The Family of Emerson McMillin

After Madagascar, Butterworth was next assigned to the then Dutch East Indies, and in
1924-1925 he was leader of a group of geologists sent there to appraise the oil prospects
and to investigate the possibility of acquiring oil concessions. He returned to California
to await a more propitious time to acquire oil concessions. For the next five years, 1925-
1930, he was district geologist for Standard of California in Los Angeles. In 1930 he
went overseas again to be resident managing director of N. V. Nederlandsche Pacific
Petroleum Maatschappij (now Caltex Pacific Oil Company) until 1932 in Batavia, Java,
and then managing director and attorney-in-fact of the same company in The Hague, until
in 1936. It was largely due to his perseverance and patience in the negotiations during
the period 1930-1936 that Standard of California succeeded in getting a foothold in the
Dutch East Indies, at first through participation with BPM (Shell) and NKPM (Stanvac)
in a joint venture in New Guinea, and later through an exploration concession of about
one and a half million acres granted to NPPM in Sumatra.
In 1937 Butterworth was called back to San Francisco by Standard of California to
become assistant manager of the Foreign Producing Department, a position in which he
was primarily concerned with exploration and land acquisition programs in the Dutch
East Indies, Egypt, India, Australia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia (until formation of
Aramco), Venezuela, and Columbia. The new job entailed even more travel than before,
and the next four years found him visiting such diverse countries as Egypt, Australia,
New Zealand, Colombia, and Especially, the East Indies, where promising discoveries
had been made on the holdings of NPPM in Sumatra.
The war with Japan having forced a temporary suspension of operations in the East
Indies, Mr. Butterworth, in 1942-1944, took a two-year leave of absence to join the
Petroleum Administration of War (PAW) as special representative, Foreign Division,
The Family of Emerson McMillin Copyright © 2012 Elaine Winkler 30