Two new oil wells to be drilled in county

Published 4:52 am Wednesday, May 27, 2009

By By Lowell McGill
There is big news this week about the return of oil drilling. Yes, The Alabama Gas and Oil Board announced two new drilling permits in our area. They include tracks in and around the State Farm and Butler Streets areas.
Venture Oil &Gas will drill two wells. The Fountain Farm 4-16# 1 well (SE/4 S4, T2N) calls for a permitted depth of 15,600 feet. The 160 acre track, which was permitted May 13, was cleared for a rig this past week.
Location has been staked for Venture’s Floyd 34-5- #1 unit. This 160 acre permit (S34.T3N, R5E), which has a proposed depth of 15,700 feet, is waiting on further orders from the Gas &Oil Board. It was permitted on May 14, 2009.
Other permits are expected to be announced very soon, and I will be providing weekly updates on all the drilling activities.
Gasoline prices have begun to rise over the past several days. This means more money per barrel for those whose lands usher in productive wells.
This news is very similar to that which we carried in the “Tri-City Ledger” back in the early 1970s. Oil drilling news was never higher than it was in 1971 when I founded the “Ledger.”
Already some of my friends who signed leases near these tracks area tell me they are receiving phone calls from speculators who want to buy up some of their royalties.
Back in those days I enjoyed a great relation with the Alabama Gas &Oil Board. This helped make our paper a very reliable source for Escambia County’s gas and oil drilling news. And, we will have all that news for you once again right here in my column.
In some other news of interest, I received a very informative letter this week from Bobby Mays regarding Amtrak train service. If you remember I wrote a few weeks ago about the probability of Amtrak returning to our area.
Bobby’s letter quoted some excerpts from the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act. In so many words the letter indicated that US legislators will be presented a plan from Amtrak seeking approval to “restore passenger rail service between New Orleans. La. and Sanford, Fla.”
Bobby says he will keep me informed on this and I will keep you informed with any new developments right here in my column.
If this proposal passes, Atmore, indeed, would be seeing those passenger trains making regular stops here just like they did a few years ago. Amtrak intends to submit its proposals to Congress before the July 16 deadline.
With the hurricane season approaching several weather factors must be taken in consideration, especially for the mid Gulf Coast area where we live.
The Bermuda High has not been mentioned in preseason forecast but two other weather phenomenons, El Nino and La Nina, may play an important role this summer and fall. This has to do with the heating and/or cooling of temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean.
The Bermuda High is described by Wikipedia as “a large subtropical semi-permanent center of high atmospheric pressure found near the Azores in the Atlantic Ocean and it affects the direction of formed storms. High pressure to the east of us will send storms on a more west- northwest track.
Local forecasters predict fourteen storms will form this season. Our area, which includes the “northern Gulf horseshoe,” has better than a thirty percent chance of being hit by a storm. Of course nothing is cut in stone. But that is a higher percentage than we normally get.
The National Hurricane Center was almost tempted to offer advisories on that small “depression” that passed just below us this week. That same batch of rains brought extreme flooding to parts of Florida.
Local and area farmers will also be keeping a keen eye on the weather over the next few months. This year has already brought somewhat more than usual precipitation. Some internet sources are predicting more “wet months.”
If we should feel the impact of another hurricane here, how would it affect our insurance premiums? If we get hit again like we did in Ivan you can expect insurance premiums to rise and many policies cancelled. Those folks living south of I-10 can attest to this.
Let’s hope we will not be faced with this problem this year.
Here is one way to save on your personal property premiums. Make sure that your automobile and home or business are carried with the same company. You will get a good discount when you do this. Also, be sure to ask your agent, or your internet policy carrier, who does the adjusting in case of a loss. Some companies use staff adjusters and some use independent adjusting firms. Staff adjusters are those who are employed by the carrier and independent adjusters are those who are contracted to handle losses. We have good agents here and they will answer all your questions. They have been trained to handle your insurance requirements.
In closing, how many of you remember Hurricane Elena in 1985?
This was the storm that kept playing tricks on us by going back and forth across the Gulf waters to our southeast and southwest. Steering currents and the Bermuda High were evident in that storm as it continued to loop with erratic “back and forth sweeps”.
That storm created evacuation problems. Forecasting was unclear and residents from St. George Island to Biloxi found themselves in a state of confusion. For 72 hours the storm rambled until it finally made land fall near Biloxi.
Next week, I will have more oil drilling news and I will travel back down memory lane proving you stories of interest from the year 1973.
Lowell McGill is a historical columnist for The Atmore Advance. He can be reached at exam@frontiernet.net

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