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 STATE OF ILLINOIS 
 
 DWIGHT H. GREEN, Governor 
 
 DEPARTMENT OF REGISTRATION AND EDUCATION 
 
 FRANK G. THOMPSON, Director 
 
 DIVISION OF THE 
 
 STATE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 
 
 M. M. LEIGHTON, Chief 
 URBANA 
 
 CIRCULAR No. 148 
 
 AIRPLANE VIEWS OF ILLINOIS 
 OIL INSTALLATIONS 
 
 By 
 
 FREDERICK SQUIRES 
 
 Reprinted from Producers Monthly, September, 
 (Original title, "Illinois Oil from the Air") 
 
 PRINTED BY AUTHORITY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS 
 
 URBANA, ILLINOIS 
 1948 
 
ILLINOIS STATE GEOLOGIC AL SURVEY 
 
 3 3051 00004 6197 
 
Airplane Views of Illinois Oil Installations 
 
 By Frederick Squires * 
 
 This article is illustrated by aerial 
 photographs taken on a flight around 
 the Illinois oil basin with the object of 
 drawing particular attention to fluid in- 
 jection operations. The round trip is 
 illustrated by the drawing (Fig. 1). The 
 plants photographed were five of those 
 where oil is being recovered through the 
 use of water-flooding or gas injection. 
 
 Air views were taken of the Dove 
 pressure -maintenance and gasoline ex- 
 traction plant at the Louden field (Fig. 
 2), the water plant for the flooding oper- 
 ation on the Patoka field (Fig. 3), the 
 gasoline plant and pressure-maintenance 
 equipment at the Salem field (Fig. 4), 
 and the pressure-maintenance equipment 
 at the New Harmony field (Fig. 5). The 
 last picture is the water plant for flood- 
 ing the Siggins field (Fig. 6). 
 
 The plane flew above the Illinois Cen- 
 tral Railroad tracks as far as Mattoon, 
 where some 300 pumping jacks outline 
 the narrow field that stretches north and 
 south of the town. From that point it 
 veered toward the southwest and headed 
 for Beecher City at the north end of the 
 Louden field. 
 
 When the Louden oil field was being- 
 drilled in 1937, the site could have been 
 spotted from the air by the drilling der- 
 ricks that stretched for a distance of 
 several miles. Now the derricks are gone, 
 replaced by pumping jacks powered by 
 electricity. The aerial view (Fig. 2> shows 
 the equipment used in the maintenance 
 of pressure. Gas is gathered from the 
 wells, the gasoline and other liquid 
 products are separated from it by absorp- 
 tion under pressure, and the residue gas 
 is returned to the field where it is in- 
 jected into the sands through input wells. 
 
 The Louden field is now the biggest 
 producer of oil in Illinois. It has been 
 more skillfully engineered than the older 
 fields, so that a higher percentage of the 
 total amount of oil will finally be re- 
 covered. This field uses two kinds of 
 injection: gas injection on the shallower 
 Chester sands, and water-flooding on the 
 deeper Devonian limestone. 
 
 A little south of the Louden field the 
 plane crossed the St. James oilfield, then 
 
 Figure 1 — Map of Flight 
 
changed direction southwestward toward 
 Patoka. 
 
 Patoka is a small oil field, but im- 
 portant as an Illinois pioneer: the oil- 
 bearing structure was located by seis- 
 mograph; the wells were drilled with 
 rotary rigs, the first use of this method 
 in Illinois; it was the first oil field to 
 use wide spacing between water wells 
 for flooding; and it was the first one to 
 use salt water as the flooding liquid. The 
 oil recoveries from the Patoka field hold 
 the present record for the water-flooding 
 process in Illinois. 
 
 From Patoka the plane turned south- 
 east toward Salem, the most spectacular 
 oil field seen on the flight. A regiment 
 of derricks rises above what was once 
 the third largest producing field in the 
 United States. In this field gas is being- 
 injected into the upper sands. 
 
 The clear flat blue color of Lake Cen- 
 tralia was sharply visible from the plane. 
 Clustered around churches and right- 
 of-ways are many closely spaced wells 
 that were drilled in the absence of a 
 state law to check a wasteful practice. 
 Several large gasoline plants punctuate 
 the scene, and little villages for oilfield 
 workers are outlined in geometric pat- 
 terns. 
 
