Creole Petroleum Corporation

The Creole Petroleum Corporation was an American oil company. It was formed in 1920 to produce fields on Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela.^[1] The company was acquired by Standard Oil of New Jersey in 1928. Until 1951 it was the world's number one oil producer^[2] when it was supplanted by the Arabian American Oil Company.

In 1950, Creole opened its refinery at Amuay bay.^[3] This is now a part of the Paraguaná Refinery Complex considered the world's third largest refinery complex, just after Jamnagar Refinery (India) and Ulsan Refinery (South Korea).

The Venezuelan assets of Creole Petroleum Corporation were nationalized along with those of other foreign oil firms on January 1, 1976, becoming as Lagoven filial part of PDVSA, a Venezuelan government-owned operating company.^[4]

The Creole Syndicate in March 1928 was controlled by Naphen & Co, Blair & Co and their associates with large blocks of stocks held in Europe. It owned 1,400,000 hectares of oil concessions in Venezuela and from its Lake Maracaibo properties, which were jointly owned with and operated by the Venezuela Gulf Oil Co., produced upward of 300,000bbl per month. It was developing the wholly owned Rio Palmar field on its own account.^[5]

The Standard Oil Company of Venezuela had drilled 25 wildcats in the Maracaibo Basin before 1928.^[6]

The Creole Syndicate stockholders on March 16, 1928 voted to increase capital from 2,500,000 to 6,000,000 shares and to allow the friendly takeover of 51%^[a] of the stock by the Standard Oil of New Jersey, in exchange for $8 million in cash for working capital and all Standard properties in Venezuela (directly owned or indirectly through the Standard Oil Co. of Venezuela and the American British Oil Co. subsidiaries), to wit: 780,000 hectares of concessions in Western and 400,000 hectares in Eastern Venezuela districts and contracts in place with British Controlled Oilfields, Ltd., Central Area Exploration Co., Maracaibo Oil Exploration Co. and others. Concurrently Creole acquired all stock of Venezuela International Corp., owner of 1,280,000 hectares of exploration concessions. The name of the company was changed to Creole Petroleum Corp.^[5][8] Gulf Oil was squeezed out as distributor of Creole's production^[9] and Jersey in 1929 shipped the 20,000bpd principally to its Bayonne and Baltimore refineries.^[10] Gulf Oil however at first continued to operate most of the productive fields on behalf of Creole's part-interest.^[11]

Standard of New Jersey over time increased its stake in the company to gain more complete control.^[7] In November 1930 1,000,000 new shares were issued at $4.25 for additional working capital.^[12][13] On April 27, 1931 a unitization agreement became effective in the Eastern oil districts, whereby the several oil companies coordinated to avoid the cut-throat competition and infrastructure duplication that had years ago plagued the industry in the Mexican Golden Lane fields.^[14] On May 28, 1932 Standard completed the reorganization which involved the transfer of all assets to the Standard Oil Co. of Venezuela, which acted as the wholly owned operating subsidiary of Creole Petroleum.^[15]

As of January 1955. Standard Oil of New Jersey owned 94.5% of Creole common stock.^[16] On May 20, 1955, the 25,865,310 shares of common stock (par $5) where split 3-for-1 into 77,595,930 shares (par $5) and authorized capital was increased to 90,000,000 shares.^[17][18] In 1955 the old stock had reached a High of $151 on the American Stock Exchange, a market capitalization of $3.906 billion of which some $215 million was not sitting in the Standard Oil treasury.^[19]

The Rio Palmar field (map:^[20]) was insignificant. It had a lifetime production of only 24,259bbl.^[21] There were however at least 11 prospecting wells drilled in the vicinity.^[22]

Creole held the major portion of the Cumarebo field (map: ^[20]) opened in April 1931.^[23] SOV (on a parcel taken over from the North Venezuela Petroleum Co Ltd^[24]) struck light oil (41-50° API^[24]) with Cumarebo No. 1 at 627ft flowing at 1,000bpd on April 14, 1931. SOV struck a flow of 750bpd at 1,814ft with Cumarebo No. 2 (1 mile north of No. 1) in August.^[25] A 3 mile 6-inch pipe line was completed in 1932 to connect the field to the coastal terminal (Tucupido,^[26] near Puerto Cumarebo) where a 4,000ft 11+3⁄4-inch sea line allowed the loading of ocean tankers.^[27]

