The wild Mary Sudik oil well was the Macondo of her day

— On the fourth anniversary of the Macondo oil spill on April 20, 2010, it's fitting to recall another historic out-of-control well in the early days of the oil patch: Oklahoma's Wild Mary Sudik.

The well was named for a real woman who by all accounts was a humble and sensible human being. "Wild" described not the woman, but the well that blew out on her property on March 26, 1930, and flowed for 11 days before it was capped.

Wikipedia, using historical and newspaper accounts, including those of the Oklahoma Historical Society(opens in a new tab),  called the real Mary "modest." It said she and her husband Vincent were Czech immigrants who bought a 160-acre dairy farm in 1904 and expanded it in 1924 to encompass the site of the future wild well. Because Mary signed the well lease first, wells on the property were named for her.

The Mary Sudik well accident wasn't as prolific as Macondo, which blew out on a Gulf of Mexico lease operated by BP offshore Louisiana and was estimated to gush around 35,000-60,000 b/d of oil for the better part of five months, producing a total 4.9 million barrels of oil. Macondo is said to be the US’ largest marine oil spill. But Mary Sudik, which was drilled by the Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Company just south of central Oklahoma City, was just as spectacular in its day.

The Mary Sudik No. 1 well was drilled to a depth of 6,471 feet by the Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Company, and roared to life spewing a column of natural gas. According to Wikipedia,(opens in a new tab)  it blew out when crews "underestimated well pressures in the newly developed Wilcox formation." Wikipedia claimed crews "neglected to keep sufficient drilling mud in the well, and did not use a safety head, contrary to the accepted practice of the time, running the well 'wild'."

Accounts estimated the well produced 20,000 b/d of oil and 200,000 Mcf/d of gas.

"This tremendous pressure threw the petroleum so high into the air that the north wind carried a film of oil as far south as Norman, eleven miles away,” Kenny Franks said in his 1980 book, The Oklahoma Petroleum Industry(opens in a new tab). “Gradually tinted with oil, the gas ‘turned a decided brown’.”

Said Wikipedia: "The initial flow of gas from the well changed to oil after about a day, with oil fountaining up to 400 feet into the air. Oil vapor blew in the wind as far as Norman, 11 miles to the south. A safety zone was established around the well to prevent fire. The American Iron and Machine Company was engaged to cap [it].”

Ruth Sheldon Knowles, in her colorful 1959 book about the early oil patch, The Greatest Gamblers(opens in a new tab), published by McGraw-Hill (which is the owner of Platts, though our book division has been sold), said:

“The Wild Mary Sudik was the news sensation of the world. The thought of a big city held at bay by an uncontrollable, dangerous force of nature captivated the imagination of people everywhere. Floyd Gibbons, the famous war correspondent, broadcast twice daily from the well on a nationwide radio hookup, the roaring making a strange background for his staccato descriptions of the courageous men, in slickers and heavy goggles, steel helmeted and with cotton stuffed in their ears, futilely attempting to cap the mad hole.”

Knowles added: “On the sixth day the wind shifted to the south and now Oklahoma City was blanketed with gas. The citizens were panic-stricken. On the tenth day there was a momentary victory. A special connection was swung into place over the damaged surface pipe, slowly lowered and attached. The sudden quiet was almost more astonishing than the continual roaring.”

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But Wild Mary Sudik would not be so easily tamed, said Knowles:

“Within a matter of hours, sand in the hole whirled by the fantastic gas pressure, cut a dozen crevices through the connection. The well went wild again, but in an even more terrifying way. Before, the gas and oil blew straight up. Now it sprayed in every direction like water from a hose with a thumb over the end. The force knocked men down when they tried to approach. The spraying sand cut them like knives.”

Wikipedia said that while the first attempt failed after 12 hours, “a second attempt restricted the flow, and oil was diverted into a pit until a final seal could be effected. A total of 211,600 barrels of oil was recovered from the vicinity of the well, and as many as 800,000 barrels were believed to have been wasted. Once controlled, Mary Sudik No. 1 was the most productive well in the world in 1930."

The blowout, coupled with a similar accident at an Oklahoma City natural gas well the day after the Mary Sudik well was controlled, encouraged the development and use of blowout preventers as standard equipment in drilling oil and gas wells, and resulted in better regulation of drilling in Oklahoma City.

In the aftermath of the accident, said Knowles:

“Exhausted, nerve-wracked people, forbidden for miles around to strike a match even to cook their meals, began to clean up the countryside. Thousands of acres of oil-soaked land had to be plowed under. Hundreds of buildings had to be repainted. Almost a quarter of a million barrels of oil was skimmed from pits, ravines, ponds and streams. How much oil and gas was lost nobody could estimate.”

As for Mary Sudik, the woman, she and Vincent turned down offers from Hollywood and vaudeville, and instead lived peacefully in Oklahoma City on the considerable royalties from 13 wells on their property which produced millions of barrels of oil. She died in 1942; their son Orie was killed while working on a well in Oklahoma's Moore oilfield in 1945.

You can read more about the well, and see a presumed photo of the real Mary Sudik as well as pictures of her runaway namesake, here(opens in a new tab).