 Farther south the plane passed over 
 the Dix field, where the original pres- 
 sure on the Bethel sand is being restored 
 in part by water injection at the contact 
 of oil and water in the outer edge of the 
 producing sand. Next came the Wood- 
 lawn field, where gas repressuring is 
 being applied, and to the south the 
 Benton field, the ownership of which has 
 been consolidated in preparation for 
 what promises to be a highly successful 
 water-flooding operation. 
 
 Wheeling eastward, the plane passed 
 over the Rural Hill and Dale Hoodville 
 fields, both of which are likely possibil- 
 ities for water-flooding. At the Maunie 
 
 South field near Wabash River the plane 
 turned north. The Maunie South oil 
 comes from the Tar Springs sand. In 
 this oil field, engineers have pioneered 
 a new type of flood in which only widely 
 spaced old wells are used. Its spectacular 
 success has taught a valuable lesson in 
 water-flooding technique. 
 
 From Maunie the plane flew north- 
 ward along the "Banks of the Wabash" 
 to the New Harmony oil field. The In- 
 diana side of the river was once the site 
 of the Owens Cooperative settlement. 
 Owens himself was a geologist of note, 
 and it is an interesting fact that he 
 lived almost over a great oil field. 
 
 At the south end of the New Harmony 
 field a water-flood operation on the Wal- 
 tersburg sand is working upward from 
 
 the low part of the oil-bearing structure. 
 The whole field is under pressure main- 
 tenance with gas through a cooperative 
 agreement between interested producers, 
 a profitable "New Harmony." The photo- 
 graph (Fig. 5) shows a spectacular view 
 of the gasoline and pressure-mainte- 
 nance plant at the edge of the plateau 
 above the Wabash Valley plain. 
 
 From the north end of the New Har- 
 mony field the Calvin North oil field 
 was visible to the west. This area is 
 being water-flooded. The plane flew on 
 northward to the Browns field, then 
 turned northeast toward Friends ville, 
 Allendale, and St. Francisville. At St. 
 Francisville the plane was flying over 
 the field where natural encroachment of 
 edge-water in the Tracy sand multiplied 
 oil production. The deduction that arti- 
 ficial floods in Illinois would reproduce 
 the favorable results of this and other 
 natural and accidental floods resulted in 
 undertaking the present successful in- 
 tentional flooding operations. 
 
 From St. Francisville the plane took a 
 course a little west of north most of the 
 way back to Urbana. In its flight it 
 passed over much of the old southeastern 
 oil field which rests upon the crest of 
 the LaSalle anticline through Lawrence, 
 Crawford, and Clark counties. In central 
 Crawford County there is a water-flood- 
 ing operation on the Robinson sand. The 
 whole Bellair pool at the north edge of 
 Crawford County is being prepared for 
 a new water-flood. Near Casey the last 
 picture was taken (Fig. 6), the water 
 supply plant at the Siggins oil field, 
 where the Forest Producing Corporation 
 
*ells thrnuglioul 
 
 and the Pure Oil Company are making 
 water-flooding history. These many mil- 
 lion dollar operations are a heartening 
 expansion of the pioneer repressuring of 
 the Mumford farm and water-flooding 
 of the Kraft farm made by the writer 
 many years ago. 
 
 The plane veered northeast to pass 
 over the Westfield oil field, now largely 
 abandoned but historically important 
 because it was the first great oil produc- 
 
 ing field in Illinois. 
 
 This flight around the major oil-pro- 
 ducing fields in Illinois gives some idea 
 of the areas of Illinois that are under- 
 lain by oil and the 25,000 wells which 
 bring it to the surface. Another flight 
 across the center of the basin, from 
 Willow Hill in Jasper County down the 
 length of the Noble anticline to Fairfield 
 in Wayne County, would also be im- 
 pressive. 
 
 The cumulative volume of oil whicli 
 has been produced almost within the 
 boundaries of this flight is 11/3 billion 
 barrels. The area is still yielding 172 
 thousand barrels a day. Not only has the 
 past production been impressive, but the 
 future opportunities for additional oil 
 from water-flooding and gas repressuring 
 are vast. Every barrel of this oil is new 
 wealth. 
 
throughout the fiel 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://archive.org/details/airplaneviewsofi148squi