Seeking New Oil in Old Fields

By Christopher Byron

Wildcatters are drilling again in the Eastern U.S.

Edwin Drake launched the petroleum age in 1859, when he drilled 69 1/2 ft. into the ground along Oil Creek, near Titusville, Pa., and hit history's first oil gusher. Now, after more than a half-century of decline, the oil-and gasfields of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky and New York are gurgling anew. The fields are part of what geologists call the Eastern Overthrust Belt, a corridor of convoluted limestone, sand and shale that stretches 1,200 miles along the slopes of America's Appalachian Mountains, from the Adirondacks to Alabama.

Though the Eastern Overthrust produced more than half the oil consumed by the U.S. at the turn of the century, the region's appeal diminished shortly thereafter, when wildcatters hit richer fields in Texas, California, Louisiana and Oklahoma. Yet with oil now selling for upwards of $38 per bbl., drillers are returning to the Eastern Overthrust for a fresh, and more thorough, look at what their predecessors might have left behind.

In Somerset County, Pa., southeast of Pittsburgh, Standard Oil of Indiana has already sunk three dozen natural gas wells. In the Crab Orchard Mountains of Cumberland County, Tenn., Ladd Petroleum has struck oil and gas at depths of up to 4,000 ft., and expects to keep searching for the next five years before the area's potential is firmly established. In Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia, Atlantic Richfield and Gulf are planning to spend up to $26 million over the same period to drill on some 1.2 million leased acres.

As with the Western Overthrust Belt, which stretches through the Intermountain West from Canada to the Rio Grande, the Eastern strip takes its name from the geological folding and overlapping that occur when mountain ranges are forced upward through sedimentary rock. Some oilmen estimate that such formations in the Western Overthrust states could hold as much as 13 billion bbl. of crude, or more than two-thirds of the amount that might be contained in the Alaskan North Slope.

Most energy experts doubt that the Eastern Overthrust's reserves will prove comparable to those of the Western belt. The U.S. Geological Survey believes that the region's potential could be as much as 1.5 billion bbl. of oil. Says Michel T. Halbouty, a leading Houston geologist and independent operator: "I believe a concerted exploration effort in that area will probably yield huge reserves."

The region's biggest payoff will probably come in natural gas. Drillers are already having considerable success in tracking down uptapped pockets of the precious fuel. In 1978 the Columbia Gas Transmission Corp. struck gas in Mineral County, W. Va., with a well that gushed 10 million cu. ft. of the fuel per day. A year later, the company tapped into a second natural gas gusher producing 8.8 million cu. ft. daily. Such start-up production levels are comparable to major wells in gas-rich Louisiana and Oklahoma.

So far, most drilling activity in the Eastern Overthrust has clustered around fields like those of western Pennsylvania, where oil and natural gas have already been proved to exist in abundance. But in the past two years, new geological studies have indicated that the overthrust formations may actually extend at least 100 miles farther east than previously believed. That would more than double the size of the belt, and energy companies have entered a furious bidding war to snatch up new exploration concessions. Standard of Indiana alone holds 7 million acres of Appalachian land.

One reason that oil-and gasmen are intrigued with the Eastern Overthrust Belt is its proximity to the energy-starved Northeast. Nearly 17% of the nation's population reside in the heavily industrialized corridor stretching from Washington to Boston, but until now the area has had little locally produced oil and gas and has been forced to bring in energy from hundreds or thousands of miles away.

Some geologists foresee a time when towns and cities, indeed even individual plants, factories and small groups of homes, could sink gas wells and become largely self-sufficient for many of their energy needs. In some places, that is already happening. On the campus of Wells College, in the upstate New York farm town of Aurora, a single gas well is expected to produce 200,000 cu. ft. of gas per day, saving the institution about $34,000 yearly in energy costs.

Although potential drilling sites have been leased in picturesque farm country and near the 2,000-mile Appalachian Trail, a favorite haunt of backpackers, there have been few of the protests that normally accompany energy exploration. Most of the leases involve private landowners and farmers, and do not include government lands over which environmental groups can assert a public interest.

Landowners welcome the lease deals because they promise many thousands of dollars in royalties if oil or gas were actually discovered. Moreover, farmers and dairymen can keep on working while oil is pumped or gas flows. Says Pennsylvania Farmer Matthew Luce, who has an Amoco gas well on his spread near New Centerville: "I don't mind the oil companies being around--so long as they leave things in pretty good order. Besides, they give me something to look at out the window." Luce's view of a gas well near his barn is a landscape that more and more Easterners can expect to see in the years ahead.

--By Christopher Byron.

Reported by Gary Lee/Washington and Robert C. Wurmstedt'/Houston

With reporting by Gary Lee/Washington, Robert C. Wurmstedt/Huston

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