Slick's Bet

Great petroleum corporations hold meetings to control oil production; independent oil drillers, bound by no agreements, continually threaten petroleum's equilibrium. Thus last week it was reported that Oilman Thomas B. Slick (King of Wildcatters) had made a bet. Driller Slick, who last month (TIME, March 25) sold oil fields yielding 34,000 barrels a day to Prairie Oil & Gas Co., wagered that within a year he would again be largest U. S. individual oil producer. In addition to some $35,000,000 obtained from Prairie, Mr. Slick also has 525,000 acres of leased undeveloped land and is collecting a royalty on the production of the fields that Prairie bought. As one observer remarked, the Slick deal amounted to "selling the milk but keeping the cows."

Thus Mr. Slick, by no means out of the oil business, may soon be drilling again, perhaps in South America, perhaps in U. S. territory. On a manufactured article that comes out of a factory, production control is perhaps relatively feasible, but restrictions on a natural product that comes out of a hole in the ground are difficult indeed.