Edward L. Doheny prices were high. The Mexican Petroleum Company was the largest in Mexico, and Mexico was the largest oil producer in the world. In 1922 Albert B. Fall, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, leased the oil field at Elk Hills, California, to the Pan American Petroleum & Transport Company. Around the same time, the Teapot Dome Field in Wyoming was leased to Sinclair Consolidated Oil Corporation. Both oilfields were part of the US Navy's petroleum reserves. Neither lease was subject to competitive bidding. In 1924 rumors about corruption in the deals escalated into the Teapot Dome scandal. Doheny's reputation was somewhat
History of the oil shale industry in the United States oil-shale studies by the US Bureau of Mines. The Bureau of Mines built a test facility at Anvil Points on Naval Oil Shale Reserve 1, to test methods of mining, crushing, and retorting the Green River oil shales. It started to develop the gas combustion retort process. In 1943 Mobil Oil built a pilot shale oil extraction plant and in 1944 Union built an experimental oil shale retort. In 1945 Texaco started shale oil refining study. In 1951, the United States Department of Defense became interested in oil shale as an alternative resource for producing a jet fuel. The United