Dammam No. 7 is the oil well where commercial quantities of oil were first discovered in Saudi Arabia in 1938.
Background
When drilling commenced in the 1930s, there was uncertainty as to whether oil even existed in the kingdom.[2] However, Saudi Arabia was motivated to search for oil after learning about the discovery of oil by neighboring country Bahrain in 1932.[3] After failing to find significant quantities of oil in the first six wells (Dammam No. 1–6),[4]Saudi Aramco (then known as the California Arabian Standard Oil Company or CASOC) ordered a halt to all oil drilling in the Kingdom except at No. 7 in November 1937; by this time, the well was already twice as deep as the "Bahrain Zone", the depth at which oil was first discovered in Bahrain.[5]
Oil discovery
In a project led by American geologist Max Steineke and assisted by Saudi Bedouin Khamis Bin Rimthan, the two men persisted to drill deeper in the well.[6] On March 4, 1938, commercial volumes of oil began gushing out of the well at a depth of approximately 1,440 m (4,720 ft).[7][8] On that day, 1,585 barrels of oil were extracted from the well, and six days later this daily output had increased to 3,810 barrels.[9]
Production volume
From 1938 until its closure in 1982, the well produced more than 32 million barrels of oil with a daily average of 1,600 barrels.[10]
Legacy and cultural impact
Crown Prince Abdullah officially named Dammam No. 7 the 'Prosperity Well' in 1999.[5]
In 2021, Saudi Aramco built a supercomputer called Dammam 7,[11] named after the well; it is ranked the tenth-most powerful supercomputer in the world.[12] In August 2023, it was announced that an upcoming film titled Sands of Fortune would feature the story of Dammam No. 7 while chronicling the early history of the Saudi oil industry.[13][14] In the present day, the oil well still stands and is integrated into an Aramco museum, where visitors frequently have their photographs taken in front of the historic landmark.[15]
