“The cracking towers are new, aren’t they? Do we really need one?” Adolph asked. No one wondered why or how Adolph knew so much theory and history of the oil fields while having little or no actual experience. Watching and talking about the up-timers, and what they were doing, was a major pastime in the Wietze community.
“Hermann,” Johannes said, “you didn’t start working in the oil fields as early as I did. I helped sink the very first well. You don’t need a cracking tower to get started. You need a still.”
“You mean like they use to make brandy?”
“Yes, but bigger. And you can make it out of iron, not copper. Because after the first still, which, I think, they actually did get from a brandy distiller, they built the next one out of iron. Instead of a coil it fed into a forty-foot-tall cooling tower.”
“The cracking towers aren’t that tall,” Adolph objected.
“No, they’re not,” Johannes said. “But they’re all metal and they operate under pressure. This was just two layers of ironbound wood with catch basins at different points. You see, the heavier oils won’t go as high when they’re vapors. So the gasoline is collected near the top of the tower, there is only one basin higher, and the asphalt collects at the bottom. What gets cleaned out of the boiling pot any time the system goes down is good for road work too.”
“Iron bound wood? You mean like a barrel? Can we get the cooper in the village to make it for us?” Hermann asked.
“Why not?” Johannes answered. “That’s who they got to make the first one at Wietze; the local cooper built it for them.”
“We’re going to need a steady supply of barrels anyway,” Hermann said, “We might as well hire the cooper full-time if we can. His son should be able to handle their farm.” The cooper and his family were half farmers. They did not have the right to cultivate enough land to make a living so they made barrels when they weren’t working the land.
“Yes, but even if he can build us a barrel that tall, we would have to know where to tell him to put the catch basins, and we would need valve cocks to drain what is caught,” Adolph objected.
“Herr Holz, the latter are just oversized barrel spigots,” Johannes tapped the side of his head, “and where to put the basins is all right up here.” He was part of the crew that put the first one together and he could reproduce the gaps between the basins in terms of how many body lengths it was between taps and where the taps fell on his body when he was standing next to it. In other words he could place them within a few inches of where they needed to be.
“If it was that easy, why did they go to the all metal high pressure cracking towers?” a skeptical Adolph asked.
“They could get more of what they wanted out of the crude that way. But we can sell the gasoline and the kerosene and the fuel oil to whoever wants it, what comes out under the fuel oil and over the asphalt base we can sell to the refinery at Wietze and they can crack it.”
Adolph looked at Johannes. “If you know so much about it, why don’t we just build a cracking tower?”
Johannes laughed softly. “Because the first cracking tower took forever to build; then it took even longer for them to get it to work right. It kept springing leaks. When they got it tight they had to install bimetallic strip temperature gauges and a lot of other claptrap I never had anything to do with, don’t understand and can’t do. But I can build a condensing tower, if you can get a blacksmith to set up a forge out here and a cooper to work on site, then a week from now we can be hauling refined oil off to Wietze.”
Adolph look at Johannes and smiled. “Let’s go talk to the smith and the cooper and see if we can get ’er done,” he said, using a fashionable up-time phrase.
“Herr Holz, are you sure you want to do this? We can sell the crude to the refinery in Wietze. Right now all you’ve got tied up is a week’s labor for the crew, some tools, the drilling head, pipe and the metal parts for a walking beam to pump it out of the ground. We can turn a clean profit in short order.”
“Yes, but we can make a lot more selling to the end user instead of a middleman.” Holz gave Hermann an explanation that made sense, even if it was far from the whole reason. “I’ve got the money, and shouldn’t we get a steam engine in here to run the pump?”
“I suppose we should so the well can pump around the clock and not just when someone is walking the beam. It’s okay with me, if you want to spend the money. I’ll get the crew started on the bridge across the creek,” Hermann said. “That’s just labor and lumber and Hanns can scream all he wants to about us cutting trees.”
“Why don’t you start by rough splitting forty-foot barrel staves out of one of those big old oaks?” Adolph asked, pointing to the stand of oaks on the ridge overlooking the seep. Some of the trees were well over a hundred years old and the oldest were over a hundred feet high. Each and every one of them was accounted for. If one fell in storm then the tenants had the right to cut it up for firewood. If they wanted structural lumber it would have to be paid for.
“I can hear Hannsi screaming now.” Hermann grinned from ear to ear.
“Is that going to be a problem?” Aldoph asked.
“No, we’ll go ahead and get started on it.” Herman replied. “Hannsi will okay it when he figures out it means more money in the long run. You tell the cooper the rough staves are waiting for him. Then after you are through in the village, go see Hanns and tell him he needs to settle up with the tenants and the rent holder for widening the path into a road. You can mention that we are building a cracking tower. I’ll deal with him over cutting the tree when he comes out to see what a cracking tower is.”
Johannes was a bit overly optimistic in his estimate. It took two weeks before the first run came pouring out of the tower and into barrels. It was three and a half weeks before the oxen pulled the first stout tanker cart the cooper and wheelwright put together, full of heavy oil, over the new bridge across the creek to start its journey to Wietze. It took that long to get the paperwork settled with the tenants and the rent holder for the road across the leased land.
Hanns, Hermann, Johannes and Adolph walked into the field office and told the receptionist they wanted to talk to Jerry Trainer.
“Can I ask what you wish to see him about?” the clerk asked.
“Yes,” Hanns said. “We need to know if he wants to buy our full output or just our heavy oil for cracking?”
“What are you talking about? All of that is settled before they send in a drilling crew.”
“Well, they didn’t send in a crew, we drilled it ourselves. We’ve got fourteen barrels of heavy oil in a tanker cart outside. You can pretty much dictate the price on it, but if he wants the gasoline, the kerosene and the fuel oil, then he’s going to have to give us the full market price on it or we’ll sell it ourselves.”
Jerry Trainer walked through the open door of his office. He looked over the four men standing there, made eye contact with one of them and said, “Johannes? I heard you went wildcatting. We were wondering whether you had any luck or not. You’ve got a cart of crude outside?”
“No, Herr Trainer, we have a cart of heavy oil. We cannot crack it so we thought to sell it to you. Of course, if you do not want to buy it we can burn it to distill the next run.”
They would have to use part of the last run to boil the next one anyway. Hanns made it clear that he was not about to let them cut any more firewood without paying for it. Fortunately the trimmings off the trees that went to build the derrick more than met their needs so far. But that was it. Hanns was adamant. Even the trimmings from the timber cut for the bridge and what the cooper didn’t use was now set aside to wait for an itinerant charcoal burner to come through. The charcoal burners preferred to work with well-seasoned small branches. The firewood was corded up and shortly would be on its way to the manor house now that a bridge spanned the creek. Until the charcoal burner came, the brush pile encouraged rabbits and other small game, which Hanns thoroughly approved of and the farmers truly hated. Even with the prospects of the oil money coming in, the habit of being tight with the resources was deeply ingrained.