Thursday, November 18, 1999
Tri-Valley Commences Ekho
Operations
Business Wire via Comtex
November 18, 1999
BAKERSFIELD, Calif., Nov 18, 1999 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Tri-Valley Oil & Gas Co. (OTCBB: TRIL) has begun making location for the first well on its deep oil and gas Ekho Project east of Lost Hills, Calif. and expects to start rigging up by Dec. 6, it was announced today by Joseph R. Kandle, TVOG president.
We are beginning our Ekho Project about eight miles east of the Bellevue No. 1 which blew out last year at Middle East rates and believe we are about 2,000 feet high to that structure,' Kandle said. TVOG's first prospect keys off two deep wells, including the 1972 Tenneco/Great Basins 31X-10, which for a time held the California depth record at 21,640 feet, and the 1977 Tenneco/Union/Great Basins 66X-3 well, which bottomed at 18,876 feet as America's deepest oil producer according to the February, 1999 issue of World Oil Magazine.
Kandle was vice president and chief engineer for Great Basins Petroleum from 1972 to 1981 and oversaw the drilling of several deep, high pressure, high temperature wells, including the 31X-10 and 66X-3, in California's Great
Central Valley. The southern portion is called the San Joaquin Valley and its deeper horizons are emerging as North America's biggest onshore oil and gas plays with targets in the billions of barrels and trillions of cubic feet of gas in place.
TVOG began its quest after purchasing the old Great Basins well log and map library in 1997 and retained its former president, Charles Hatten, as a geological consultant. In reviewing the Great Basins deep plays, TVOG believed that techniques developed in ensuing 25 years could overcome
adverse downhole conditions and began leasing land along trend.
In 1998, a different group of Canadian and American companies began drilling a deep test around the Lost Hills Oilfield, 45 miles northwest of Bakersfield, Calif. At 17,646 feet the well blew out at initial rates estimated to exceed 100 million cubic feet per day, confirming TVOG concepts about the potential of huge reserves with high deliverability rates at depth.
Now, nine Canadian junior public companies have since joined TVOG in a three well test program. Those companies and their stock symbol/Canadian stock exchange are: Aster Ventures ASV/V, Berkshire Resources BKR/V, Consolidated Bradbury CBN/V, Curion Ventures CUV/V, CVL Resources CVL/V, Curlew Lake CWQ/V, Lucre Ventures LVD/V, Pan Ocean Energy POE/V, and Prairie Pacific Petroleum PRP/AL. Tri-Valley, the project Operator, is the only U.S. public company and is traded under the symbol 'TRIL'/ OTC BB. A special Web site, www.ekhoproject.com, has been established in addition to the TVOG Web site, www.tri-valleycorp.com.
'We are especially emboldened by the downhole information contained in the logs of the 66X-3 well, which is loaded with oil and gas shows for an interval exceeding 10,000 feet. Reprocessing techniques and new studies have further enhanced the prospectivity of this area,' Kandle said.
'While Tenneco was the Operator drilling the 66X-3, I was then Great Basins'vice president and chief engineer and I am very familiar with the well and the untested potentials that it indicates despite its abandonment by Tenneco in 1977. The whole deep play is a gift from the major oil companies walking away from California as an exploration province in the last 25 years,' Kandle noted.
TVOG is the wholly owned subsidiary of Tri-Valley Corporation, also headquartered in Bakersfield, Calif. F. Lynn Blystone, TVC president and chief executive officer, notes that the annual shareholder meeting will be held this Friday, Nov. 19.
'I can't think of a more spectacular array of good news for our shareholders in the Company's 36-year history than getting started on this massive, potential company-making Ekho Project. We have asked the shareholders to protect their upside by approving a 'poison pill' amendment to the corporate charter.
With our Canadian partners, we are entering the new century and the new millennium with a bonanza-type international play smack in the middle of the premier market of California, the world's seventh largest economy,' Blystone
enthused.
This news release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results, events and performance could vary materially from those contemplated by these forward-looking statements. Among the factors that could cause actual results, events and performance to differ
materially are risks and uncertainties discussed in the company's quarterly report on Form 10-QSB for the quarter ended Sept. 30, 1999, and the annual report on Form 10-KSB for the year ended Dec. 31, 1998. |
