The Texas Upper Gulf Coast area, consists of 29 southeast Texas counties which partly adjoin Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico. It is predominantly an enormous salt-dome basin, which contains large accumulations of oil and gas in reservoirs which are formed by the draping of multiple Tertiary sands over domal and anticlinal structures. Normal faults are numerous and form valuable oil traps.

This area had a record-breaking year for 1952, with the drilling of 1,758 wells, 62 per cent of which were producers. Development was greatest on salt domes and in the Tertiary Frio and Yegua formations. Discoveries in 1952 were numerous and important collectively, but no single discovery found major reserves. South Hampton, Hardin County, was the most outstanding of 37 new-field discoveries. Salt domes accounted for one-third of the district's 172 new-pay and extension discoveries, and the year's most important discovery the expansion of the South Boling area of Boling Dome in Wharton County.

Past production and future reserves each amounted to approximately 3 billion barrels at the end of 1952. Oil refined in this area was about 25 per cent of the year's total for the United States.

For the Texas Upper Gulf Coast, 1953 and the immediately ensuing years are most promising, considering the huge undiscovered pools which are believed to lie off-shore, on the outer flanks of salt domes and below present practical drilling depths.