Oil in Southern Tamaulipas, Mexico

Abstract

The great activity with which the oil resources of the northern Cantons ofthe State of Veracruz have been developed has largely resulted from the greatsuccess obtained by the important explorations carried out since 1902 in theEbano district in the North, and several years later near Tuxpam, in the South.It must not be thought that these successes were quickly obtained, since thepreliminary studies by good experts, the acquisition of what were thought to bethe most promising coast lands, the extensive clearing thereof, and finally thenumber of unsuccessful drillings at great depth, signified an original outlayof some tens of millions of dollars before finding commercial oil. The discovery of oil in industrial quantities at Cerro de la Pez, Ebanodistrict, and the famous Dos Bocas gusher some years later, which was burned, once and for all made famous the Veracruz coast, where today is concentratedthe Mexican output of mineral oil. In 1917, this production was nearly61,000,000 bbl. It is well known that this output represents only a fraction ofwhat the wells in actual production can furnish, because with adequate means oftransportation and storage, the present extraction could be somewhat over300,000,000 bbl. a year. These enormous potential oil resources of the Veracruz coast proceed from arelatively small number of wells, scattered over a few oil fields, separatedfrom each other by large unexplored areas, wherein may be found other favorablefields which, in time, will undoubtedly become just as great centers of oilproduction. Experts who know our Gulf Coast believe that lands with commercial oilresources lie not only between the Panuco and Tuxpan Rivers, but thatindications are that the oil zone of Mexico, with more or less interruption, takes in the coast zone from Northern Tamaulipas to the foot of the SierraMadre of Chiapas, and the banks of the Usumacinta River. This generalization isnot merely the outcome of optimism, but is the result of the persistency withwhich one finds, throughout this Gulf Coast, the most usual characteristicsupon which we depend for recognizing oil-bearing lands. AIME 061–48