Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that answer the question.
Query: What was the first company to drill for oil in Venezuela?
Despite the knowledge of the existence of oil reserves in Venezuela for centuries, the first oil wells of significance were not drilled until the early 1910s. In 1908, Juan Vicente Gómez replaced his ailing predecessor, Cipriano Castro, as the president of Venezuela. Over the next few years, Gómez granted several concessions to explore, produce, and refine oil. Most of these oil concessions were granted to his closest friends, and they in turn passed them on to foreign oil companies that could actually develop them. One such concession was granted to Rafael Max Valladares who hired Caribbean Petroleum Company (later acquired by Royal Dutch Shell) to carry out his oil exploration project. On 15 April 1914, upon the completion of the (now called MG-I) oil well, the first Venezuelan oilfield of importance, , was discovered by Caribbean Petroleum in the Maracaibo Basin. This major discovery encouraged a massive wave of foreign oil companies to Venezuela in an attempt to get a piece of the action.
In 2009, China entered into a partnership with Venezuela to launch a railway company in Venezuela which will be 40% controlled by the China Railways Engineering Corporation (CREC) and the remainder by Venezuela. Venezuela outlined the role of the venture as one which would link Venezuela's oil producing regions and agricultural farming areas. In September 2009 Venezuela announced a new $16bn deal with China to drill for oil in a joint venture with PDVSA to produce of extra heavy crude. Hugo Chavez stated that "In addition, there will be a flood of technology into the country, with China going to build drilling platforms, oil rigs, railroads, houses.". In September 2013, China decided to lend $50bn over 5 years to finance 201 housing projects in Venezuela.
Despite diplomatic protests from Venezuela, the government of Guyana awarded the American oil corporation Exxon a license to drill for oil in the disputed maritime area in early 2015. In May the government of Guyana announced that Exxon had indeed found promising results in their first round of drilling on the so-called Stabroek Block, an area offshore the Guayana Esequiba territory with a size of . The company announced that further drillings would take place in the coming months to better evaluate the potential of the oil field. Venezuela responded to the declaration with a decree issued on 27 May 2015, including the maritime area in dispute in its national marine protection sphere, thus extending the area that the Venezuelan Navy controls into the disputed area. This in turn caused the government of Guyana to summon the Venezuelan ambassador for further explanation. The tensions have further intensified since and Guyana withdrew the operating license of Conviasa, the Venezuelan national airline, stranding a plane and passengers in Georgetown.
In 1933, under Keck the company was the first to use a reflection seismograph to help with finding hydrocarbons. Keck was a "pioneer" in deep offshore drilling, and in 1938, the company constructed the first offshore oil platform off the coast of Louisiana. The first independent to drill offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, he was the first to find commercial deposits in the Gulf of Mexico, where he set consecutive records for the deepest-drilled well. Running his company like a "one-man machine," he kept control of the company's stock after it went public. The company also became the largest independent oil producer in the United States. According to author Kevin Krajick, Keck also "practically ran the oil-rich nation of Venezuela." Keck was an active stalwart of the oil lobby politically, in part through his attorney Harold Morton and lobbyist Monroe Butler. Upon his death in 1964, his son William M. Keck Jr. became Superior's chief executive officer, followed by leadership from his second son Howard. He served as chairman of Superior. At one point, his fortune was estimated at $160 million, and at the time of his death, he and his family owned 51 per cent of Superior's shares.
The First Republic of Venezuela ("Primera República de Venezuela" in Spanish) was the first independent government of Venezuela, lasting from July 5, 1811, to July 25, 1812. The period of the First Republic began with the overthrow of the Spanish colonial authorities and the establishment of the Junta Suprema de Caracas on April 19, 1810, initiating the Venezuelan War of Independence, and ended with the surrender of the republican forces to the Spanish Captain Domingo de Monteverde. The congress of Venezuela declared the nation's independence on July 5, 1811, and later wrote a constitution for it. In doing so, Venezuela is notable for being the first Spanish American colony to declare its independence.
The establishment of the Supreme Caracas Junta following the forced deposition of Vicente Emparan as Captain General of the Captaincy General of Venezuela on April 19, 1810, marked the beginnings of the war. On July 5, 1811, seven of the ten provinces of the Captaincy General of Venezuela declared their independence in the Venezuelan Declaration of Independence. The First Republic of Venezuela was lost in 1812 following the 1812 Caracas earthquake and the Battle of La Victoria (1812). Simón Bolívar led an "Admirable Campaign" to retake Venezuela, establishing the Second Republic of Venezuela in 1813; but this too did not last, falling to a combination of a local uprising and Spanish royalist reconquest. Only as part of Bolívar's campaign to liberate New Granada in 1819-20 did Venezuela achieve a lasting independence from Spain (initially as part of Gran Colombia).
