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Caddo & Queen Marie. Mike Benedum was lucky, but he was also razor-sharp. Once he went gunning for a promising lease, but found that Standard Oil was there ahead of him. Looking up the deeds, he discovered that the land belonged to a sickly old widow, promptly persuaded her heirs to sell him the property on a "when-as-and-if" basis; the day after Standard brought in its first well, the widow died, whereupon Mike sold the property back to Standard at "a nice price—a very nice price." Like every gambler, he took some lickings and came back for more. Says Benedum: "All that counts is how the averages are working out."
The averages worked out fine. Benedum-Trees was a pioneer in the huge Caddo pool in Louisiana, organized Penn Mex Fuel Co., and brought in two wells totaling 115,000 bbl. daily in Mexico's "golden lane" south of Tampico. When the partners sold out in 1916, they made $3,159,000 clear profit. Benedum discovered the famous De Mares Pool in Colombia on which International Petroleum fattened and wildcatted in Rumania's Ploesti field at Queen Marie's personal invitation. By 1948 he was back in the U.S. with still another new field, West Texas' Benedum Field, whose reserves were estimated as high as 600 million bbl.
Ivory Coast. Today Mike Benedum is no longer the continent-hopping wildcatter of the past. Partner Trees died in 1943; his nephew Paul Benedum and half a dozen lieutenants run the empire he built. But from Miami Beach's Roney Plaza Hotel, where he spends each winter, and Pittsburgh's exclusive Duquesne Club, where he recently rebuilt an elevator to take him directly to his fifth-floor suite, he keeps tab on every well. Besides Ohio, Wyoming and Texas, Benedum's wildcatters are exploring 750,000 acres in Colombia, also have 450,000 acres in Guatemala, and are dickering with a French oil company to help develop 3,000,000 acres along Africa's Ivory Coast. Says old Mike: "There's no country in the world of any magnitude that does not have some oil. We have only begun to find the oil that's available in the world."
*He owns 31% of Plymouth Oil Co. (assets: $90 million), is the man behind Penn-Ohio Gas Co., Melben Oil Co., Republic Pipe Line Co., Cavalier Oil Co., Bentex Oil Co., half a dozen others with combined assets of well in the hundred millions. He is also the biggest stockholder in Ohio Oil Co. and the largest individual stockholder in International Petroleum Co.