The
Gulf of Mexico offshore oil and gas industry was born
off the coast of Louisiana in the 1940's, and
from there the people, companies, and technologies spread across the globe.
From
negligible production in 1947, the total worldwide production of offshore oil
grew steadily to account for about 14 percent of world oil supply in 1974 and
about one-third today. By the mid-1990's, worldwide natural gas production had
risen to around 228 billion cubic feet per day, 20-25 percent of this total
accounted for by offshore gas. Indeed, offshore is the big story in the history
of the oil and gas industry in the late twentieth century.
The development of the offshore petroleum industry is a
remarkable story of inventiveness, entrepreneurship, hard work, and risk-taking
that turned Louisiana’s relatively isolated coastal communities into significant
contributors to the U.S. and world economies. Offshore workers initially came
from Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana, but soon people from throughout the United
States were attracted to the Gulf Coast. While this industry, born in the
Louisiana marshes, has grown to have a key place in the modern world, it is
little known, understood, or documented and its dynamic economic role is
virtually invisible. This industry emerged as returning World War II veterans
applied skills, technologies, and can-do attitudes to overcome the many
challenges of producing oil from below the ocean floor.
To
explore the history and evolution of this industry and the people and
communities where it was born, in 2001 the U.S. Minerals Management Service
Environmental Studies Program funded the study “History of Offshore Oil
Development in the Gulf of Mexico.” Research of the MMS Environmental Studies
Program (ESP) provides information and analysis in support of MMS
decision-making and assessment.
The four-year history study involves many
institutions, including the Louisiana State University’s
Center for Energy Studies, the University
of Arizona’s Bureau of Applied Research in
Anthropology, the University of Houston’s
Department of History, and
the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Program in
Public History Studies. The study is methodologically innovative, joining
standard history approaches to oral history and public history.
To date, study
products include transcriptions of interviews and oral
histories, collections of
photographs
with commentaries,
academic papers,
and reports.
