Oil has been a mixed blessing for Trinidad. Tobago has escaped the general negative side effects of oil production such as environmental degradation, but those who live in the oil belt have long lived with the hazard of wells and pipelines mere feet from their homes and the ceaseless noise of drills boring late into the night.The recent disaster that has struck the southwestern coastline of the Gulf of Paria is but a recent manifestation of the genuine risk that people in these districts must run so that the entire nation may benefit from the petroleum largesse.This is the area where on an abandoned sugar estate in Aripero in 1867, Captain Walter P Darwent drilled the first successful oil well in the island before dying a year later from yellow fever. His historic well site was destroyed in 2013 to make way for a private housing development, despite years of valiant attempts at preservation by a local environmental group.Over 40 years later, a geologist named Arthur Beeby-Thompson was prospecting in the high woods and abandoned estates of Guapo and Point Fortin for the vast reserves of oil he knew existed. Ample positive tests and early exploration gave rise to the erection of a refinery on the old Clifton Hill Estate, and the oil age had begun in earnest.
Land speculation
Massive speculation on lands in the area was taking place and properties were changing hands for incredible sums, since in those days, lands which were owned before 1902 retained all mineral rights (except coal and gold) while government licences to exploit parcels purchased after 1902 were easily obtainable.One of those bitten by the oil bug was Charles Fourier Stollmeyer. He was the son of Conrad Frederick Stollmeyer who had come out to Trinidad without a penny in 1845 but died a millionaire in 1904, having initially made money selling drinking nuts from donkey carts in Port-of-Spain.Although Charles Fourier was a cocoa planter by volition, he had inherited a concession to work parts of the Pitch Lake from his father, as well as Perseverance Estate in Guapo (about two miles southwest of the lake).Perseverance showed promise of having oil reserves, and in the early maverick days of the industry Stollmeyer was ready to try his hand. Unlike most of the 60 registered oil companies in that era, he did not lack capital to finance his operations since he had inherited vast sums. Using a wooden derrick and a quaint percussion drill–all manned by an inexperienced roughneck crew–he delved into the earth and struck oil.
The following is an account from A Beeby Thompson on what happened next:"About this time (1912), an estate owner who had declined all our offers for his Perseverance Estate at Guapo, known to have promising oil potential, was determined to drill for himself when others had struck oil in the vicinity."In truly parsimonious fashion, he had provided himself with a second hand antiquated rig and entrusted his operation to some unqualified but cheap operators who ferreted a well down somehow with quaint antediluvian tools. At a depth of only 200 feet, a rich oil sand was unexpectedly struck and such a violent and sustained outburst of heavy oil followed that the immediate vicinity became flooded with oil."Unprovided with any means of control, my colleague C E Buch offered Stollmeyer to shut in the well, but Stollmeyer declined assistance saying that he did not intend to interfere with the actions of nature.
"Consequently most of the oil was lost. Some 80,000 barrels of oil, it is reckoned, as the well flowed at 500 barrels a day, and when visited it was still giving periodical flows of some magnitude."Stollmeyer was charged for the cleanup of the spill he had created but still stubbornly refused to hand over the operations to a professional drilling outfit.On his land at Guapo, he installed an antiquated refinery or "still" to produce gasoline for the ever-growing numbers of motor vehicles on the roads.In those days, there was no such thing as a gas station. A motorist was obliged to purchase fuel in drums.In 1919, worn down at last, Stollmeyer sold portions of the rich Perseverance oil lands to Kern Trinidad Ltd, a firm based in California. He died a year later.What remains of the Perseverance Estate is still owned by the Stollmeyer family. It no longer produces oil, but the oil-bearing sands have been quarried for many decades for use as road-paving material.
