Vernal Express | 1981-07-02 | Page 21 | understanding our Economy

quo. ggg.ygjfr Energy Costs The next time someone complains to you about the cost of natural gas, you might want to point out that a part of what you're paying for is the cost of not getting any gas at all. Major fuel companies often spend millions of dollars drilling drill-ing wells that end up producing produc-ing little or nothing, despite the potential they promised. FINDING FUEL FOR AMERICA can be a risky business. One such well was the Bin Vua 5-5 drilled recently by the Sun Company. The deepest deep-est and most expensive well in the Belle Isle Field off Louisiana, it was believed Bin Vua could produce 20 million cubic feet of gas .a day. When the well reached its target depth of 20,200 feet, however, how-ever, there were no signs of gas. There were still none when the hole reached 22,000 feet. Then, a piece of equipment got stuck. After six days and $100,000, the piece was still stuck, and the company gave up on that well. What began with the optimistic opti-mistic prospect of millions of feet of new gas a day turned out to be a deep, expensive hole. That's typical of the risk, uncertainty and enormous enor-mous financial investment required re-quired to find and supply the nation with natural gas at a reasonable price.