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Show The Year Has Been a Good One For Oil-Gas Drilling in Utah Oil and gas production is one of Utah's fastest growing industries; total drilling has reached over 4,000 wells scattered scat-tered throughout the state. I'tah's cumulative oil production is near 430 million barrels, averaging av-eraging about two million mil-lion barrels a month. And, reserves are estimated es-timated at more than 200 million barrels. Demand has grown and while the near-half a billion barrel bar-rel mark- is important to the state's economy, current domestic consumption con-sumption is nearly 15 million barrels of oil per day. Thus, I'tah's oil would only fulfill the nation's requirements for a little more than a month! The number of people involved directly or indirectly in-directly in Utah's oil and gas industries exceeds 3,000 w ith an annual payroll pay-roll exceeding $15 million. mil-lion. The mineral industry indus-try accounts for over 20 per cent oftheasses-sed oftheasses-sed valuation in the State - $402,196,468.00 and oil and gas make up $56,948,124.00 of this. Property taxes on oil and gas amount to more than three million dollars dol-lars fo the total tax bill. Vet, oil and gas exploration ex-ploration and development develop-ment goes on and, continues con-tinues to climb upward in Utah. This week's statistical sta-tistical count shows 133 wells drilled for oil and gas this year as compared com-pared to 70 a year ago. There are now 39 rotary rigs at work in the State. Last year, at this time, there were 24 rigs working. work-ing. Gas is sought after. . . in the face of impending shortages. Gas producing produc-ing Enterprises, Vernal, completed five gas wells recently in the Bitter Creek area south and east of the town of Ouray. Completion guages grange from 200,000 to over a million cubic feet daily. Some particulary high flow rates are being recorded re-corded at wells in the Altamont field of Duchesne Duch-esne County. Shell Oil guaged 887 bbls. of oil, 901 barrels of oil, 634 barrels of oil, some four million cubic feet of gas, at four different wells in the field this week. Gulf Oil tested 470 barrels bar-rels of oil daily at an exploratory well in the Blue-Bench area, Texaco Tex-aco Inc. gauged 600 barrels bar-rels of oil per day at a Cedar Him well and Chevron Che-vron Oil is conducting tests at a Bluebell field success. And, several "wildcat" wells are drilling dril-ling throughout Duchesne Duches-ne and Uintah counties. In the hunt for oil, companies now are bud-jeting bud-jeting money for deeper depth drilling. An example exam-ple is a projected 15,500 foot test in Grand County, Coun-ty, just southeast of Crescent Junction. Continental Con-tinental Oil is drilling below the 12,000 foot mark at the remote test. Just south of Moab, a well is being drilled at an. angle below 1,200 ft. If all goes well, it will be drilled to a depth of some 9,000 feet. However, How-ever, the oil business is still such that even the smaller, independent oil operator can join in on the hunt for oil. Five discoveries in the Cisco area at depths of some 2,000 feet attest to the fact that even the independent inde-pendent has a chance. In the face of new demands on energy resources, re-sources, operators are encouraged with current results being experienced experienc-ed with successes in Utah. |