July 27, 1981: Oil drilling begins on Georges Bank – ”It’s only a matter of time before the fishermen get used to having us out here.”
On this day in 1981, the New York Times reported on the start of drilling for oil in Georges Bank. It was not to be, however, as the first President George Bush later proclaimed a federal edict which prohibited all offshore oil exploration, at least until today when his son has rescinded that presidential edict. Eight exploratory wells were dug to average depths of 16,000 feet about 125 miles east of Cape Cod through early 1982. At 4:57 P.M., Wes Campbell, a driller working for the Shell Oil Company, lowered a column of steel pipe deep into the Atlantic, 200 miles off the coast of Massachusetts. >click to read<08:14
Leave a Reply