Word: benedum
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...well. In Illinois, following the directions of a blind judge who had developed his own theory on oil finding, they drilled near Robinson, started the heaviest land rush since Texas, and enriched themselves by $8,000,000. In West Texas in 1924, when up-and-down Benedum was close to going broke, he drilled in the shade of a rig that had been blessed in the name of Saint Rita, saint of the impossible. The impossible area was a desert of dunes and cactus, 50 miles from water. On his ninth try there, he struck it; oil came roaring...
Tall, spare, drill-pipe-straight Michael Late (after the doctor who delivered him) Benedum got into the oil business in the days when "anybody could drill for oil that was of a mind to. I don't remember ever meeting a geologist or even hearing the word." Benedum, son of a West Virginia cabinetmaker, teamed up with an oilfield roughneck named Joe Trees, and hit oil in Pleasants County, West Va. in 1895. He was soon making $1,500 to $2,000 a month from the property, and drilling more wells, at one point brought in eleven straight producers...
Caddo & Queen Marie. Mike Benedum was lucky, but he was also razor-sharp. Once he went gunning for a promising lease, but found that Standard Oil was there ahead of him. Looking up the deeds, he discovered that the land belonged to a sickly old widow, promptly persuaded her heirs to sell him the property on a "when-as-and-if" basis; the day after Standard brought in its first well, the widow died, whereupon Mike sold the property back to Standard at "a nice price-a very nice price." Like every gambler, he took some lickings and came back...
...averages worked out fine. Benedum-Trees was a pioneer in the huge Caddo pool in Louisiana, organized Penn Mex Fuel Co., and brought in two wells totaling 115,000 bbl. daily in Mexico's "golden lane" south of Tampico. When the partners sold out in 1916, they made $3,159,000 clear profit. Benedum discovered the famous De Mares Pool in Colombia on which International Petroleum fattened and wildcatted in Rumania's Ploesti field at Queen Marie's personal invitation. By 1948 he was back in the U.S. with still another new field, West Texas' Benedum...
Ivory Coast. Today Mike Benedum is no longer the continent-hopping wildcatter of the past. Partner Trees died in 1943; his nephew Paul Benedum and half a dozen lieutenants run the empire he built. But from Miami Beach's Roney Plaza Hotel, where he spends each winter, and Pittsburgh's exclusive Duquesne Club, where he recently rebuilt an elevator to take him directly to his fifth-floor suite, he keeps tab on every well. Besides Ohio, Wyoming and Texas, Benedum's wildcatters are exploring 750,000 acres in Colombia, also have 450,000 acres in Guatemala...