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National Resources Planning Board 



rate group was set up to spend full time doing research 

 and development work on refining processes. At the 

 start, this group consisted of seven technically trained 

 men, some of whom were transferred from the routine 

 laboratory. 



From 1924 to the latter part of 1926 all the research 

 and development effort was associated with the current 

 and contemplated refining processes at the Bay town 

 refinery located about 30 miles east of Houston, Tex. 

 In the latter part of 1926, a comprehensive research 

 program on the production of alcohols and organic 

 chemicals from hydrocarbons present in natural gas 

 was initiated, and a separate imit with laboratory 

 facilities and experimental equipment was established 

 in north Texas, where natural gas supplies were readily 

 available. At first this group consisted of 3 technical 

 and 20 nontechnical men, but in the course of the work 

 it was increased to 7 technical and 36 nontechnical men. 



From 1929 to 1932 an extensive research program on 

 hydrogenation was conducted at Baytown, but it was 

 concluded soon after plans for the installation of hydro- 

 genation equipment at Baytown were abandoned. 

 The depression was about at its severest stage, and 

 activities had of necessity to be reduced by roughly 40 

 percent. This reduction was accomplished partly by 

 the release of assistants and service men without tech- 

 nical training and partly by decreasing the number of 

 hours a month that each man worked. As economic 

 conditions improved, the research activity was again 

 expanded by increasing the working hours of each 

 employee, until by the beginning of 1934, tlie force was 

 back on a normal full-time basis. From then until 

 1936, the research and development continued on a 

 fairly constant level, and no substantial additions were 

 made to personnel. The period 1936 to 1938 was 

 one of expansion, and the force was increased some 60 

 percent to 70 percent over the period. Since 1938, 10 

 men have been added to the staff. 



Only a relatively small proportion of the research 

 and development effort has been directed toward work 

 of a pioneering type since the principal emphasis has 

 been placed on improving correct refinery processes 

 and products and on improving and adapting known 

 processes to the particular conditions existing at the 

 company's refineries. Since the company has access 

 to the results of research work carried on by the Stand- 

 ard Oil Development Company, an intensive pioneering 

 program is not essential. Nevertheless, its program 

 of industrial research has enabled the company to 

 operate its refining process at a high level of efficiency. 



Convinced of the value of its research activities in oil 

 refining, the company decided in the middle of 1928 to 

 estabhsh a separate unit for research on drilling and the 

 production of crude oil and natural gasoline in the field. 



The group of 22 technical men and 16 nontechnical 



men assigned to the production unit has made valuable 

 contributions toward the answer to such problems as 

 the estimation of reserves, well spacing, the chemical 

 treatment of drilling fluids, the flow of oil, gas, and water 

 mixtures through reservoir rocks, and the behavior of 

 oil and gas reservoirs under various operating conditions. 

 A third research group has been engaged since 1925 

 Ln geophysical exploration. Discontinuing the refrac- 

 tion method in 1920, the company adopted the reflec- 

 tion technique and now has eight reflection parties 

 operating in the field. Although in geophysics, emphasis 

 has been placed upon practical research, some funda- 

 mental work has been done. 



Shell Development Company 



Previous to 1928 the plant engineers of the Shell Oil 

 Company, Inc., made numerous improvements in oil 

 technology, but a new era of planned research began in 

 1928 with the creation of the Shell Development Com- 

 pany. From the start its directors saw in research the 

 means not only of bringing about the improvement and 

 more economical processing of such staple commodities 

 as gasoline, kerosene, fuel oil, and lubricants, but also 

 of laying the basis of a profitable chemical industry 

 through the study of petroleum as a primary raw- 

 material containing a great variety of hydrocarbons. 



The policy of the Shell Development Company has 

 been to undertake one project of research after another, 

 developing each through the stages of fundamental re- 

 search, applied research and semicommercial trials, to 

 the final commercial application. Thus by a series of 

 limited objectives, the company has evolved at its lab- 

 oratories in Emeryville, Calif., a weU-roimded program 

 of research, which embraces all the major interests of 

 the oil industry. 



The Shell management intentionally created the 

 Development Company as a separate unit freed from 

 the day-to-day problems of operation so that is might 

 plan and conduct research on a broad, long-term basis. 

 The operating companies have laboratories of their own 

 from which the technical controls of their operations 

 are exercised, and in which many experiments for the 

 improvement of operations are carried out. Occasion- 

 ally research begim in the laboratory of an operating 

 company, however, proves to be of such a fundamental 

 character that it is transferred to the laboratory of the 

 Development Company, and, conversely the Develop- 

 ment Company, for geographic or other special reasons, 

 sometimes transfers problems to the operating com- 

 panies. 



Although the work of the research laboratories has, 

 by a combination of organization and natural growth, 

 come to be arrangwl under such major dopurtmcnts as 

 organic chemical research, application research, pilot 

 plant research, oil production research, oil technology 



