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Show Oil Reserves in Utah Growing Says Carter Oil Co. Executive Utah's crude oil reserves may hit the 500 million barrel flg-uo flg-uo in the near future, according to an executive of Carter Oil Co., domestic subsidiai-y of Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. R. D. Sloan,. Denver, Oolo., divisional di-visional exploration manager for Carter, told a group of Utah publishers pub-lishers Thursday night that production pro-duction is scheduled to rise sharply sharp-ly over piesent levels of around 12.000 barrels a day. Mr. Sloan conducted a briefing for the newspapermen at Hotel Utah preparatory to their making a flight Friday over the booming Paradox Basin, which stretches northward some 290 miles into Utah from the Four Comers area. He said combined capacity of two large pipelines now being built into the many oil fields of San Juan County will be some 120,000 barrels daily with ultimate rating of 244,000 barrels a day. One line will take crude to the Los Angeles refining district and the other line to Jal, N.M., from whence crude will move to the refineries on the Gulf of Mexico. Insofar as Is known, Utah then will become the only state in the union with production from a single field moving west to the Pacific and cast to waters connected con-nected with the Atlantic Ocean. The official stressed the economics econom-ics of oil discovery, noting that Carter during the past 11 years had drilled 68 wildcats in the state, bringing total investment on all fronts to $29,900,000. "While seven of the wildcats drilled were considered successful, only one the McElmo Creek Field discovery in San Juan County can be considered of major importance," impor-tance," he said. On basis of oil producted to date by Carter, which is valued at $2,-100,000, $2,-100,000, the firm still has an un-recovered un-recovered investment of $27,800,-000 $27,800,-000 in the state, Mr. Sloan said. He observed that Aneth Field, with reserves of between 200 and 300 million barrels, would last the nation only 24 to 34 days at its present rate of crude consumption. But he stressed that the possibilities pos-sibilities for discovery and development devel-opment of new oil and gas reserves re-serves in the state are excellent." While the Paradox Basin now is leading the band, there has been a rejuvenation of the Uintah Basin, Bas-in, where Carter pioneered deep tertiary drilling after World War II. Mr. Sloan adds to prospective areas the Kaiparowits Plateau of south central Utah; the Wasatch Plateau, now a major gas producing produc-ing area and the largely unexplored unexplor-ed huge Basin and Range Province of western Utah, southern Idaho and eastern Nevada. The flight Friday took the newspapermen news-papermen over more than 15 oil fields discovered in only the last few years where there are now some 100 producing wells. All the fields, with exception of Big Flat in Grand County, are in the Son Juan country. The Carter official said there were presently some 38 geophysical crews, four gravity meter crews and two magneto-meter crews at work in the basin area. Ninety per cent of the entire Paradox Basin is under lease, he said. Mr. Sloan said oil developments in Utah will depend on volume of exploratory effort, effectiveness of discovery effort and availability of suitable search areas. Utah "should have a brilliant future" in oil, he said, "assuming adequate market outlets, moderate tax structures and favorable oil and gas prices." |