In August 1930 the major Quiriquire field (map: ^[28]) began commercial production and through the new (29km^[29]) 8-inch pipe line delivered an average of 7,568bpd during the remainder of 1930 to the new terminal on the San Juan river.^[30] The company soon built a topping plant near Caripito (3 miles from the loading terminal, connected via narrow gauge railroad^[31]) and for the first time became independent of Standard's refineries in the United States. A contract for shipments to Chile formed the nucleus of the direct export business.^[32] The furthest corporate outpost was the airfield, 5 miles beyond the Quiriquire field.^[31] In 1934 a new terminal downstream of Caripito was built at Guiria for the loading of deep draft ocean tankers.^[33]

The Temblador field began commercial operations with the first shipment of 19,000bbl on February 16, 1938, delivered through 32 miles of 10-inch SOV-owned pipeline to the Boca de Uracoa terminal (9°07′38″N 62°19′48″W / 9.1273°N 62.33°W / 9.1273; -62.33) on the Cano Manamo river, from where shallow draft tankers moved the 21-23° API oil to Guiria.^[34][35] In 1958 a 92 mile 30-inch 48,000bpd line was laid to transport Temblador oil to the Caripito refinery. The above-ground unheated line having 2 pumping stations was the second most economical of 7 options considered to solve the problem of moving the viscous oil, the most economical, pumping an oil/water mixture through a 20-inch unheated above-ground line, was thoroughly tested, but dismissed due to remaining uncertainty about how the mixture would behave in real-world conditions and because the larger pipe would probably allow a later increase in throughput.^[36] The intermediate pumping station was unattended and remote-controlled. Mainline construction began on January 4, 1958 and progress per spread was some 6,500ft per day. The project costing $13 million was made attractive by an increase in demand for heavy oil.^[37]

On October 12, 1938 S.O.V. struck 32.3° API oil at 4,920ft with Jusepin No. 1 flowing at 768bpd, located 25 miles southwest of Quiriquire,^[38] making Jusepin the first light oil field in Eastern Venezuela.^[39] On September 21, 1939 the first oil was pumped through the new 43 mile 10-inch 40,000bpd pipe line connecting the field to Caripito.^[40] A complete refinery (gasoline, diesel, fuel oil, naphtha, asphalt) of 31,000bpd capacity was started at Caripito in January 1939 and inaugurated on October 21, 1939, It had an 8,000kw power plant and a cracking unit. The first tanker was loaded with products on November 15, 1939.^[40][41] In 1944 a 111.4 mile 16-inch 97,000bpd pipe line was built to connect Jusepin to Puerto La Cruz and placed in operation in February 1945. The Mene Grande Oil Company had a 1⁄3 interest in the line.^[42] The new outlet resulted in a shorter tanker haul for shipments to the United States, was a tide water port and at the time Puerto La Cruz was already on its way to become the most important oil port in Eastern Venezuela.^[43]

The Tacagua pipeline (nicknamed the "Steepest Inch") was a 10 mile 8-inch products pipeline from Catia la Mar to Caracas built by Creole and Shell and commissioned in November 1950, to increase the capacity of the former arrangement of a Shell line to Boqueron where it reached the railway (which could transport 2,050bpd) and the highway (which had to make up the rest of the demand, projected to reach 20,000bpd by 1955). The new pipeline first rose to 2,300ft and descended by 1,000ft into the Tacagua Valley before rising again to the 3,100ft high terminus at Caracas. To account for the significant pressure differences, the 8+5⁄8 outer diameter pipe used came in thicknesses of 0.4-inch (35.14 pounds per foot; used in the first 50% of the initial climb and at the very bottom of the valley) and 0.322-inch (28.55 pounds per foot). The normal operating pressure at Catia la Mar was 1,240psi when pumping 36,000bpd of gasoline.^[44]

• By company
  • 1928-1929: monthly production and shipments.^[45]

• Assignment: Venezuela (related propaganda film from 1956)