Superior Oil Company (1921–1984) was an independent American oil company that is now part of ExxonMobil. Founded in 1921 in Coalinga, California, by William Myron Keck, Superior Oil began as a drilling contracting firm and grew into the exploration and production of oil and natural gas. In 1930 the company was the first to successfully use directional drilling in California. Moving to Houston, Texas, by 1931 the company had wells in Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Louisiana and Venezuela. In 1938, the company constructed the first offshore oil platform off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico. In the 1970s, Superior Oil was involved in the oil shale industry developing the Superior multimineral process. In September 1984 the company, then based in Houston, became a wholly owned subsidiary of Mobil.
The independence movement for Venezuela began with the establishment of the Caracas Junta in 1810. After the Venezuelan Declaration of Independence in 1811, the provinces of Caracas, Cumaná, Barinas, Margarita, and the newly separated ones of Barcelona, Trujillo, and Mérida established a Republic of Venezuela, which claimed the area of the Captaincy General. The provinces of Maracaibo and Guayana, along with the city of Coro, rejected the republic, and after a year of war against the royalists, this First Republic collapsed. The provinces that had created the Venezuelan Republic were reconquered by Frigate Captain Domingo de Monteverde, who usurped power from the appointed Captain General Fernando Miyares. Because of this the Cádiz Cortes erected the Province of Maracaibo into a separate Captaincy General with Miyares at its head, but did ratify Monteverde as Captain General of the smaller Venezuela. During this period, the Province of Maracaibo elected a representative to the Cortes, José Domingo Rus, who served from March 3, 1812, to May 10, 1814, and continued to represent the province before the crown after Ferdinand VII abolished the Cortes. With Ferdinand VII's return, Venezuela was reunited in one captaincy general.
Word of Spain's troubles in 1808 in the Napoleonic Wars soon reached Caracas, but only on 19 April 1810 did its "cabildo" (city council) decide to follow the example set by the Spanish provinces two years earlier. On 5 July 1811, seven of the ten provinces of the Captaincy General of Venezuela declared their independence in the Venezuelan Declaration of Independence. The First Republic of Venezuela was lost in 1812 following the 1812 Caracas earthquake and the Battle of La Victoria (1812). Simón Bolívar led an "Admirable Campaign" to retake Venezuela, establishing the Second Republic of Venezuela in 1813; but this did not last either, falling to a combination of a local uprising and Spanish royalist reconquest. Only as part of Bolívar's campaign to liberate New Granada in 1819-20 did Venezuela achieve a lasting independence from Spain (initially as part of Gran Colombia).
Venezuela historiography recognizes four "republics," or major regime changes since the country was founded in 1811. The First Republic, known as the "Venezuelan Confederation" lasted until 1812. The Second Republic is the restored republican regime that was instituted by Simón Bolívar after his Admirable Campaign in 1813, and which lasted until 1814. The Third Republic refers to the period after 1816 in which various patriot guerrilla bands joined under Bolívar's leadership in the Llanos of Venezuela and set up an independent government. This process culminated in the Congress of Angostura, but shortly thereafter the Congress declared Venezuela to be part of a larger Gran Colombia. Gran Colombia lasted only a decade and at its dissolution Venezuela became once again the "Republic of Venezuela," which is considered the start of the Fourth Republic. In 1864 the country was then restructured into the "United States of Venezuela", before reverting once again to the name, "Republic of Venezuela" in 1953. Although both periods began with the implementation of new constitutions (the fourth and twenty-fourth constitutions, respectively), both have been deemed by Venezuelan historiography as a continuation of the Fourth Republic.
News of Spanish losses in the 1808 Napoleonic Wars soon reached Latin America, but only on 19 April 1810 did the "cabildo" (city council) of Caracas decide to follow the example set by the Spanish provinces two years earlier. On 5 July 1811, seven of the ten provinces of the Captaincy General of Venezuela declared their independence in the Venezuelan Declaration of Independence. The First Republic of Venezuela was lost in 1812 following the 1812 Caracas earthquake and the Battle of La Victoria (1812). Simón Bolívar led an "Admirable Campaign" to retake Venezuela, establishing the Second Republic of Venezuela in 1813, but this did not last long either, falling to a combination of a local uprising and Spanish royalist reconquest.
