![]() The results have in many cases been astonishing. Roberts, with his newly patented torpedo. The Titusville Morning Herald newspaper reported: Our attention has been called to a series of experiments that have been made in the wells of various localities by Col. This improved device would become widely known as the “Roberts Torpedo.” The advanced petroleum production technology used a column of water on top of an explosive device downhole to more effectively breakup rock formations at the oil-producing depths of wells. In June 1864, John Wilkes Booth left Pennsylvania’s oilfields after a botched fracturing attempt at an oil well drilled by his Dramatic Oil Company.Įarly “torpedoes” were set off by a weight dropped along a suspension wire. Sadly, the same month Roberts was awarded his first exploding torpedo patent, a failed seeker of oil riches assassinated President Lincoln. The Roberts torpedo system would eclipsed earlier methods, including black powder or dropping sticks of dynamite down a well, which often collapsed boreholes and ruined oil production. ![]() Many more of the technology patents would follow. His oilfield invention of fracturing to improve a well would vastly improve oil production from America’s young petroleum industry. Roberts received his first patent for an “Improvement in Exploding Torpedoes in Artesian Wells” on April 25, 1865. But the Virginia battlefield observation gave him an idea that would evolve into what he described as “superincumbent fluid tamping.” Roberts founds his company in 1865, his many patents give him a monopoly on torpedoes needed by the oil industry.ĭespite heroic actions during the battle, he was cashiered from Union Army in 1863. Amid the chaos of the battle, he saw the results of explosive Confederate artillery rounds plunging into the narrow millrace (canal) that obstructed the battlefield. Roberts led a New Jersey Regiment at the bloody 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia. Civil War Veteran’s “Torpedo”Ĭivil War veteran Col. His explosive method for fracking wells in Pennsylvania’s oil-bearing geologic formations would be adopted as other states made their first oil discoveries. petroleum industry began in August 1859 with the first American well specifically drilled for oil. Roberts’ torpedo company operated in the Allegheny region of Titusville, where the U.S. “Our business since Colonel Roberts’ day has concerned lowering high explosives charges into oil wells in the Appalachian area to blast fractures into the oil bearing sand,” Tallini said. The Cupler Torpedo Company became Otto Cupler Torpedo Company in 1937 after Otto Torpedo Company purchased it. When the Roberts patent expired in 1883, his company was sold to former employee Adam Cupler Jr. In December he “conceived the idea of opening the veins and crevices in oil-bearing rock by exploding an elongated shell or torpedo therein.” Images courtesy Drake Well Museum, Early Days of Oil, Princeton University Press. Roberts was appointed Lieutenant Colonel of the Union Army. Webpage on frac sand mining in Minnesota, with information on relevant legislation, answers to frequently asked questions about frac sand, and a map of sand mines in Minnesota.In 1862, E.A.L.
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