UK's First commercial Oil Well	Well 146 Dukes Wood	UK's First North Sea Gas find
All achieved by Eakring personnel. long before anything to do with the Oil & Gas business was underway at Aberdeen, Bacton, Morecambe Bay or Great Yarmouth.

This page is dedicated to the workers of the Eakring Oilfield. Workers whose contributions to all aspects of UK Oil Production, from whatever company, within UK sphere of influence (which includes Iran and Iraq) appear to have been overlooked by historians.

 One of the aims of this museum is to re-address this oversight.

This page is a reminder to the world that Eakring and nowhere else were responsible for the following:

·           The first commercial oilfield in the UK sector (including the North Sea) was at DUKES WOOD and EAKRING. – Operated by first by D’Arcy Oil then by BP.

·           The first commercial oil well in the UK sector (including the North Sea) was at EAKRING. – EAKRING No 1 spudded 1939, still producing in 1964 

·           By 1964 this oilfield had already produced 47million barrels of oil, this is before any field in the North Sea had been drilled.

·           The first hydrocarbon discovery in the North Sea was made by the Sea Gem which was manned by workers employed from Eakring and indeed the majority came from the Nottinghamshire area. Many of these men gave their lives when the rig capsized in December 1965. The findings from this tragedy still form part of the UK offshore operating procedures. 

·           The first oil discovered in the UK sector (at the Forties Field) was manned by drill crew who were employed and trained at Eakring.

·           Many drilling techniques currently being used were first developed and tried at Eakring.

            eg The Slant drilling technique, first used at Gainsborough in the 1960s, was developed at EAKRING.

            Sir Frank Whittle invented the WORLD'S first jet powered drill first used at Plungar was developed at EAKRING and Kirklington Hall just outside Eakring.

·         Many (in fact most) British Drilling Engineers used during the early years in the North Sea sector received their training at Eakring.

·         The Dukes Wood and Eakring oilfields alone produced 2,269,305 Barrels of oil for the war effort.

            This is approximately equal to the yearly contribution of 43 fully laden sea going tankers. This is almost the same as the number of Oil Tankers lost to enemy U-Boats.

            There were of course other oilfields producing at this time as well as just these two. They too were all run from Eakring by Eakring crew.    

·           The Dukes Wood and Eakring Oil fields were producing oil when some senior officials in this country were recommending making a deal with Nazi Germany because of the serious lack of oil. These oilfields were making up the shortfall at this critical time. 

In August 1942 Britain's secretary of Petroleum, Geoffrey Lloyd, called an emergency meeting in London of the Oil Control Board with members of the oil industry's advisory committee. The subject was the impending crisis in Oil. The Admiralty had reported fuel stocks were two million barrels below safety reserves and were sufficient to meet only two months requirement. The decision was made to bring over American Roughnecks to drill 100 wells rapidly, they did this in total secrecy under wartime conditions.

           ·           The oil produced at Dukes Wood and Eakring was superior in quality to Middle Eastern and North Sea Oil.