By 1910, significant oil fields had been discovered in the Dutch East Indies (1885, in Sumatra), Persia (1908, in Masjed Soleiman), Peru (1863, in Zorritos District), Venezuela (1914, in Maracaibo Basin), and Mexico, and were being developed at an industrial level. Significant oil fields were exploited in Alberta (Canada) from 1947.
First offshore oil drilling at Oil Rocks (Neft Dashlari) in the Caspian Sea off Azerbaijan eventually resulted in a city built on pylons in 1949.
Availability of oil and access to it, became of "cardinal importance" in military power before and after World War I, particularly for navies as they changed from coal, but also with the introduction of motor transport, tanks and airplanes. Such thinking would continue in later conflicts of the twentieth century, including World War II, during which oil facilities were a major strategic asset and were extensively bombed.
In 1938, vast reserves of oil were discovered in the Al-Ahsa region along the coast of the Persian Gulf.
Historians use the name Third Republic of Venezuela to refer to the period from about 1817 to 1819, when a rump government, organized by Bolívar began functioning in the Venezuelan "Llanos". The year before, various Venezuelan guerilla forces managed to permanently establish themselves in the "Llanos" and captured the city of Angostura, which became their headquarters. This period culminated with the formation of the Congress of Angostura in 1819, which wrote a new constitution for Venezuela, replacing the one from 1811, which in theory, was still valid, although suspended since the collapse of the first republic in 1812. The congress decreed the union of Venezuela with New Granada in a new republic, known as "Gran Colombia", bringing an end to the Third Republic.
The Canadian inventor Reginald Fessenden was the first to conceive of using reflected seismic waves to infer geology. His work was initially on the propagation of acoustic waves in water, motivated by the sinking of the Titanic by an iceberg in 1912. He also worked on methods of detecting submarines during World War I. He applied for the first patent on a seismic exploration method in 1914, which was issued in 1917. Due to the war, he was unable to follow up on the idea. John Clarence Karcher discovered seismic reflections independently while working for the United States Bureau of Standards (now the National Institute of Standards and Technology) on methods of sound ranging to detect artillery. In discussion with colleagues, the idea developed that these reflections could aid in exploration for petroleum. With several others, many affiliated with the University of Oklahoma, Karcher helped to form the Geological Engineering Company, incorporated in Oklahoma in April, 1920. The first field tests were conducted near Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1921.
There are developed and potential oil and gas fields on the Navajo Nation. The oldest and largest group of fields is in the Paradox Basin in the Four Corners area. Most of these fields are located in the Aneth Extension in Utah but there are a few wells in Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. The first well was drilled in the Aneth Extension in 1956. In 2006 the Paradox Basin fields were injected with water and Co2 to increase declining production. There are also wells in the Checkerboard area in New Mexico that are on leased land owned by individual Navajos.
In 1915, Ricardo formed Engine Patents Ltd, the company which is today known as Ricardo plc. In this year he was contacted by the Royal Naval Air Service to help with the design of a device to manoeuvre battle tanks into position aboard railway wagons. Around 8000 engines were produced to power the tanks, making this engine the UK's first mass-produced internal combustion engine. Many more of these engines found applications powering generators in workshops, hospitals and camps. The success of this venture yielded £30,000 in royalties and led to Ricardo being able to buy the land and set up the company on its present site in 1919.
Ferdinand Porsche founded the company called "Dr. Ing. h. c. F. Porsche GmbH" in 1931, with main offices at Kronenstraße 24 in the centre of Stuttgart. Initially, the company offered motor vehicle development work and consulting, but did not build any cars under its own name. One of the first assignments the new company received was from the German government to design a car for the people, that is a "Volkswagen". This resulted in the Volkswagen Beetle, one of the most successful car designs of all time. The Porsche 64 was developed in 1939 using many components from the Beetle.
The Geological Engineering Company folded due to a drop in the price of oil. In 1925, oil prices had rebounded, and Karcher helped to form Geophysical Research Corporation (GRC) as part of the oil company Amerada. In 1930, Karcher left GRC and helped to found Geophysical Service Incorporated (GSI). GSI was one of the most successful seismic contracting companies for over 50 years and was the parent of an even more successful company, Texas Instruments. Early GSI employee Henry Salvatori left that company in 1933 to found another major seismic contractor, Western Geophysical. 
