Description
COMPANHIA DE PETRÓLEO DE ANGOLA. / James J. McGOWAN (Petroleum Engineer).
Luanda, 1923 /1927.
Portuguese traders were aware of the existence of bituminous deposits in Angola since at least as early as 1767. However, several attempts in the 19th century to establish commercially exploitable oil wells all proved unsuccessful. In 1916, the World War I rise in oil prices led the Portuguese colonial regime to establish the Companhia de Petróleo de Angola, with a mandate towards scientific oil prospecting and modern industrial exploitation. In 1919, the Companhia signed a partnership with the Sinclair Consolidated Oil Corporation, to which the Portuguese government gave exclusive rights to explore and drill for oil in Angola for period of 20 years. The Companhia de Petróleo de Angola-Sinclair Consolidated spent generously on the best international staff and equipment, creating world-class prospecting operations. Most of the focus lay with the onshore parts of the Cuanza (Kwanza) Basin, a vast petroleum reservoir that lay below both under the Cuanza Sul and Cuanza Norte districts of Angola, as well as offshore under the Atlantic. Overall, the exploration operations were quite successful, as large commercially viable deposits were found in several locations. However, the challenges of building the necessary infrastructure in a relatively undeveloped region caused delays in bringing the test drill sites online. In 1931, global oil prices collapsed, due the fall in demand owing to the Great Depression and a surplus in supply due to the discovery of massive reserves in Texas. As such, the Companhia de Petróleo de Angola-Sinclair Consolidated enterprise essentially ceased operations that year, although it was not officially folded until 1937. However, when Angola’s oil industry was revived in the 1950s and ’60s, many of the Companhia’s old drilling sites were reactivated. Today, Angola is a globally important petroleum producer, yielding 1.1 million barrels per day (2023 statistics).
The Companhia de Petróleo de Angola, via the recommendation of Sinclair Consolidated, hired James J. McGowan, an Irish-American petroleum geologist, to be one of its lead surveyors. McGowan was a larger-than-life figure, described as “a gigantic Irishman who had been trained as a London policeman before taking up geology”. He cut his teeth in the oil industry in 1917 working in Kansas for the Empire Gas and Fuel Company.
In 1922, McGowan headed for Angola, where beyond his petroleum reconnaissance, he was widely renowned for once having physically overpowered a famous bandit who had terrorized the Cuanza countryside, making him something of a local folk hero. Working for the Companhia from 1922 to 1926, he not only headed their operations in the promising Capolo Dome area of the Cuanza Sul district, but made significant discoveries in the Carimba area, Cuanza Norte. From 1926 to 1931, McGowan was employed by the Serviço da Carta Geológica de Angola, which aimed to create a complete scientific geological map of Angola. Subsequently, he remained in Angola, becoming a major business figure. Setting up his trading firm in Luanda, the Casa Americana Ltda., he was variously the official General Motors distributor in Angola, as well as an importer of pharmaceuticals, chemicals and Zenith radios. It seems that he still was active into the 1950s.
The Present Trio of Works in Focus
Here are a trio of sophisticated large format diagrams relating to the Companhia de Petróleo de Angola’s operations, all drafted by James McGowan. All the diagrams are seemingly unrecorded private productions for the Companhia and are amongst only very few original artifacts of any kind that survive from the oilfields of 1920s Angola.
1.
James J. McGOWAN.
Topographic Map of Capolo Dome. / July 11 23 to Oct. 20 23. / Companhia de Petróleo de Angola / Loanda, Angola.
Luanda, 19 December 1923.
Cyanotype (blueprint), on 2 joined sheets (Very Good, some small light stains, light wear along old folds), 109 x 95 cm (43 x 37.5 inches).
This is a very large format blueprint (or cyanotype) general topographical map of the Capolo (Kopolo) Dome area, one of the Companhia de Petróleo de Angola’s most promising drilling sites in the Cuango Basin. It was drafted by McGowan entirely in the English language, as presumably he had not yet mastered Portuguese (which he would subsequently accomplish). The complex patterns of contour lines (with heights marked in metres) that exist throughout the map reveal the Copolo area to be extremely rugged, which certainly would have posed a challenge to petroleum operations. The ‘legend’, on the lefthand side, explains the symbols used to identify auto roads (notably those leading to the next major towns, Porto Amboim and Dondo), proposed roads, native trails, swamps in the wet season and intermittent streams. The map was presumably once attached to a (now lost) textual document, as it is marked ‘To accompany Report No. 35’ (as is Map #2 below), lower right, and is hand-stamped as ‘14’ in the corner, indicating that it was seemingly once part of an extensive series of diagrams.
2.
James J. McGOWAN.
Geologic Map of Capolo Dome. / July 11 23 to Oct. 20 23. / Companhia de Petróleo de Angola / Loanda, Angola.
Luanda, 19 December 1923.
Cyanotype (blueprint), on 2 joined sheets (Very Good, some small light stains, light wear along old folds), 109.5 x 106.5 cm (43 x 42 inches).
This is the partner map to the above, also being a very large format blueprint of the Copolo Dome area by McGowan, from the same perspective. However, in this case, its purpose is to provide a sophisticated geological overview of the area. In addition to many topographic features, the Legend, lower left, explains the symbols employed to describe several forms of geological faults and occlusions (ex. axis, faults, dips, outcrops). Interestingly, on the lefthand side, is a diagram that lists 43 different types of geological strata of the prevailing ‘Cretaceous-Teba Formation’, and which correspond to the map, via the numbers in circles. Further right is an image of a ‘core sample’ that shows the layers of the ‘Oligocicene Cunga’ Formation. This map is hand-stamped as ‘15’ in the corner.
3.
James J. McGOWAN.
Companhia de Petróleo de Angola / Progresso das Sondagens nas diversas perfurações efetuadas durante o período decorrido de 1921 a 1927.
Luanda, [1928].
Photographic reproduced print with original manuscript details, signed in mss. by the author in lower right corner, handstamp of ‘Seção Tecnica’ to upper left corner (Very Good, clean and bright, light wear along old folds), 64 x 85 cm (25 x 33.5 inches).
This large photographic print of a line chart, with manuscript details, was executed by McGowan (and is signed by him in mss.). It shows the drilling progress (i.e., depth) of 17 oil wells as developed by the Companhia de Petróleo de Angola in 3 different locations in the Cuanza (Kwanza) Basin. The chart sees each well represented by a line regulated by the depth of the well in feet (‘Profundidade em Pés’), marked on the side ledger, running against time (i.e.., the year, marked on the top ledger, 1921 to 1927, divided into months). The lines for the ‘Wells opened in the region’ of Dande-Lifune are coloured Red; Quissama are coloured Blue; and Amboim are coloured in Green. The deepest of the wells featured was driven to a depth of 4,660 feet. This map is hand-stamped as ‘17’ in the corner and may have been part of the same report as the above blueprints.
References: N/A – All the elements seemingly unrecorded.
