional views of the same or similar work in the Middle East, one of which is printed in postcard format, these contained in a sleeve produced in Havant, suggesting that the album's scenes were captured by a man from Hampshire.

The Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC), was an international consortium founded in 1912, its name reflecting the fact that Iraq was then a province of the Ottoman Turkish empire. The firm was granted a concession in 1925 to drill for oil in present­day northern Iraq with the agreement that they would drill no less than 24 sites in two years. The largest shareholder in the company was the Anglo­Persian Oil Company, an antecedent of the today's BP, at the time controlled directly by the British government. In 1929, TPC became Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC). While operating under both names, from its concession in 1925 until 1961, the oil company had a virtual monopoly on all oil exploration and production in Iraq.

When Baba Gurgur was first worked for oil in 1927, the district of Kirkuk in which it lay had just, by the Treaty of Angora of 1926, become a part of the Kingdom of Iraq, and no longer under Ottoman rule.

Containing exceedingly scarce photographs, this album offers an invaluable primary source visual record of the cornerstone petroleum works of Iraq's oil history ­ Baba Gurgur, "Father of Eternal Fire" ­from its very beginning.

In 1925 The Turkish Petroleum Company was granted a concession to explore for oil. In return the Iraqi government would receive a royalty for every ton of oil extracted, but linked to the oil companies' profits and not payable for the first 20 years. The concession required the company to select 24 rectangular plots of 8 square miles (21 km2) each for drilling operation.

In the autumn of 1925, a party of 18 geologists from its multinational shareholders arrived at Fathah on the River Tigris, about halfway between Baghdad and Mosul, from where they would begin a full geological survey. The geologists travelled in vehicles packed with provisions and equipment and used fly camps for surveys across northern Iraq. In rocky terrain, they rode on camels, horses and mules. They covered between 30,000 and 40,000 kilometres during the first eight months of the survey, from the borders of Persia to Kurdistan and as far west as Rutbah.

Two wells were selected for drilling at Pulkanah, one at Khashm al Ahmar, one at Injanah and one Qaiyarah. Kirkuk was included as the sixth location. Directly north of Kirkuk, the well at Baba Gurgur was located by geologist John M. Muir, the first Chief Geologist for TPC who had considerable experience in the fields of Mexico. A geological cross­section of the Kirkuk anticline was prepared by Arthur C. Trowbridge, professor of geology at the University of Iowa. Muir selected the precise location for drilling. Baba Gurgur would prove to be the most challenging of all the wells.

The official opening ceremony was made by King Faisal I on 5 April 1927 at the well first selected, Palkhana No. 1. King of the Arab Kingdom of Syria, he was accompanied by a retinue of important Iraqi men.

Baba Gurgur No. 1 was spudded in on 30 June 1927. It produced oil shows at comparatively shallow depths in the Lower Fars but, since the well was only a short distance from the famous seepages, this had been anticipated. Drilling continued at a slow rate of about 6m per day. But on 23 September, the new Chief Geologist of the company, Louis Fowle, suddenly realised that Baba Gurgur was making rapid progress. He examined a sample of rock from the well and was shocked to discover that the drill bit had already penetrated the main limestone at a depth of 463 metres (1,521 feet) much shallower than expected. As the drillers had only cased the well to a depth of 180 metres (590 feet), it was necessary to suspend the drilling and cement the remaining 330 metres (1,000 feet) of "open" hole. While the cement was drying, the crew changed from rotary to percussion drilling.

Several photographs capture the monumental explosion of oil spouting from the derrick. The famous gusher at Bab Gurgur formed a veritable lake of oil all around it, a river of oil flowing from there, and gases billowing into the air.

In the early morning hours of 14 October 1927 the well came in with a bang! Rising to a height of over 40 metres, the gusher was so forceful that it took nine days to tighten the "Christmas Tree" on the well. By then, it had flowed at 95,000 barrels a day. Oil density was 36 API and sulfur content was 2%.

In Kirkuk, townspeople gathered to watch. An eyewitness observed, "The roof­tops of houses were packed with women and children gazing in the direction of Baba where a black cloud hung like an upturned umbrella... Most of the men rushed to the scene on foot and in horse­drawn carriages to get a better view.

Exciting indeed, but this was a disaster in the making. A river of oil was now flowing westwards along a wadi, winding for miles through the deserted countryside. The company drafted in some 2,000 men to build dams lower down the wadi to contain the deluge. Men from the Arab Jubur tribe along the Zab river, and the Arab Obaid tribe on the Hawija plain were soon converging on Kirkuk. A few lucky men rode in vehicles, but most walked, in some cases distances up to 60 kilometres. A blue mist formed at night in the hollows of the low hills caused by gas pockets. Workers tried to approach the rig to block the gusher, wearing gas masks but little else, virtually naked in an endeavour to get near enough to set up some control appliances. The risk of fire was ever­present as for hundreds of metres around everything was smothered in oil. One night the poisonous effects of gas collecting in a depression killed two drillers and three Iraqi workers. The oil fell evenly in clouds all around the derrick and draw­works due to the windless autumn days. It was only when the company brought in an aero engine to blow the oily clouds away from one side of the derrick that they could stop the flow, on the ninth day of tireless labour. A major disaster had been averted, and a massive oilfield found.

Pumps were urgently installed to pump the oil back into the wells, but they made little impression. Desperate to remove the oil, large quantities were set alight. When the rains came the area was clear of oil. Work on cleaning up the area was finally completed by Christmas Day 1927, ten weeks after the great eruption.

The pioneering drillers, labourers, and foremen who broke ground and first extracted the coveted crude oil from the rocky terrain of Iraq are seen in this album, including a rare photograph of Louis Fowle, Chief Geologist for the Turkish Petroleum Company, and a leader of operations at Baba Gurgur.

Tent encampments, work sites, their lorries and supplies are also shown in snapshot views of life abroad, as well as a few scenes of comradery.

[As Chief Geologist, Louis Fowle was an instrumental decision maker in terms of drilling. After the Baba Gurgur incident, some 30 km along the Kirkuk structure, Tarjil No. 1, encountered technical problems; Fowle advised letting it stand for a while. This was a deeper well that encountered oil bearing rock at 760 metres, more than double the 300 metres at Baba Gurgur. The drillers, anxious to drill a certain number of feet each day, were unwilling to suspend operations. A new well site was located and, with a view to moving the derrick there, the drillers plugged the first well with mud and began dismantling the equipment. Fowle disagreed, and after intense discussion, he persuaded them to restore the original well and clean out the mud. "This took some weeks," wrote Fowle, "meanwhile unpopularity had to be endured." A subsequent oil strike vindicated his decision and, by the end of 1929, the geologists could say with confidence that there was a continuous oilfield some 50 kilometres in length stretching from Tarjil to the Lesser Zab].

A man sitting in a motorcar bears great resemblance to Hungarian geologist and professor Hugo de Böckh, who was among the team of initial surveyors to assess the Iraqi terrain in the season of 1925/1926. He was a geological adviser to the Anglo­Persian Oil Company (APOC) and a leading member of the survey, having had arranged for APOC geologists to lead the various field parties, much to the chagrin of the senior geologists involved. It is most conceivable that Böckh visited the site in 1927.

Iraqi labourers and Turkish guards also appear in the images, while a select few photographs shows Kurdish inhabitants who visited the site. Travelling in a caravan, one particular group had with them a captive bear, evidently to earn profit from showing it. A scant few photographs were taken of the ancient ruins at Palmyra."