oil in sherwood forest WW2 oklahoma

https://aoghs.org/petroleum-in-war/roughnecks-of-sherwood-forest/

"The D’Arcy company was a subsidiary of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company – predecessor to BP.
This obscure oilfield was in Sherwood Forest, near Eakring and Dukes Wood. It produced modestly – about 700 barrels per day in 1942 – from 50 shallow wells.

Extreme shortages of drilling equipment and personnel kept Britain from further exploiting the field. Perhaps America might help.

Southwell’s secret mission was to secure American assistance in expanding production from the Eakring field, regarded as an “unsinkable tanker.”

Pressing his case in America, Southwell pursued the widely respected independent oilman Lloyd Noble, president of Tulsa-based Noble Drilling Corporation. They met in Noble’s hometown of Ardmore, Oklahoma, to negotiate a deal.

American oil companies were already heavily committed to wartime production. Noble nonetheless joined with Fain-Porter Drilling Company of Oklahoma City on a one-year contract to drill 100 new wells in the Eakring field. Noble and Fain-Porter volunteered to execute the contract for cost and expenses only. PAW approved their deal and the contract was signed in early February 1943.

On March 12, a 42-man team of newly recruited drillers, derrickmen, motormen and roustabouts embarked on the troopship H.M.S. Queen Elizabeth.


By the end of the war, more than 3.5 million barrels of crude had been pumped from England’s “unsinkable tanker” oilfields. Petroleum industry expertise would again come into action – solving the challenge of oil pipelines across the English Channel.

Read about “Operation PLUTO” in Secret Pipeline of World War II."