Many other companies using reflection seismology in hydrocarbon exploration, hydrology, engineering studies, and other applications have been formed since the method was first invented. Major service companies today include CGG, ION Geophysical, Petroleum Geo-Services, Polarcus, TGS and WesternGeco. Most major oil companies also have actively conducted research into seismic methods as well as collected and processed seismic data using their own personnel and technology. Reflection seismology has also found applications in non-commercial research by academic and government scientists around the world.
DuPont was founded in 1802 by Éleuthère Irénée du Pont, using capital raised in France and gunpowder machinery imported from France. He started the company at the Eleutherian Mills, on the Brandywine Creek, near Wilmington, Delaware, two years after du Pont and his family left France to escape the French Revolution and religious persecution against Huguenot Protestants. The company began as a manufacturer of gunpowder, as du Pont noticed that the industry in North America was lagging behind Europe. The company grew quickly, and by the mid-19th century had become the largest supplier of gunpowder to the United States military, supplying half the powder used by the Union Army during the American Civil War. The Eleutherian Mills site is now a museum and a National Historic Landmark.
In the second half of the 20th century, oil shale production ceased in Canada, Scotland, Sweden, France, Australia, Romania, and South Africa due to the low price of oil and other competitive fuels. In the United States, during the 1973 oil crisis businesses expected oil prices to stay as high as US$70 a barrel, and invested considerable sums in the oil shale industry. World production of oil shale reached a peak of 46 million tonnes in 1980. Due to competition from cheap conventional petroleum in the 1980s, several investments became economically unfeasible. On 2 May 1982, known as ""Black Sunday"", Exxon canceled its US$5 billion Colony Shale Oil Project near Parachute, Colorado because of low oil-prices and increased expenses. Because of the losses in 1980s, companies were reluctant to make new invests in shale oil production. However, in the early 21st century, USA, Canada and Jordan were planning or had started shale oil production test projects, and Australia was considering restarting oil shale production.
The Ahvaz Field is an Iranian oil field located in Ahvaz, Khuzestan Province. It was discovered in 1953 and Developed by Anglo-Persian Oil Company. It began production in 1954. Ahvaz field is one of the richest oil fields in the world with an estimated proven reserves around , and Production is centered on . The field is owned by National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and operated by National Iranian South Oil Company (NISOC).
He then began highly profitable oil operations in Tampico, Mexico's "golden belt", drilling the first well in the nation in 1901. He expanded operations during the Mexican Revolution, and opened large new oil fields in Lake Maracaibo (Venezuela). His holdings developed as the Pan American Petroleum & Transport Company, one of the largest oil companies in the world in the 1920s.
The area was worked initially in 1885, followed by Ventura County Power Company drilling 7 shallow gas wells in 1903. While they reached depths of between 400 and , it is not known if they produced oil. In May 1916 the first commercially viable well, No. "Lloyd" 1, was drilled by State Consolidated Oil Company to a depth of 2,555 feet. Initial production consisted of 100 barrels a day. Shell Oil drilled the first well into what is now known as the 2nd Pool, in the Pico Formation, in March 1919, reaching a depth of .
The Superior Oil Company was founded in 1921 in Coalinga, California, by Keck, after he had accumulated enough leases to start his own firm. Superior Oil began as a drilling contracting firm and grew into other oil services including exploration and production of oil and natural gas. The company soon focused on the exploration and production of oil and gas, and was involved with a number of new methods. In 1930 the company was the first to successfully use directional drilling in California. Keck was one of the first oilmen to move his business to Houston, Texas, and by 1931, the company had wells in Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Louisiana and Venezuela.
He moved to Alberta in the fall of 1950 and founded Peter Bawden Drilling in 1952 shortly after his arrival in Calgary. In 1960, at the age of 31, Peter Bawden’s first drilling rig struck oil. With its acquisition of Trident Drilling, Bawden Drilling became Canada’s largest drilling company. In 1968, Peter Bawden Drilling acquired Brown Drilling in California. Thereafter, as a land drilling contractor, Bawden expanded the company's on-shore operations throughout North America, from the Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico, to Norway, Algeria, Australia, New Guinea, Indonesia, Philippines, Guatemala, Venezuela, Colombia, Madagascar, and the Middle East. Eventually having operations on every continent in the world.