 Between his Dabney Oil corporation and his Joseph B. Dabney and Company partnership, he was operating 17 producing wells by 1920.Despite their lack of success in the Simi Valley, Ralph Lloyd convinced Dabney to lease much of the ranch lands that lay on either side of the Ventura River and adjacent to the city of Ventura, California.Lloyd had attended the University of California, where his study of geology confirmed his belief that his family's ranch, and those around it, lay atop a vast oil pool.