Who found oil in Saudi Arabia
In the 1930s, Chief geologist at Casoc and Aramco expat, Max Steineke revolutionised hydrocarbon exploration in the Middle East using structure drilling – which led to some of the first discoveries of oil in Saudi Arabia.
Hydrocarbon Exploration in Saudi Arabia
An early structure drill rig. Image courtesy: Saudi Aramco.
In 1933, Standard Oil of California (SoCal) was awarded an oil concession for the province of Al-Hasa in Saudi Arabia. Exploration commenced in the autumn but, as its geologists surveyed the terrain by motor car and aeroplane, the amount of information they could obtain about the geological substructure was limited.
Traditionally, geologists had relied on surface pointers in the search for oil, such as; anticlines, exposed rock formations and seepages, but these features were largely absent from the desert wastes.
New methods such as seismic and gravity/magnetic surveys enhanced exploration, but it was the introduction of structure drilling that made the greatest difference at this stage. This entailed drilling shallow holes in order to determine the underlying geological structure, a technique that had been used elsewhere but never before in Saudi Arabia.
One American geologist, Max Steineke, played a leading part in introducing this technique to the area, just as hopes were fading of ever finding any oil on the Arabian mainland.