The History of Offshore Oil and Gas in the United States

Beginning in the 1890s, oil companies had drilled wells in the ocean, but from wooden piers connected to shore. In the 1930s, Texaco and Shell Oil deployed moveable barges to drill in the South Louisiana marshes, which were protected from extreme conditions in the ocean. In 1937, two independent firms, Pure Oil and Superior Oil, finally plunged away from the shoreline, hiring the East Texas construction company, Brown & Root, to build the first freestanding structure in the ocean. It was located on Gulf of Mexico State Lease No. 1, in fourteen feet of water, a mile-and-a-half offshore and thirteen miles from Cameron, Louisiana, the nearest coastal community. In March 1938, this structure brought in the first well from what was named the Creole Field. The Creole platform severed oil extraction from land.