Dammam_No._7

Dammam No. 7

Dammam No. 7

First commercial oil well in Saudi Arabia

26°19′15.95″N 50°7′39.94″E

Quick Facts Country, Region ...

Dammam No. 7 is the oil well where commercial quantities of oil were first discovered in Saudi Arabia in 1938.

Background

When drilling commenced in the 1930s, there was uncertainty as to whether oil even existed in the kingdom.[2] However, Saudi Arabia was motivated to search for oil after learning about the discovery of oil by neighboring country Bahrain in 1932.[3] After failing to find significant quantities of oil in the first six wells (Dammam No. 1–6),[4] Saudi Aramco (then known as the California Arabian Standard Oil Company or CASOC) ordered a halt to all oil drilling in the Kingdom except at No. 7 in November 1937; by this time, the well was already twice as deep as the "Bahrain Zone", the depth at which oil was first discovered in Bahrain.[5]

Oil discovery

In a project led by American geologist Max Steineke and assisted by Saudi Bedouin Khamis Bin Rimthan, the two men persisted to drill deeper in the well.[6] On March 4, 1938, commercial volumes of oil began gushing out of the well at a depth of approximately 1,440 m (4,720 ft).[7][8] On that day, 1,585 barrels of oil were extracted from the well, and six days later this daily output had increased to 3,810 barrels.[9]

Production volume

From 1938 until its closure in 1982, the well produced more than 32 million barrels of oil with a daily average of 1,600 barrels.[10]

Legacy and cultural impact

Crown Prince Abdullah officially named Dammam No. 7 the 'Prosperity Well' in 1999.[5] In 2021, Saudi Aramco built a supercomputer called Dammam 7,[11] named after the well; it is ranked the tenth-most powerful supercomputer in the world.[12] In August 2023, it was announced that an upcoming film titled Sands of Fortune would feature the story of Dammam No. 7 while chronicling the early history of the Saudi oil industry.[13][14] In the present day, the oil well still stands and is integrated into an Aramco museum, where visitors frequently have their photographs taken in front of the historic landmark.[15]

See also

Further reading

  • "Well No. 7 Leaflet in English" published by King Saud University
  • Stegner, Wallace; Thompson, Don (January–February 1969). "Discovery! The Story Of Aramco Then — Chapter 7: Dammam No. 7". Aramco World. Vol. 20, no. 1. Saudi Aramco. pp. 12–21. Retrieved October 27, 2023.

References

  1. [1]
    Google (30 November 2023). "Oil Well 7" (Map). Google Maps. Google. Retrieved 30 November 2023.
  2. [2]
    Martin, Will (December 11, 2019). "From an unexplored desert to a near $2 trillion IPO: The 86-year history of Saudi Aramco in pictures". Business Insider. Retrieved October 21, 2023.
  3. [3]
    Wilson, Augustus O. (2020). The Middle and Late Jurassic Intrashelf Basin of the Eastern Arabian Peninsula. Geological Society. p. 14. ISBN 9781786205261.
  4. [4]
    Zhang, Li; Cook, Kristin Weyand; Haider, Batool Arhamna (September 19, 2015). "Lucky No.7: A Tale of Oil in the Saudi Arabian Desert". jpt.spe.org. Society of Petroleum Engineers. Retrieved October 21, 2023.
  5. [5]
    Danforth, Loring M. (March 29, 2016). "(One) Can Oil Bring Happiness?". Crossing the Kingdom — Portraits of Saudi Arabia. Oakland, California: University of California Press. p. 32. ISBN 9780520290280.
  6. [6]
    "How a Bedouin helped discover first Saudi oil well 80 years ago". saudigazette.com. Saudi Gazette. March 8, 2018. Retrieved October 21, 2023.
  7. [7]
    Kingston, A.J. (2023). "Chapter 1: The Black Gold Rush: Saudi Arabia's Oil Revolution (Early 1900s)". House of Saud: Saudi Arabia's Royal Dynasty. Vol. Book 2: Oil, Power and Influence — House of Saud in the 20th Century (1900s–2000s). A.J. Kingston. ISBN 9781839384820.
  8. [8]
    Mababaya, Mamarinta P. (2002). The Role of Multinational Companies in the Middle East — The Case of Saudi Arabia. University of Westminster Press. p. 359. ISBN 9781581121728.
  9. [9]
    Kotilaine, Jarmo T. (August 16, 2023). Sustainable Prosperity in the Arab Gulf — From Miracle to Method. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781000921762.
  10. [10]
    Al-Sughair, Sultan (August 1, 2015). "Well No.7 that established KSA on world oil map". arabnews.com. Arab News. Retrieved September 20, 2023.
  11. [11]
    Argaam (January 19, 2021). "Saudi Aramco, stc launch Dammam 7 supercomputer". Arab News. Retrieved October 21, 2023.
  12. [12]
    Peckham, Oliver (January 21, 2021). "Saudi Aramco Unveils Dammam 7, Its New Top Ten Supercomputer". hpcwire.com. HPCwire. Retrieved September 20, 2023.
  13. [13]
    Goodfellow, Melanie (August 22, 2023). "Passage Pictures Announces 'Sands Of Fortune' Chronicling Discovery Of Oil In Saudi Arabia & Early Days Of Aramco". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  14. [14]
    "Hollywood movie to feature true story of Saudi oil giant". middleeastmonitor.com. Middle East Monitor. August 29, 2023. Retrieved October 21, 2023.
  15. [15]
    Lippman, Thomas (November 10, 2008). Inside the Mirage: America's Fragile Partnership with Saudi Arabia. Basic Books. ISBN 9780786742530.
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