One thing I like to point out when stamp collecting is when a new style of recognition in stamps emerges. As a traditionalist, sorry, I also like to point out when a style fades, perhaps a little wistfully. So with this in mind, we will tell the story of oil and gas exploration in Australia. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
1970 was late enough that the people putting together stamp issues were getting a little squeamish when told to cover the indeed growing energy industry. Here designer Brian Sadgrove puts a purple tint partially blocking the sun over the offshore oil rig and natural gas pipeline. No such tint shows up on more politically correct hydroelectric power or aluminum window frames that were other parts of this economic development issue. Lucky Mr. Sadgrove wasn’t asked to do a coal mine. I suspect the tint, or is it taint, would resemble the fires of hell.
Todays stamp is issue A194, a 10 cent stamp issued by Australia on August 31st, 1970. It was a four stamp issue in various denominations closely modeled on a new train line stamp done earlier in 1970 also by Brian Sadgrove. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 40 cents used.
Surveying for potential oil and gas reserves started early in the 20th century but got a lot more serious after World War II. The Australian Motorist Petrol Company, a chain of gas stations, set up an exploration operation in 1946, petitioning the government for surveying rights and subsidies to bring into production oil fields. To assist with this, a partnership was struck with Standard Oil of California. The first oil well started producing at Rough Range in 1953. More extensive oil reserves were found on then unoccupied Barrow Island the next year.
In 1966, the joint venture, now boringly acronymed WAPET found commercial quantities of liquidified natural gas at Dongara, and got a pipeline going to Perth for export by 1971.
Oil production peaked in 2000 and is not so important any more. Natural gas is much more promising with proven reserves stretching out 100 years. The fact that it was all for export has become problematic. It is thought that using dirty coal for electricity makes no sense with relatively clean burning natural gas being available locally. It was decided by the government that in future, natural gas developed must have at least 15 percent set aside for local use.
Being in on the ground flour of big subsidized economic development must have seen great wealth accrue to the Australian Motorist Petrol Company. Production now totals 16.7 billion dollars a year. However, as so often happens there have been a series of mergers that saw AMPOL being a minor subsidiary of American Texaco. Yes oil history nerds, the old Standard Oil of Texas, Rockefeller wherever you look, even down under. Texaco then in 2015 sold the subsidiary generously allowing them the use of their Caltex name. Five years later, Texaco wanted back into Australia, and as a first step took the Caltex name back. The old subsidiary, noticing they still owned the AMPOL name, is now rebranding again to the long ago name. While exhausting, imagine the efficiency wrought by all these machinations. No, I can’t either.
Well my drink is empty and I am left wondering where all the wealth created by the economic development went. Yes, many people are employed, but where has the money gone. Even the Rockefellers don’t seem to have it. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.