Chapter 3 Reading the Rocks - Saudi Aramco

76 energy to the world : Volume one
reading the rocks 77
This challenging construction project became the responsibility of one man, Walter Haenggi.
By November 1934, Haenggi, a burly construction foreman who had overseen construction of
Bapco housing in Bahrain, was striding around the flat area near the Dammam Dome, scouting
out a location for the first permanent structures to be built on the site. As the only American
detailed for construction, Haenggi knew his first priority was to teach Saudis the skills necessary
to do the bulk of the building.
Haenggi and Guy “Slim” Williams, the drilling foreman, also scouted suggested pier locations
on the nearby coastline. They determined that a rock shelf extending into the Gulf near the village
of Dammam made that location a poor choice. Instead, they focused on a deep channel that swung
in relatively close to shore near the village of al-Khobar, about 10 kilometers from the camp and
located on a small salt flat (sabkhah) near a narrow and descending coastal plain. Floyd Ohliger, a
petroleum engineer and later the resident manager of the camp, supervised the construction of
the first pier. It was built out of furush, a shell-like rock collected offshore at low tide, and cemented
with gutch, local gypsum. The same materials were used for the initial buildings at the drilling site.
The First Saudi Employees
With the exception of a handful of Saudis in key support positions such as guides, drivers and
translators, the oil company had few Saudi employees in its first year of operation. It was not until
Casoc decided to build its first pier in late 1934 that Saudis were hired in significant numbers.
Floyd Ohliger hired 400 to 500 local laborers to help build the pier, carrying the furush rock at low
tide from dhows to the shore, where the rocks were carted by tractor to the construction site.
Casoc resident manager Floyd
Ohliger, shown wearing a checked
jacket, oversees a delivery of furush
rock in 1935 that was used to
build the al-Khobar pier. To his left
is Ahmad ”Mussolini“ Al-Somali.
above This photograph, from the
winter of 1937, shows Dammam Wells
No. 1, right, and No. 7. The drilling
of No. 7 was plagued with difficulties,
and on the last day of the year, at
1,382 meters, the well blew out,
causing further delays.
right Guy “Slim” Williams, drilling
foreman and later first superintendent
of the Dhahran camp, meets
with Saudi workers in al-Khobar in
1935. By early 1935, the Dhahran site
employed more than 240 Saudis on
camp construction projects and
drilling teams.
spudding in On April 30, 1935, Slim Williams and his crew of wildcat drillers “spudded,” or
started, Well No. 1 on the Dammam Dome—the first in all of Saudi Arabia. Within approximately
six weeks, the geologists were forced to call it quits for the summer and retreat to cooler climes
to write their reports. Not so the wildcatters, who included William Eltiste, Jack Schloesslin and
Ernest Smith. Once drilling started, it took more than hot weather to shut it down. The operation
was expensive and the process of stopping and restarting was so time-consuming that it was not
a decision made lightly. Once drilling began, it continued until it reached its target zone.
The Dammam Dome drilling program got off to a good start. In August 1935, as Williams’s
team approached the depth of the oil-bearing strata in Bahrain (about 610 meters), oil started
showing up in the Dammam well—not the commercial-quantity rates they were hoping for by
any means (roughly 2,000 barrels per day, or bpd), but clearly oil was present. A test of the well
in September at about 590 meters showed oil flowing at a rate of nearly 100 bpd. The crew
drilled deeper and sometimes the well flowed at a slightly brisker pace, but not enough oil was
found to justify commercial production.
Well No. 1 did yield natural gas in significant amounts, but it was commercially useless to
Casoc until the company had the means to store and transport the gas. Engineers temporarily
plugged the well after reaching a depth of 725 meters in January 1936. It was eventually deepened
and used as a gas well.
One of the best known among the early Saudi construction workers was Ahmad
Hussain Al-Somali. His nickname among the Americans was “Mussolini,” due to the ease with
which he spoke Italian. Al-Somali worked side by side with Ohliger on the pier at al-Khobar
and in 1939 was assigned to the Transportation Department. One of his first jobs was to drive
company officials on the arduous, five- to seven-day journey between Jiddah and Dhahran—
a trip undertaken at the time without the benefit of graded roads or radios with which to
summon help if needed. He joined Government Relations in 1943 and was involved in
handling passports and customs clearance for arriving company employees at Dhahran
Airport and the al-Khobar pier until his retirement in 1984.
The success of the pier project, completed in the spring of 1935, encouraged Casoc
managers to hire Saudi workers in greater numbers and slowly train them for skilled work.
Even before the pier was completed, Saudis were also being hired by the hundreds to work
at the Dhahran campsite. More than 240 Saudi men were employed on the site as of early
1935, and their numbers swelled nearly tenfold by the end of the decade. Concurrent with
the construction of buildings for the American employees on Dammam Dome, crews built
palm frond–covered barastis for Saudis as well, with several workers living in each dwelling.
The team was learning as it went. Well No. 2 was spudded on February 8, 1936. It showed
more promise, and in June, at a depth of about 660 meters, a test showed oil flowing at the
equivalent of more than 3,800 bpd before being temporarily plugged: Casoc did not have enough
tanks ready to store that amount of oil.
That was all company directors in San Francisco needed to hear. Approval was quickly given
for drilling at al-Alat, a site 32 kilometers west of the Dammam Dome that had looked promising
to geologists during the 1934–35 season, and approval was also given for Well Nos. 3 through
6 to test the oil-bearing potential of the structure at Dammam Dome.