Word: navajos
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
From Houston and Albuquerque, El Paso and Denver, tough-trading oilmen from every major company have been converging on the Four Corners area of Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico to get in on one of the biggest oil rushes in U.S. history. The sellers: the Navajo Indians, who are fast learning to play what oilmen call "grunt and groan." As the bids for oil lands are announced, the tribesmen merely grunt, and as the prices soar higher, the oilmen groan...
Last week the groans were rising to a new crescendo. In the first 230,000-acre sale four weeks ago, 23 oil companies paid $27.5 million for leases, plus a 12½% royalty on every barrel of oil produced. A fortnight ago the Navajos got $3.2 million for a second 82,200-acre block of land. Last week a third and final 158,505 acres went on sale, brought $2.9 million and pushed the total Navajo take to $33.6 million...
What sent the bids soaring was the promise of the biggest oil pool in the West, under the barren Navajo buttes and mesas. Texas Co., which had started exploring the area about three years ago, recently drilled its exploratory Navajo C-4 well on tribal land located between the big Aneth oilfield in San Juan County, Utah and another series of proven wells farther south. Texas Co. wanted to find out how far the Aneth field went and whether the two pools might be connected. Though Texas Co. tried to keep the well secret, every oilman suspected that something...
After the sale Texas Co. announced that its Navajo C-4 was indeed a producing well, pumping an average 642 bbls. of high-grade oil daily, and oilmen felt much of the nearby leasehold could be considered proven oil land. Then two more wells came in on Navajo land. Superior Oil brought in its Navajo B-1 well, with 1,402 bbls. daily, and Gulf Oil brought in its Desert Creek No. 1 well...
...Oklahoma's Oilman-Senator Robert S. Kerr. As far back as 1951, the company was the first oil producer to decide that uranium, instead of being competitive with oil, was a supplemental and profitable field. In 1952, with $700,000, Kermac bought New Mexico's small Navajo Uranium Co., built a mill at Shiprock, N. Mex., did so well that it has expanded operations to a total of $3.3 million. By spending $100,000 a month for more exploration, it uncovered sizable reserves near Grants, N. Mex., thus became a major producer...